Novelist John Banville on how ‘eerie’ art at Madrid’s Prado museum inspires him
The Booker Prize winner talks about Old Masters’ pictures that ‘look at you’ and AI in art as he takes writing inspiration from the Prado
It is the eyes peering from the canvases that get him, their gaze piercing the boundary between art and life.
That is why Irish novelist John Banville prefers to visit Spain’s Prado Museum during its opening hours – even though he has been invited to browse anytime as part of a month-long literary fellowship.
Still, he does not want to be alone with the multitude of watchers hanging from the walls of the labyrinthine galleries.
“I don’t like coming here after hours, it is too eerie. The pictures, they look at you,” Banville says, turning away from the glare of Diego Velázquez, looking down from Las Meninas, the Spanish artist’s masterpiece which features a depiction of himself.
The huge 17th-century painting shows the Infanta Margarita – or Margaret Theresa of Spain – her young ladies-in-waiting, a dwarf, a buffoon with a dog, a nun, a mysterious man exiting through a door, a mirror reflecting King Phillip IV and his queen, and Velázquez, stepping back from his canvas and looking straight down at the viewer.
