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 recently by the outbreak of Madrid nationalism they are suffering 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 him, the environmental richness or fidelity to the essence of what you see when you look at the buildings and streets of Madrid. López, 87, was described by Robert Hughes as the best "realist" painter in the world. Hughes, Australian, was the best art critic in the world.
This 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 this and so 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 the GOATs in multiple categories, including 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 football, Pelé.
Thinner thread, Latin American literature: candidates that come to mind are Borges, García Márquez and Vargas Llosa. I opt for the Mexican Juan Rulfo; his works Pedro Páramo El llano en llamas have the virtue of being short (let's go, kids, let's go 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 must be there. Napoleon won 38 of 45 battles; Alexander, again. Julius Caesar would be one of the main rivals, also Genghis Khan, who conquered more territory than anyone else. But I prefer Hernán Cortés. The courage, stubbornness and cunning demonstrated by the extremist at the head of a group 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; his best-known character, Inspector Torrente, distills a very current way of being in his country, one that is represented by figures such as ex-commissioner Villarejo, Luis Rubiales and Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Well, understood. okay Sorry. No. May 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 been listed as a candidate until a few days ago, when he suddenly let loose the devastating phrase " there are men who, when they speak, raise the price of quicklime". Apart from the finesse of the flist-flast against the two most resentful dinosaurs of Spanish politics (Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra, for those who are not in the case), Puigdemont has the merit of having taken hostage the entirety of an important European State from a numerically minuscule, almost anecdotal base of power, and on top of that he has managed it, for God's sake, without setting foot on Spanish territory, where he is considered a fugitive from the law. Chapeau, Carlos.
Another candidate would be Barack Obama, but I rule him out because his ability to persuade was not up to his genius as a person. who else Boris Johnson, who managed, all by himself, to get his country out of the European Union. Pedro Sánchez, for his almost insane perseverance. Donald Trump, for the ability to connect with the stupidity, vulgarity and rancor of the middle 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, 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 showing the slightest interest in the welfare of the vast majority of his 140 million compatriots. Kim Jong-un ranks second in the award for the most effective political leader today and could take the award from his great friend Russia in the event that one day North Korea drops a nuclear bomb on Japan.
Another category: the worst Pope in history. Alexander VI, born Roderic Borja, was a Renaissance mobster who bribed, stole or murdered his rivals, had multiple children from his alleged celibacy and had the habit of organizing orgies with prostitutes in the papal palace. A worthy rival of 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 barbarities.
But for me the GOAT here is antipope John XXIII, from the 14th century. I admit that I am cheating a bit, since he did not get to occupy the throne of the Vatican, but the description given by the famous British historian Edward Gibbon is irresistible to me. "Antipope John XXIII - writes Gibbon in the 17th century - was accused and declared guilty only of piracy, rape, sodomy, murder and incest after the most scandalous charges were suppressed".
Finally, the GOAT of GOATS, in any field, not excluding war and peace, which brings 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 stick with two, Leonardo Da Vinci and Mick Jagger. Da Vinci will be number one, many will say, but since I haven't seen him perform, I choose Jagger, for the definition of whose enormity I lack words. Yes, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, the BEST of all the greats living on the planet today, or maybe ever. But it could also be that I'm crazier than a goat.
