Goya and Velázquez in my delirium

by | Jun 27, 2013 | beauty, daily prompt, our life

Las Meninas by Velázquez

Las Meninas by Velázquez

I met Goya and Velázquez, at El Prado Museum in Madrid. I went with my parents and my brother. We spent there several hours several days to contemplate the wonders of the museum with calm and avoid getting too tired. I enjoyed a lot the rooms filled with paintings by those two giants of art.

I love portraits and there were a lot of them because both were court painters. Velázquez in the XVII Century and Goya later, in the Romantic era. You could see beautiful dresses, queens and princesses, kings and knights, and court characters.

I liked Goya a lot. His way of painting, his colors, his characters. But suddenly, his lasts works grew darker and darker. First the “Disasters of War”, then his “Black Paintings”. That scared me a lot, above all the famous “Saturn devouring his son”. So when we arrived to the room where you can see the famous painting “Las Meninas” by Velázquez, I was happy again and my fears disappeared. I was contemplating a painting with a princess and girls with beautiful dresses and a great sense of deepness and reality.

We went back home and one year after I get sick with a bone tumor in my leg and I needed an operation. I was twelve and I was very worried about the anesthesia, because they told me that when you are recovering from anesthesia you say everything, even your deepest secrets, and at that age I didn’t want anybody to know about my secrets.

It turned out that when I was recovering from the anesthesia, in my delirium I was dreaming that I was inside the paintings of Goya. Posing with kings and queens, dancing with merry farmers…, but suddenly the merry farmers began to change and became the horrible characters of the “Black Paintings” and I was trapped by monsters that were dragging me towards the ominous Saturn devouring his son and waiting for me. So I began to cry aloud “I don’t like Goya, I like Velázquez, I don’t like Goya, I like Velázquez!”…

And that was my secret.

My father told me later he was proud of me I had a cultural delirium.

Daily Prompt: The Artist’s Eye.

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13 Comments

  1. bluebeadpublications

    How surreal for your anesthesia experience. You should write a short story about it. I would read it.

    Reply
    • Olga Brajnović

      It was. I remember every detail of it as if it happened yesterday

      Reply
    • Olga Brajnović

      It was. I remember every detail as it happened yesterday.

      Reply
  2. weliveinaflat

    “cultural delirium”, you certainly were a prodigious child! 😛

    Reply
    • Olga Brajnović

      I was deeply impressed by the paintings, that’s all I guess. 🙂

      Reply
  3. microrrelatososhortstories

    Que suerte haber podido invertirle días al Prado, cuando yo estuve por allá fue con in grupo que ya había estado ahí antes, por lo que fue más rápido que una visita al zoológico 🙁 sin embargo recuerdo perfecto Las Meninas, o será que después estudié un poco el cuadro…ya no se, el punto es que a mi también me atrapó por muchos motivos, principalmente la composición…y en cuanto a la anestesia, en mi delirio yo no dejaba de cuestionar por que mi hermana había perdido a su bebé al poco tiempo de haber quedado embarazada, me platica mi doctora, que fue tanta mi insistencia que mejor me puso otro tanto de anestesia para dormirme completamente otro rato y dejarla terminar con el procedimiento escuchando su música favorita, que suerte que ese fue mi secreto…jajajajajaaa, read you soon, Alexandra

    Reply
    • Olga Brajnović

      Gracias por leer y comentar mi entrada. La verdad es que El Prado es un tesoro. Es curioso qué cosas nos impresionan y se nos quedan en el subconsciente y luego afloran cuando no lo esperamos como con la anestesia. Lo siento por tu hermana. Muy práctica tu doctora. Menos mal que lo tomas con sentido del humor….:))

      Reply
      • microrrelatososhortstories

        Gracias a Dios mi hermana ya logró tener los hijos que deseaba asi que ya todo está bien, el recuento de tu delirio me recordó el mio, hacía tiempo que no pensaba en esto 🙂

        Reply
        • Olga Brajnović

          Me alegro que todo terminara bien. 🙂

          Reply
  4. Borneo Pulse

    Yup, you described the way you wanted; it doesn’t just scare you but the readers too. The effect of personal experience, I would say

    Reply
    • Olga Brajnović

      thank you

      Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Is It Bad To Think Too Much? | Joseph Rathjen - Freelance Writing - […] Goya and Velázquez in my delirium | Vivir, que no es poco […]
  2. Art is a pale imitation of reality | Rob's Surf Report - […] Vivir, que no es poco […]
  3. What Art Did For Hank (short fiction) | The Jittery Goat - […] Goya and Velázquez in my delirium | Vivir, que no es poco […]
  4. NEVER GROW UP | hastywords - […] Goya and Velázquez in my delirium | Vivir, que no es poco […]
  5. Famine | Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis and Me - […] http://layedbacklife.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/daily-prompt-my-eye-today-is-on-this-artwork/ http://vivirquenoespoco.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/goya-and-velazquez-in-my-delirium/ http://khanasweb.com/2013/06/27/the-artists-eye-la-petite-danseuse-de-quatorze-ans/ […]

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