Voces del Prado

The inexplicable attraction of the works

Conchi Montero Velasco, General Services Assistant, 1970-2014

The Descent from the Cross by Van der Weyden has a special sensibility and, every time I see it, it gives me goose pimples, as they say. Because the figures really reflect what they are depicting at that moment. Those cloaks, those blues … I don’t know how to explain it, but this picture really moves me. It’s moving because, for example, there is Mary with her pale face, and you can see that she has fainted; you can also see Mary Magdalene, depicted in her role; the Virgin Mary’s cousin … I really love that painting.
I also really like Charles IV of Spain and His Family, for example. If you look at the Queen’s dress, from the distance it looks like an embroidered dress, but then when you get closer you can see that it’s just a series of paint-marks. How is it possible to create this effect, so that from a distance it looks like the painting is coming out of its frame, it’s so perfect. This is a painting I always come and see whenever I go to the museum. I could say the same for many other pictures. They all have their appeal, something that is quite inexplicable.