Laura Cumming
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Yet, despite all this hyper-realism,
The painting's a total riddle.
I think it's the earliest riddle in art.
And so we're going to talk about that.
Well, if anyone who's listening now remembers Desperate Housewives, they will probably remember this from the credit sequence because it was used to represent marriages gone wrong, along with Kranach paintings and so on.
So what we're looking at is a couple standing in a room in Bruges, 15th century.
In the background is a red bed and a red couch.
The couple are holding hands.
Or are they holding hands?
We'll come to that.
He has his left hand out.
She has her left hand out.
Her palm is in his palm.
He is dressed, most famously, in a massive black cauldron of a hat.
He really looks quite Halloween.
He's got a very, very white face.
And I'm afraid that there's no getting away from it.
He really looks like Putin.
So picture Putin in a colossal cauldron of black.