Eduardo Arroyo admits this reinterpretation of the Mystic Lamb is the result of an obsession that began several years ago, when he saw the work at in Ghent, where it is preserved jealously. He never thought such research, or "spiritual reflection" as he calls it, might be seen at the Prado one day. But so it has been.

He started drawing in pencil on paper and maintaining the original size of the 21 panels of the altarpiece. It was not a copy but an interpretation.What he wanted was to know the society nowadays, just as the artists did at their time. In Arroyo's work, the figures painted by the Van Eyck become characters from modern society. Adam and Eve are dressed in contemporary fashion, the Virgin and St. John are reading Joyce and Stendhal, the heavenly choirs are transformed into Golden Girls, Cain uses a gun to kill Abel, and the Flemish setting is shifted to the Puerta de Alcala and Plaza de Castilla in Madrid. 

There is one more obsession: the flies.  José Manuel Matilla, Head of the Department of Prints and Drawings from the Prado Museum, considers they are the "common thread" of Arroyo's work. These insects make up a tissue at the central lower panel of the altarpiece which replaces the lamb, depicted by the van Eyck as a symbol of salvation and fountain of life. It is curious that flies are inevitably associated with death. The author states over and over again that there is nothing sacrilegious in his work, it is only a new approach to the classical art of the hand of the great contemporary masters. 

Eduardo Arroyo. The Mystic Lamb is complemented by two other pieces: The Fountain of Grece, painted by the school of Jan van Eyck and an interactive display that allows visitors to compare all details and characters from the Flemish table with this personal view.

The exhibition will be on view until 30 September.

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