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The Master of the Prado, by Javier Sierra
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Presented as a fictionalized autobiography, The Master of the Prado begins in Madrid in 1990, when Sierra encounters a mysterious stranger named Luis Fovel within the halls of the Prado. Fovel takes him on a whirlwind tour and promises to uncover startling secrets hidden in the museum's masterpieces-secrets that open up a whole new world to Sierra. The enigmatic Fovel reveals how a variety of visions, prophesies, conspiracies, and even heresies inspired masters such as Raphael, Titian, Hieronymus Bosch, Botticelli, Brueghel, and El Greco. The secrets they concealed in their paintings are stunning enough to change the way we think about art, uncovering mysteries about historical facts, secret sects, and prophetical theories. It is these secrets that lead Sierra to question his entire understanding of art history and unearth groundbreaking discoveries about European art. At once a captivating novel and a reference guide to Madrid's famed museum, The Master of the Prado is full of insights and intriguing mysteries. Sierra brings historical characters alive in this astounding narrative filled with dazzling surprises that will entrance you.
- Sales Rank: #5138389 in Books
- Published on: 2016-01-26
- Formats: Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.40" h x .60" w x 5.30" l,
- Running time: 8 Hours
- Binding: Audio CD
Review
"Sierra has produced not only a thrilling work of historical fiction but also a wonderful literary companion to visitors of the Prado." ---Library Journal Starred Review
About the Author
Javier Sierra, whose works have been translated into thirty-five languages, is the author of The Lost Angel, The Lady in Blue, and the New York Times bestselling novel The Secret Supper. A native of Teruel, Spain, he currently lives in M�laga.
Ralph Lister is an award-winning stage and film actor whose credits include roles in Oz: The Great and Powerful, Setup, and Alleged. An Audie Award-nominated narrator, Ralph has recorded more than one hundred audiobooks and directed over a dozen others, across all genres, both fiction and nonfiction.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Master of the Prado 1 THE MASTER
Let me start at the beginning—in the beginning was the doubt.
What if it had just been a ghost?
People who know me are aware of my penchant for stories where the supernatural ends up deciding the ending. I’ve already written about these a lot, and am not likely to stop now. Here in the West we live in an increasingly materialistic society that tends to scorn the transcendent, but I don’t think it’s anything to be embarrassed about: Poe, Dickens, Bécquer, Cunqueiro, Valle-Inclán—all these writers fell under the spell of this fascination for the unknown. They all wrote about ghosts and tortured souls and the beyond, in the vague hope of being able to explain the here and now.
In my case, as I grew up I left most of those stories behind, only holding onto the really important ones, the ones where the protagonists have actually played a role in shaping our civilization. When you consider these, the mysterious stops being just anecdote, and becomes vitally important. Which is why I’ve never hidden my interest in encounters between the great figures of history and these mysterious “visitors.” Angels, spirits, guides, daemons, genies, tulpas—it doesn’t matter what we call them. These are just various labels that we use to mask our ignorance of that “other side” that all cultures talk about.
One day I will set down in writing what really happened when George Washington came across one of “them” at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777, during the campaign against the British that led to America’s independence. Or the account of Pope Pius XII, who was seen talking to an angel from another realm in the private gardens of the Vatican, according to more than one witness.
Following the trail of events like these can lead us to the very origins of our written culture, and can also often bring us warnings about the future. Tacitus gives us a good example. In the first century, the illustrious Roman historian and politician wrote of the encounter that none other than Brutus—Caesar’s protégé and assassin—had with one of these intruders. The ghost foretold his ultimate defeat at Philippi, in Macedonia, and the warning drove him to such despair that he chose to throw himself on his sword rather than to live with his defeat.
In most of these stories the visitors take a human form but also give off something invisible and powerful that marks them as different. Exactly like those “messengers” I wrote about in The Lost Angel.
So who—or what—was the unexpected teacher who appeared to me in the Prado that day? Did I find him, or did he find me?
Could he have been one of them?
I can’t be sure. I do know, however, that my apparition was flesh and blood, and that he uttered the ancient Eastern proverb, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears,” then proceeded to introduce himself.
“Dr. Luis Fovel,” he said, clasping my hand as if he didn’t want to let it go. He had a grave tone of voice and spoke with authority, while at the same time managing to respect the hush of our surroundings.
“I’m Javier Sierra,” I replied, surprised. “You’re a doctor?”
He arched his eyebrows then, as if my question had amused him.
“In name only,” he replied.
His tone revealed a hint of surprise, as if he hadn’t expected this young man to respond with a question. Which is perhaps why he then took control of the conversation, leaving a deathly coldness in the palm of my hand as he turned his eyes to the painting by Raphael that I’d been gazing at.
“I couldn’t help noticing how you look at that painting, young man, and I’d like to ask you something. If you have no objections, of course.”
“Go ahead,” I said, curious.
“Tell me,” he went on, in a rather familiar tone, as if we’d met before, “why does it interest you so much? It’s not exactly the most famous painting in the museum.”
Following his gaze, I cast another glance at The Pearl. I didn’t know much about the painting then, let alone how it had been esteemed by King Philip IV of Spain, the monarch with perhaps the most exquisite artistic taste in history.
There are only four paintings in the Prado that come directly from Raphael’s hand, plus another few from his studio, and various copies from that era Out of all of them, this is without a doubt the best one. It shows the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth sitting in front of some ruins and tending two infants who, upon further examination, begin to look suspiciously similar—the same blond curls, the same chins and cheekbones. One of the infants, who has a subtle halo and is partly dressed in an animal skin, is John the Baptist. The other—the only figure in the painting without a halo—can only be the baby Jesus. St. Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s aging mother—who could also boast an immaculate conception—regards the children with a pensive expression, while the little Savior’s own attention appears to be caught by something or someone outside the frame of the painting. Not St. Joseph, Mary’s husband, who is in the background engaged in some activity impossible to divine. Whatever it is that the young Messiah is looking at is beyond the edges of the scene.
“Why am I interested in this painting?” I exhaled loudly, taking a moment to weigh my reply. “Actually, Doctor, it’s pretty simple—I want to know what it means.”
“Aha!” He lit up at this. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re looking at a religious scene, a painting that is meant to be prayed to. The Bishop of Bayeux commissioned this from the great Raphael Sanzio after he was already famous and working for the pope himself in Rome. The French bishop would have heard plenty about Raphael and his paintings of babies and virgins, and would have wanted one for his own devotional purposes.”
“That’s it?”
The doctor wrinkled his nose, as if my incredulity amused him.
“No,” he replied, his voice switching to a low, conspiratorial tone. “Of course that’s not all. Usually in paintings from this period, nothing is what it seems. While you may at first think you are looking at a religious scene, in fact, there is something there that is decidedly unsettling.”
“Yes, I can sort of feel it,” I admitted, “but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“That’s how real art works, my boy. Paul Klee once said that ‘art doesn’t reproduce what we see—it makes us see.’ If art simply showed us what was there, it would be tedious, we’d tire of it, and in the end, we wouldn’t value it.”
He paused. “Tell me, do you have a few minutes? I can show you exactly what it is that this extraordinary painting is doing.”
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Buy the Prado's Official Museum Guide Instead
By Deborah
2.5 stars
I'm not sure what I was expecting from Javier Sierra's The Master of the Prado, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn't this. The Master of the Prado sounded, from the publisher's description, as if it were the literary equivalent of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, featuring a protagonist who discovers historical and supernatural mysteries hidden in plain sight in paintings by Old Masters. In The Master of the Prado, those artists include Raphael, Sandro Botticelli, Titian, Hieronymus Bosch, Brueghel the Elder, and El Greco, along with the lesser known Sebastiano del Piombo, Ambrogio Bergognone, Bernandino Luini, and Juan de Juanes.
The book contains beautiful full-color reproductions of the works Sierra discusses with his enigmatic guide Dr. Fovel, which show up magnificently even on an e-reader. Unfortunately for a novel, however, the paintings are the highlight. The prose is pedantic - the visual analog of the stereotypical art history professor's drone in a darkened classroom; while I learned a couple of interesting things about Renaissance imagery, this is not why I pick up a novel.
Sierra ably summarizes the entire 294-page book (excluding endnotes) in a single paragraph on page 184:
"I now thought of [some of the paintings in the Prado] as tools built by extremely sensitive minds not at all concerned with achieving mere aesthetic pleasure. I'd begun to convince myself that the larger purpose behind these paintings - where their true meaning lay - had always been to keep open certain portals to the "other world." It was as if the art was simply keeping alive its original mystical mission dating back to the cave paintings in northern Spain some forty thousand years before. If Fovel was right, this was a secret that only those painters had known, perhaps along with some of their patrons. And now me."
If that paragraph intrigues you, then by all means pick up a copy of The Master of the Prado; if not, the official museum guide published by the Prado is cheaper and can be purchased from its website.
I received a free copy of The Master of the Prado through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
A beautiful book
By Bookreporter
Imagine standing in Madrid’s Prado, one of the world’s greatest museums, before a huge painting by Raphael, just contemplating the masterpiece, when a man who has stood quietly next to you breaks the silence with a question that stuns you. He strikes up a conversation that, despite your better judgment, you cannot resist. The painting you have been admiring has hidden meaning, he says. Moreover, so do many others within these walls. Would you like to hear more?
That is just what happened in 1990 to Javier Sierra in this “fictional memoir.” The man he met on a cold winter day in the Prado called himself Luis Fovel, and he promised to return again and again to reveal the secrets scattered throughout the galleries. True to his word, whenever Javier visited the Prado, somehow Fovel found him, appearing as if by magic. It so unnerved him that Javier laughingly wondered if the man was real or a ghost.
A journalism student, Javier had school obligations, but as soon as he could complete them, he eagerly hurried off to meet with the Master, as he began to call Fovel. Also, as a healthy young man, he had a young lady friend, Marina, who he wished to become more than a friend. Luckily, many of her interests ran parallel with his. In fact, she nearly begged to be part of his newfound activities. Because of this, he took her into his confidence. Maybe they could work together on these discoveries, yet Javier remained reticent to introduce Marina to Fovel. Something kept him from sharing his Master with his girl. Maybe he didn’t want to lose either of them, or perhaps he wanted each to be his alone. Whatever the reason, he had to face the consequences of his decisions.
Aside from the great artists who are the focus of the story, there are few main characters, but a sinister one does pop up: a man Javier dubs Mister X. He threatens Javier’s continued meetings with Fovel and even his relationship with Marina. What does Mister X fear that Javier might find out?
There are fascinating secrets revealed and intriguing theories proposed about what some paintings might portray if one looks beyond the obvious. In the Master’s conversations with Javier, he expounds on symbolism and ideas about scenes and the magic they hold. A real treat for the reader is the full-color artwork peppered throughout the book, which is there in order to join Javier in his visual search for the answers to the teachings of the Master.
There is no question that Sierra has a superb grasp of his subject. However, it felt a bit like a lesson that was trying to disguise itself as a mystery. The story thread at times seemed a bit thin. The long conversations with Fovel, while interesting for art historians or students of religious debates, dragged on somewhat for me as a fiction reader. More menace from Mister X and more interaction with Marina might have added to my reading pleasure. Still, the book is a beauty and the ideas abound, almost to the point of being overwhelming. Thus, if you are of the mind that you can’t have too much of a good thing, THE MASTER OF THE PRADO is for you.
Reviewed by Kate Ayers
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Poor-quality art history lectures, "sugar-coated" poorly
By Owl in a Pine
I was hoping for: at best, an Umberto Eco exploration of hidden knowledge and those who seek it, at worst, a Dan Brown hidden knowledge thriller. It was actually significantly worse than the DaVinci Code, which is a high bar of mediocrity to clear. The book is basically the author's pet theories about hidden symbology and meaning in ~8 famous paintings of The Prado, delivered essentially as lectures, glued together with the thinnest connective tissue of a plot. I actually would have enjoyed some straight-up art history (and the full-color plates of the paintings in my edition were lovely), but I had three major problems with this book's approach. First, there was no sense of scholarly context to any of these "secret interpretation" lectures so it was hard to learn what was generally accepted theory, what was a fringe theory, and what was completely the author's own invention. Second, the paintings weren't particularly thematically related, so they may have been linked by the concepts of "hidden meaning," but otherwise there was almost no thread between them, so each was a context-free lecture, which we all know, makes learning a challenge. This leads me to my last peeve, which is by far the biggest to me, personally. Each painting is introduced by a mysterious, erudite "Master" who lectures the narrator while the narrator gushes about how mind-blowing and fascinating it all is. Since the "Master" is basically an author stand-in (since the book is an excuse to lecture us on his pet theories), that makes the narrator the stand-in for the reader. So he has told us what to know, and also what to think about it all, namely that it's all incredibly fascinating!!! I don't much care for authors to straight-up tell me how to feel about information, especially when it's so thinly-disguised authorial lecturing. I got about 20 pages to the end and just put it aside in disgust. I can't think of a single book I've done that with.
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