This week I went to La Pedrera, here in Barcelona, to see the exhibition of the work of the painter Antonio López. It dazzled me. His paintings of the Spanish capital awakened in me the ancestral affection I feel for the city where my mother was born, diluted a little lately by the outbreak of Madrid nationalism there.
The best photographer in the world could make a thousand attempts to replicate López's panoramas, but he would not be able to transmit the same light as he did, the environmental richness or the fidelity to the essence of what one sees when looking at the buildings and streets of Madrid. . López, 87, was described by Robert Hughes as the best “realist” painter in the world. Hughes, an Australian, was the best art critic in the world.
Which brings me to the topic of my column today, also inspired by an article on the web about the GOAT phenomenon. Young readers will know what I'm talking about, assuming, of course, that this species still exists. Older readers may not know it and therefore I clarify that goat means goat in English, but, more relevant in this case, it is the acronym for greatest of all time.
The article I read proposed a list of GOATs in multiple categories, such as literature, art, politics, and football. I will offer my list, in these categories and others.
Let's get the obvious out of the way first. In literature, Shakespeare; in art, Velázquez; in politics, Mandela; in soccer, Pelé.
Spinning more finely, Latin American literature: the candidates that come to mind are Borges, García Márquez and Vargas Llosa. I opt for the Mexican Juan Rulfo, whose works Pedro Páramo and El llano en llamas have the virtue of being short (let's see, children, let's see if you dare) and of concentrating the same emotional force as War and Peace.
Let's move on to the GOAT generals. Napoleon and Alexander the Great have to be there. Napoleon won 38 of his 45 battles; Alejandro, nine out of nine. Julius Caesar would be one of his main rivals, also Genghis Khan, who conquered more territory than anyone else. But I opt for Hernán Cortés. The bravery, stubbornness and cunning that the man from Extremadura demonstrated at the head of a handful of soldiers in the defeat of the Aztec empire is, for me, an epic that has never been surpassed.
Actors and actresses: the list is long. Peter O'Toole, Bette Davis, Jack Nicholson, Greta Garbo, Marlon Brando, Ingrid Bergman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Claudette Colbert, Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, De Niro, Helen Mirren, Javier Bardem and (why not?) the great Carmen Maura. But I lean towards Santiago Segura, whose best-known character, Inspector Torrente, exudes a very current way of being in his country, that represented by figures such as former commissioner Villarejo, Luis Rubiales and Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Alright. OKAY. I'm sorry. No. Let the GOAT of cinema be Brando. Seriously, Marlon Brando.
Let's move on to the politicians who are still alive today. (I know it's a contradiction, that the GOAT award implies "of all time", but let me play.) Carles Puigdemont would not have appeared as a candidate until a few days ago, when he suddenly came across the devastating phrase "there are men who when "They speak, they raise the price of quicklime." Apart from the finesse of the zasca against the two most resentful dinosaurs of Spanish politics (Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra, for those who do not know), Puigdemont has the merit of having taken the entirety of an important European State hostage from a numerically tiny, almost anecdotal power base, and on top of that he has achieved it, for the love of God, without setting foot on Spanish soil, where he is considered a fugitive from the law. Chapeau, Carlitos.
Another candidate would be Barack Obama, but I rule him out because his persuasiveness was not up to par with his genius as a person. Who else? Boris Johnson, who managed, single-handedly, to get his country out of the European Union. Pedro Sánchez, for his almost insane perseverance. Donald Trump, for his ability to connect with the stupidity, vulgarity and resentment of half of the United States and for continuing to be, despite his manifest criminality, a good bet to return to the White House in 2025.
But for me the clear winner is Vladimir Putin. Politics is the art of convincing people to follow you or, better yet, to obey you. For more than twenty years the Russian tsar has managed to subjugate an enormous country to his whims, both homicidal and suicidal, while accumulating a colossal fortune without demonstrating the slightest interest in the well-being of the vast majority of his 140 million compatriots. Kim Jong Un is in second place for the award for most effective political leader today and could take the award from his great Russian friend if one of these days North Korea drops a nuclear bomb on Japan.
Another category: the worst Pope in history. Alexander VI, born Rodrigo Borgia, was a Renaissance mobster who bribed, robbed or murdered his rivals, had multiple children from supposed celibacy and had the habit of organizing orgies with prostitutes in the papal palace. A worthy rival to Alexander would be the more contemporary Pius XII, a mortal sinner by omission who was distinguished by his silence in the face of the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities.
But for me the GOAT here is the antipope John XXIII, from the 14th century. I admit that I am cheating a little, since he did not occupy the throne of the Vatican, but the description made of him by the famous British historian Edward Gibbon seems irresistible to me. “The antipope John XXIII,” Gibbon writes in the 17th century, “was accused and found guilty only of piracy, rape, sodomy, murder and incest after the most scandalous charges were dropped.”
Finally, the GOAT of the GOATS, in any field, without excluding war and peace, which leads us to the tremendous influence that the figures of Jesus Christ, the prophet Muhammad or Saint Karl Marx have had on both. But I prefer to limit myself to secular characters and I'll stick with two, Leonardo Da Vinci and Mick Jagger. Da Vinci will be number one, many will say, but since I didn't see him perform, I choose Jagger, whose enormity I lack words to describe. Yes, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, the GOATísimo of all the greats who live on the planet today, or perhaps always. But it could also be that I'm crazier than a goat.
