I can assure you that few paintings have ever had such a profound effect on me as Murillo’s larger works in the Louvre. It is possible to glean some idea of their merit from reproductions, but the actual pictures reveal a colour harmony such as you can see in no other paintings. When I look at them, I feel as if I was being touched by a magic wand. It is an experience to be classed along with seeing a performance of Tristan or Zarathustra, attending the first Weingartner concert in Berlin, hearing Dohnányi play the Beethoven concerto in Vienna this year or catching my first glimpse of the Stephanskirche when I was in Vienna 3 or 4 years ago.