Voces del Prado

The Washing of the Feet and The Garden of Earthly Delights

Antonio Macías Pizarro, Head of Night Surveillance, 1974-2009

The paintings I enjoy the most are [Tintoretto's] The Washing of the Feet and the ones by Bosch. I despise nothing, of course. All due respect to Las Meninas. You look to the left, you look to the right, it's fantastic. But those paintings I mentioned have always impressed me. Especially Christ washing his disciples' feet, the twist in that painting... every time my grandchildren are here I go and see it. My grandchildren know it because I used to bring my children at a very young age and they've told them about it. There were some footprints in front of the painting so that people could step on them while looking at the picture from different angles. They were eventually removed, just like the mirror they had placed by Las Meninas.
Bosch is impressive. I lack the technical knowledge, but I look at the painting and cannot understand it because there is so much going on. It's out of this world. The primitive painters are remarkable. To think they painted those things in their day and age. The architecture, all the minute details, landscapes in tiny stretches, because Velázquez is fine, they all are, but it's a whole different conception of painting.