Voces del Prado

John Brealey’s Legacy

Rafael Alonso Alonso, Restorer, 1978-2016

He gave us a more established vision, a kind of philosophy of restoration. And he managed to endow the Restoration Workshop with a characteristic and unitary criterion, one that has continued to this day. It is fundamental to understand the work and to ensure that all of its details are intelligible to the onlooker. Everything must be in its place: light must circulate, space must be defined, the figures must have volume and weight. That is to say, you must carry out an analysis in order to fully comprehend the work. I believe this is the most important aspect that has been passed on to the latest generations, as an already consolidated criterion. He declared that, if a fly should enter the picture, it should be able to fly around all the spaces, because the space had to be intelligible, and the air and the atmosphere had to be discovered and understood. All of these criteria contributed by John Brealey and his one-year stay at the Museum were important when it came to shaping and unifying the philosophy at the Restoration Workshop, a philosophy that has continued to the present day.