In Case You Missed This

Dear Reader,

Here’s a writer’s dream assignment: Accept an invitation to go to Madrid and take up residence for several weeks in an apartment overlooking the Prado. Then go to the museum and look at art. You are there not to write but just look. Be inspired. The “Writing the Prado” project’s curators hope that your inspiration will blossom into a piece of literature – a short story or perhaps a novel. My thought is that despite their granting this extraordinary privilege to established novelists, writers being who they are, other genres might creep in. A poem perhaps, which would make it ekphrastic! How fantastic!

In Nicholas Casey’s essay, we meet Irish writer John Banville, who was one of the fortunate ones asked to be part of this “experiment.” Imagine. Just finish breakfast and walk across the street to spend the day looking at art in one of the most magnificent museums in the world, with galleries filled-to-bursting with paintings by Goya and Velazquez! After returning home, Banville will set to creating “a work of fiction using the museum or its paintings as a point of departure.” Narratives can spring from the act of imagining a before and after of the scene that is captured on canvas or board.

Being immersed inside a museum can be more dynamic than the solitary exchange between viewer and artwork. Other visitors, on their parallel journeys, may speak or gesture their ways into your consciousness. There are scents and sounds, some maddingly intrusive or sweetly evocative. You may strike up a conversation with a guard after asking for directions to a particular artwork. Beyond employment opportunities, what makes someone content to spend hours each day on their feet surrounded by paintings and sculptures? What are their stories? Do their experiences relate to subjects captured on canvas? Are they captivated by the agony of a crucifixion or the allure of a woman’s portrait? Do they have favorite galleries? Why?

While select writers collect images and thoughts at the feet of great art during their stay at the Prado, readers will end up being the lucky ones.