Pierre Gonnord (Cholet, Francia 1963) known primarily for his portraits. Series that include groups at risk of exclusion in which he captures, not only the greatness of the human being, but also his suffering soul whose gaze remains in our heads for a long time.

His unfavorable situation is thus filled with beauty, despite the marks of pain on his face and sometimes, also on his body. But she is not just any marginality, but dressed in nobility, with a serene haughtiness that ranges from her child and youth portraits to those of the elderly or criminals.

It is nothing new in history. All artists have discovered in the less favored classes an attraction that was not only aesthetic, but also served to better capture the human soul.

Looking at the distinction and bearing of some of its gypsies, Indians or yakuzas, it is easy to remember the dwarves and characters of pleasure that Velázquez immortalized as if they were princes.

This is what will surely happen with the former socialist president Zapatero. About 35,000 euros They say the order cost and it doesn’t seem like a big sum to me. At least not for a photograph by Gonnord. Especially since its price is already higher in the market.

But there is more. Gonnord will portray Zapatero eleven years after he left the Presidency of the Government. Many years. And I do not believe that the presidents who have followed him are to blame, but simply the laziness of making the decision.

But I say that eleven years are long because José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has had a public life after leaving the Presidency. But, to see the positive part, the traces that the drama of his tenure and subsequent works have left on his face. Living in special situations is not free and they are all reflected in the face.

In “Ars Magazine” José Manuel Ballester –another magnificent photographer– said that “in some way, each Gonnord photograph was a self-portrait”. And he said it because he projects in his characters his attitude towards life, his way of understanding it, his sensitivity.

This is what will happen with Zapatero. He knows who he was, who he is, and what it was for him. For the artist. That is why it did not surprise me that, more recently, Gonnord abandoned the tension and pressure of his portraits to rest in various series of animals.

A bestiary that began with the landscape but that a few years ago was transferred to horses, and that also encompassed other species. Nothing alien to either the history of art. From Dürer and Leonardo to Rubens and Rembrandt, the great masters have stopped in Nature.

To look at it and contemplate it. And I like this last activity because, according to Gonnord once told me, dwelling on the gaze of animals, also on their wild and untamed beauty, helped him to better work on his human portraits.

Defiant look

Imagine that Zapatero’s session in Gonnord’s studio it will be long. Long until the defiant look of the former president becomes tired and perhaps defeated. Until his muscles relax and the man who ruled the destinies of Spain in one of the worst economic crises in memory can be discovered.

It will be a bottom up image. A soft low angle that forces Rodríguez Zapatero to look up and down, but almost straight ahead. So when that gaze becomes more human, Gonnord will be able to shoot his umpteenth photo.

The one that can hang in the gallery of presidents of La Moncloa. But also that image in which the artist can discover his own gaze.

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