King Felipe, in my room

The last pictorial portrait of Felipe VI is not just any image of the monarch.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
12 November 2022 Saturday 03:50
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King Felipe, in my room

The last pictorial portrait of Felipe VI is not just any image of the monarch. It is neither innocuous nor falls into the usual kindness with which artists resolve this type of commission. It is rather the result of the in this case rare search for the person behind the character. A royal portrait, in the broadest sense of the term, for which its author, Tomás Baleztena from Madrid, goes back to the tradition that goes from the time of Velázquez to that of Goya, thus recovering the desire to capture the character of kings . “A way of portraying them that I think has been lost,” he says.

The commission came to him from an anonymous member of the Cercle del Liceu. Baleztena (Madrid, 1975), of British descent on his mother's side – "my parents met at the Sanfermines" – considered the possibility that the monarch would pose for a couple of hours, something that Felipe VI's agenda made impossible. That was how, rather than observing flat portraits, she decided to draw on his memory to achieve this spectacular countenance. And in an atmosphere of drama.

“It seemed like a challenge to me. He is a figure that the whole country knows and should be recognizable. What is usually done is very flat, and here I try to get the entrails, the soul, the background”, indicates this artist from the Espacio Valverde gallery, known for his portraits of the British movement: the singer Lily Allen, the model Suki Waterhouse. ..

In this 100 x 81 cm oil on canvas, Baleztena allows the body and the sides of the face to be lost in the background, "which makes it more three-dimensional, it acquires another dimension." "I didn't like the idea of ​​putting him on a neutral and delimited background, I wanted the figure to come out of the painting, as if it were present, emerging from the darkness and emitting light".

The portrait was installed in the office of the president of the Cercle del Liceu the same night that the members celebrated the entity's 175th anniversary in the presence of the King and Queen... "I find it very dark, I don't think that's the most appropriate thing now same. The monarchy needs light and joy”, commented a member of the club's Lliga Jove just minutes after he was hanged.

The King's reaction, inexpressive, was not necessarily approving or quite the opposite. Felipe VI limited himself to taking a seat under the watchful eye of his alter ego to stamp his signature in the club's book of honour, the same one that Elizabeth II or Alfonso XIII had once signed, and extended, carefully, in the dedication of the.

“It has been a great honor and a great satisfaction to come to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Círculo del Liceu in Barcelona. In this way we join the emotion of remembering such an important part of the history of Barcelona, ​​its cosmopolitanism and its love for culture, its active and committed civil society...”, he wrote.

Some member of the club commented that it was the portrait of a worried Felipe. “I wouldn't say worried – concludes the artist, winner of the BMW Prize for painting and a finalist for the BP for portraits awarded at the Portrait Gallery in London -; it simply goes with the times, which are special in every way”.