The Chinese are masters of watercolor and discovered gunpowder. Cai Guo-Qiang has gone farther: he paints with gunpowder. Some months ago the Prado Museum invited the artist to carry out in the Hall of Realms a series of pyrotechnical works through a spectacular process that was filmed by Isabel Coixet and we will be able to follow in a documentary soon to be released. The result of the experiment has been on view since 25 October in ‘The Spirit of Painting: Cai Guo-Qiang at the Prado,’ an exhibition which has also been conceived as a dialogue with all the great masters filling the halls of the Madrid museum. Cai Guo-Qiang is the first contemporary artist ever to create on-site at the Prado.