“I am the age that my words represent.” I learned this great phrase from José Luis Merino González, gallery owner, art critic, bullfighting chronicler, blogger and writer, who died last Monday in Bilbao at the age of 94. And if words symbolize the age of a person, José Luis never stopped being a kid because they came out in a cascade, in spurts, but with grace, intelligence and foundation.
The journalist and critic Joaquín Vidal, in charge of the Bulls in the Culture section of EL PAÍS from number 1 until his death in 2002, was an unquestionable and staunch defender of the integrity of the bullfight and he chose very well the critics who had to replace him to tell what was happening in the bullrings when he could not attend because he was covering another bullfight. That’s why I met José Luis Merino one afternoon in August, the day of the first bullfight of Bilbao’s Semana Grande, because he dictated the chronicle to me over the phone.
Merino was brilliant, entertaining, highly cultured and different. From that day on I adapted my books to their chronicles, with the resulting anger in my family, who did not understand my incipient and fanatical bullfighting vocation. But yes, with him I understood a little the art of bullfighting because he explained to me everything he was dictating to me, like the kung-fu master who teaches Little Grasshopper all the movements.
Over time I learned—he never backed away from anything—that he had run the Grises gallery in Bilbao, had written important art books—70 Basque artists o Oteiza speaksfor example—and interviewed the best writers in the world and Spanish literature, and yet he was so humble that he insisted and encouraged me to write because he liked the letters I sent him.
He was even brilliant in the title of the blog he wrote for three years in the digital edition of EL PAÍS: fire thievesI don’t know if as a tribute to the Greek titan, who stole fire from the gods to give it to humanity, or for the Guarani toad who helped steal an ember from the fire of the Ucha lords, who did not want to share it.
What is clear to me is that he stole the hearts of all of us who knew him. Like Teresa, his wife, Teresa, his daughter (the Teresas, he called them), and his granddaughter, Venezia. No one can steal the warmth of your friendship from us. Not even Prometheus.