The mysterious world of Las Meninas

The Prado in Madrid is free to all from the hours of six to eight every evening. If you’re a visitor fresh from England, this provides a wonderful opportunity. Let’s say you got the 11.30 flight from Gatwick. You arrive around three, what with the time difference. You navigate this longest of all airports to get to the metro, and the metro finally kicks you out into the city as five approaches. There’s enough time to drop your bags, stumble out onto the streets and join the queue at the Prado. At six you can experience that wonderful expectant hush that falls on great art galleries when evening sets in and people have called by on their way home from work. Something to do with the imminence of locking up, I think: the day has been long and hot, or long and very cold, and soon these magical objects are going to be shut away to spend the night in creaking darkness. But before that happens, you get to wander, drawn inevitably towards room 12 where the Prado’s treasure of treasures hangs. It’s so delicate it can never leave this building ever again. But it does not look delicate. It’s 10 feet tall, filling a wall, and its paint is as clear, its vision as peculiarly unhurried as it was in 1656 when it was made. It’s busy and yet it’s serene. You can only see it for the first time once, which is obvious and a stupid thing to mention, yet it becomes a rather unsettling thought as room 12 looms and you finally round the corner. Here goes…