Voces del Prado

A scientific mind

Matías Díaz Padrón, Technical Advisor and Head of the Department of Conservation of Flemish Painting and the Northern Schools up to 1700, 1970-2005

I could have dedicated my life to physics, biology, chemistry, etc. My attitude towards research is similar to theirs, but I have the advantage or disadvantage of working with beautiful objects, maybe a physicist or chemist would envy me for that. That beautiful object can wrap itself around you, it may become an obsession—that is dangerous. That's what happens when you fall in love, it's so dangerous, your head starts to deceive you. I, on the other hand, have a very cold approach to a painting. The thing that causes the most emotion in me is something I understand very little—music. Music is the art that touches me the closest. I have never purported to analyze it, precisely to allow myself the benefit of feeling it.