Coronavirus lockdown release: phase 2 cotinued

We continue our slow climb out of lockdown here in Spain. It’s a relief, but tinged with anxiety, since there are signs of an increase in infections, and in daily deaths, as the restrictions are lifted.

The other uptick is in Opposition attacks on Government over its handling of the infection in the early stages. The Opposition claims that the government knew a lot earlier about the seriousness of the crisis than it has admitted, making its failure to take action sooner intolerable to the Conservatives.

Personally, I like the administration led by Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Party. Its handling of the crisis since that early stage has been outstanding. However, I suppose as a supporter of democratic process, I can hardly object to an Opposition holding Government to account for its earlier errors, however much I may prefer the latter to the former.

Otherwise, how could I possibly demand that the Labour Opposition in Britain hold the Cummings government, and its figurehead leader Johnson, to account there? That’s a demand that needs to be made all the more strongly, now that Britain has officially racked up a performance worse than Spain’s, in deaths per million, despite having had the examples of both Italy and Spain to learn from.

At least in Spain we’re continuing to emerge from lockdown. Now, it may not last if infections keep climbing. So we’re taking advantage of freedom today, for fear that it might be curtailed by a new lockdown tomorrow. That means doing as much as possible, as soon as possible.

Museo de las Bellas Artes, Valencia

For instance, after having our first haircuts in three months, we headed for the Valencia Museum of Fine Arts, now visitable again. That’s an opportunity that hadn’t been taken up by many, so we met only one other visitor during our time there.

I’ve been there a couple of times before. However, I realised on this visit that I’d seen only a small fraction of the collection. That’s because previously I started, as one might expect, on the ground floor, which is just room after room of religious art from the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Obviously, many people whose opinions I respect love this stuff. I’m afraid I quickly find I’ve had a surfeit of nativities, even more quickly of Mary weeping over Christ’s body, most quickly of all over martyrdoms, flagellations of Christ and crucifixions. In fact, three or four pin-cushion Saint Sebastians are usually about as many as I can stand before I head for the exit.

Why on Earth, in a religion like Christianity, focused as it’s supposed to be on loving one’s neighbour and turning the other cheek, are so many of its followers quite so obsessed with suffering, torture and death?

Still, there were a couple of paintings in this part of the Museum that I enjoyed.

Saint Sebastian cared for by Saint Irene
by Vrancke van der Stockt

I liked a Saint Sebastian who, far from being a pin cushion, seemed to be dying – or, more likely, already dead, given the shock and grief of Saint Irene who was looking after him – from a single arrow wound. A tribute, I felt, to the lethal power of even one arrow. No tribute at all, though, to the shooting accuracy of the Roman legion, a whole execution squad of which had been assigned to dealing with him. Did the rest all miss, then?

Adam and Eve by Matthias Stom

The other one I liked was of a strangely stylised – almost surreal – painting of Adam and Eve holding a fruit, oddly elongated upwards. I wondered whether the artist was perhaps a member of a strange heretical sect of which I hadn’t previously heard, which believed that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree from which they weren’t supposed to eat, was a pear and not an apple?

Was it a pear they tasted?

Look at it. It’s obviously a pear.

Incidentally, while on the subject I can’t resist passing on this thought from the outstanding eighteenth century thinker, Denis Diderot, who commented that the Christian God is a father who attaches great importance to his apples, and very little to his children.

But back to the Museum of Fine Arts. For the first time in three visits, rather than giving up and leaving after having a glut of the religious paintings, I let myself be persuaded by Danielle to take a look at the other floors. And what a joy that was. On the upper floors, I discovered the collections of more recent paintings, that were far more to my taste.

Perhaps the most famous painter from Valencia is Joaquín Sorolla. Why, the main station in the city is even called after him. And the Museum has some excellent examples of his work. One, I thought at first glance was of a cricketer, given his all-white clothes.

Sorolla's painting of a cricketer?
Not, the son of a friend

But cricket has never really caught on in Spain, and this turns out to be a rather eye-catching portrait of José Luis Benlliure López de Arana, son of Sorolla’s friend, the sculptor Mariano Benlliure.

The Fly
A charming surprise to discover it

Even more striking was a painting by a contemporary of Sorolla’s, Cecilio Plá. It’s called The Fly and includes a smile that charms by its cheekiness, within a pose that mystifies by the way it reveals all the more by being partially hidden.

So, all in all, it was a rewarding visit. What can I saw about Phase 2 of our lockdown release? Just ‘so far, so good’.

Of course, that’s what the man said as he passed the 52nd floor of the Empire State Building, having fallen from the top. Let’s hope we’re heading towards a better fate than awaited him.