Horse's Arse

Over the years my partner and I have visited a few places in which they keep the Art. I have slowly developed a kind of admiration for art and artists, which might not be not entirely conventional.

This is odd, considering that my background is in engineering, information technology and sarcasm. I had always assumed that my creative inner self had been shaken down for lunch money while in the womb and never recovered. So it's a bit of a surprise to find myself writing about the Art.

While it took time, one of the key moments that set me on such a dubious course was at the Prado. So you don't have to google it, the Prado is one of those must-see museums that you say with your teeth bared and the word 'dahlink' behind it as in, "You simply must see the Prado, dahlink." It is an awesome pile of bricks in central Madrid that opened in 1820-ish as a shed to show off the Spanish royal art collection (and make way for some new stuff in the alarming number of gigantic palaces propagating through the countryside at the time).

You can't enter the Prado here, are you kidding?
The entrance for you is around the side

For us in the cheap seats, the Prado is actually a bit dull. It restricts itself to classical era paintings and sculpture, mostly of patriarchs or marble-skinned models in various garden settings with the occasional god, cherub, angel, demon or grandmother as decoration. Shuffling along with the crowd and trying to read the dry notes beside each piece, I was struck by a giant horse's arse.

A bit of context. Diego Velazquez was a talented artist from Seville who wangled himself an introduction to the court of Philip IV from the king's chaplain. He painted a portrait of Olivares, the king's right hand man, who then commissioned him to paint the king. Phillip IV sat for a portrait and Velazquez became the favorite court artist. As a result, the Prado is choc-o-block with Velazquez canvases.

So here I am, trudging past Velazquez after Velazquez and there's a horse's arse visible above the heads of the crowd. At last, something interesting. I smell subversion.

Surrender of Breda - Velazquez 1634 and a half-ish

You see, this is a piece of political propaganda. Velazquez had been in the king's court for more than ten years and knew his job inside and out. Also, remember that in 1634 paintings like these were like special effects that no-one got to see. They were sensations. It was a massive status symbol to have one. Like people in 1975 wanting their own computer. (Are you crazy? NASA has one but they're the government! You can't have one!) The public would stare at these things and more importantly, so would your political rivals. And they would get the message that you had just spent a ridiculous amount of money on telling them.

This painting's job was to make out that only the Spanish knew how to prosecute a war properly. In the face of the discipline and power of Spanish forces on the right of the picture (the good side) the unfortunate and style-less Dutch occupiers of Breda on the left (the bad side) surrendered by offering the key to the city to the noble Spanish general (actually Italian, but that's a minor detail) in the centre. Blood was not shed. It's easy and oh-so-civilised to surrender to Spanish sieges.

In the early 1630's Phillip IV and his advisor Olivares had been expensively pursuing a war with the Dutch over territory in Flanders (Belgium), aware that increasing tensions with France meant an inevitable war would break out on that front, too. Success would be a rapid victory in Flanders so they could marshall their forces and take on the French. This painting was part of the plan - give the Dutch a reason to give up quickly. It was commissioned to hang in the Hall of Realms in Philip's massive new palace in Madrid, where he received foreign ambassadors and diplomats.

General Spinola and his horse. Well, part of the horse. Ok, it's the horse's arse.

The 'Spanish' general in the centre was an Italian social climber called Ambrogio Spinola. Spinola had been spending his inheritance on volunteering for the Spanish and paying for armed battles in order to make a name for himself. King Philip sent Velazquez with Spinola to Italy (possibly on a spying mission, but no-one knows for sure). The official version is that Spinola and Velazquez were great mates. I beg to differ.

Spinola seems kind of a jerk - obsessed with his war horses and personal status. It is astonishing how many portraits of Spinola exist. The man had an ego the size of, well, a horse.  On top of that, Olivares treated Spinola with contempt. Velazquez spent a long time on this painting and I think Spinola's horse's arse being the largest thing in the scene, and right next to Spinola reveals the artist's opnion.

Velazquez as himself - looking nervous.

Let's assume I'm right (trust me, it's just easier that way). Velazquez is suddenly an interesting fellow, having a subversive streak about the size of a horse's rump. To get away with this, he ran a beautiful tightrope of featuring Spinola's favorite animal, a magnificent warhorse. Spinola is off the horse as a gesture of equality with the Dutch commander. But the horse is facing the wrong way. If you were taking a snap with your phone, you'd try to get them to to turn the horse around, but in the months of painting this thing, Velazquez stuck with the arse, probably getting a snigger from Olivares. That's Velazquez on the right of the painting by the way, giving an "am-I-going-to-be-caught?" look.

Some guy.

I also love the look on this guy's face. He's looking straight at camera with a knowing, smug look. In my imagination Velazquez has painted a guy who knows what's going on. The burning town in the background is a scorched hell and this ceremony on the hill with the key is just so much pretend civilisation horseshit.

Amazingly, around the same time Jusepe Leonardo was painting a similar scene to illustrate the surrender at Julich, a couple of years earlier. Guess who was there, being obsequiously handed the keys to the city?  It seems Velazquez and Leonardo saw each other's painting, but Leonardo was more for toeing the party line.  Spinola's horse in Leonardo's painting is batting it's attractive eyelashes at the viewer, rather than it's arse.

Spinola subjugating another city.  The Surrender of Jülich 1634 - 1635, Josepe Leonardo.  Despite the benign depiction, history tells us Spinola reneged on a deal to allow the defeated soldiers to leave Julich with dignity.

The similarity to Velazquez' painting is remarkable but there's an uphill to downhill theme in this one and Spinola is on the left this time, which just might have been subversive, too.  The Spanish word for 'left' does not have the usual latin root of 'sinister', instead it is based on a Basque word meaning 'stingy, miserly, inflexible or hard'.  My conclusion?  Velazquez was right - Spinola was a dick.

The artists were protected by the fact that Spinola had died a few years earlier on the trip to Italy with Velazquez. He died penniless. Olivares had ripped him off by never repaying the fortune Spinola spent on raising an army, beseiging cities and buying titles for himself in the name of the Spanish King.

So I suddenly find myself interested in classical art.