The Master of the Prado
A Novel
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
New York Times bestselling author Javier Sierra takes you on a grand tour of the Prado museum in this historical novel that illuminates the fascinating mysteries behind European art—complete with gorgeous, full-color inserts of artwork by da Vinci, Boticelli, and other master artists.
Presented as a fictionalized autobiography, The Master of 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 beautifully illustrated 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 as much as the pictures within.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With the help of a mysterious mentor, paranormal-phenomena enthusiast Sierra views the Prado's most ethereal works in a new light in this novel, which reads like a memoir, includes footnotes like a textbook, and features color reproductions worthy of a museum guide. Narrator/protagonist Sierra recalls days as a student in 1990s Madrid: attending journalism classes, writing about the supernatural, and spending off-hours in the Prado, where elegant, elderly Luis Fovel suddenly appears and engages Sierra in a series of conversations about hidden meanings in paintings by Raphael, Botticelli, Bosch, El Greco, and, of course, da Vinci, among others. Fovel teaches Sierra to look at art with the understanding that certain artists not only conveyed the sometimes-heretical beliefs of their time through icons and symbols, they also created concealed portals into the mystical unknown. The first masterpiece illuminated this way is Raphael's The Holy Family (aka The Pearl); Fovel explores disputed identities of the two boys depicted. At the Escorial library, Sierra consults once-banned texts that elucidate the arcane canon of the Prado's artwork. From 15th-century Amadeo of Portugal to Italian movie star Lucia Bos , Sierra (The Secret Supper) unearths knowledge about unearthly connections, even after Fovel's longtime foe threatens harm. With too many loose ends to be as thrilling as The Da Vinci Code, too many disconnected details to be as evocative as The Name of the Rose, and too-little plot to be as cohesive as either, Sierra's novel nevertheless succeeds as a personal, peculiarly Spanish, affirmation of the plausibility of the implausible.
