Voces del Prado

Lighting a Painting Is Complicated

Carlos Manso Manso, General Operations Service Technician (Photographer), 1953-1999

The problem you have when photographing a picture consists of the reflections that may occur when it is lit up. Old paintings present few problems if you position the light source properly. But modern paintings are more problematic, because they have thicker paint and, when you add the lighting, you can see reflections everywhere. Old paintings are easier to photograph. Although, if the painting is large, for example like Las Meninas, photographing it is complicated because of its size and the lighting problems it presents. In my opinion, this painting is the most important one in the Museum. I’ve photographed it many, many times.
In addition to taking shots of the picture as a whole, we were also required to photograph fragments. The Garden of Earthly Delights, for example, has hundreds and thousands of tiny fragments, each of which is a picture. This work has been photographed in this manner, according to detailed fragments. Some 500 or 600 fragments of this painting have probably been photographed.