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“PAINTED IN SPANISH”: THE PRADO MUSEUM AND THE NATURALIZATION OF THE “SPANISH SCHOOL” IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

2009; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14636200903186889

1469-9818

Eugenia Afinoguénova,

Travel Writing and Literature

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements A much earlier version of this article was presented at the session “Museum Culture in the Nineteenth-Century Spain” at the 2002 Annual MLA Convention in New York. The research necessary for the completion of this article was made possible by the grant from the Fundación Carolina in 2004. The author wishes to thank the anonymous readers of JSCS for their helpful comments, corrections and suggestions. Notes 1. After King Ferdinand VII's death in 1833, his widow Regent Queen María Cristina initiated several law suits (1834–1835, 1845 and 1865) with the objective of bringing the collection back as the personal property of the Royal family and dividing it between herself and her two daughters (Mariano de Madrazo 129–32). Simultaneously, several times during the century (1839, 1842 and 1855) the discussion as to who owned the Museum brought forth the project of separating the Royal Patrimony from the Crown and transferring it to the nation (Mariano de Madrazo 178, 214). In all cases, the Museum was declared the undividable property linked to the Crown but not legally belonging to the nation. Following Queen Isabel II's dethronement on October 15, 1868, a Council in charge of conservation, custody and administration of the possessions of the Spanish Crown took over responsibility for the museum. On February 23, 1872 King Amadeo of Savoy declared the Prado property of the nation. After King Amadeo's abdication, under the law adopted on July 24, 1873 by the government of the I Republic regulating the transfer of the former property of the Crown, the Museum was proclaimed property of the state. 2. For a recent multifaceted analysis of the impact of national literature on nation-formation in Spain, see the volume Spain beyond Spain. Modernity, Literary History, and National Identity, edited by Brad Epps Epps , Brad , and Luis Fernández Cifuentes Spain beyond Spain. Modernity, Literary History, and National Identity . Lewisburg : Bucknell U P , 2005 . [Google Scholar] and Luis Fernández Cifuentes. The territorial consolidation of the Spanish nation-state through its pictorial canon which will be examined here finds intriguing parallels with the processes taking place inside print culture, described in the contributions by Jo Labanyi Labanyi , Jo . “Horror, Spectacle, and Nation-Formation: Historical Paintings in Late-nineteenth-century Spain.” Visualizing Spanish Modernity Susan Larson and Eva Woods . London : Berg , 2005 . 64 – 80 . 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[Google Scholar] writes that the number of re-editions of Pedro de Madrazo Madrazo , Pedro de . Catálogo de los cuadros del Real Museo de Pintura y Escultura de S. M Madrid : Aguado , 1843 . [Google Scholar]'s catalogue signified its commercial success (46). Although Pedro de Madrazo died in 1898, catalogues of the Prado continued to be published under his name until 1920. 9. Forty-two cuadernos of La colección litográfica de los cuadros del Real Museo Eusebi , Luis . Catálogo de los cuadros que existen colocados en el Real Museo de Pinturas del Prado . Madrid : Oficina de Francisco Martínez Dávila , 1824 . [Google Scholar] de Madrid were published between 1826 and 1853 (Vega Vega , Jesusa . Origen de la litografía en España. El Real Establecimiento Litográfico . Madrid : Casa de la Moneda , 1990 . [Google Scholar] 137–61). 10. The Madrazo brothers’ criticism could have found easy targets in Baron Taylor Taylor , Isidore Justin Séverin . Notice des tableaux de la Galerie Espagnole exposés dans les salles du Musée Royal au Louvre . Paris : Imprimérie de Crapelet , 1838 . [Google Scholar]'s Catalogue and in the literature about local artistic schools, such as the books by Fracisco Zapater y Gómez Zapater y Gómez , Francisco . Apuntes histórico-biográficos acerca de la Escuela aragonesa de Pintura . Madrid : Est. Tip. De T. Fortanet , 1869 . [Google Scholar] (1869) and, most certainly, Gregorio Cruzada Cruzada Villaamil , Gregorio . Catálogo provisional, historial y razonado del Museo Nacional de Pinturas . Madrid : Imprenta de Manuel Galiano , 1865 . [Google Scholar] Villaamil, the subdirector of the Museo de la Trinidad. Although the Museo de la Trinidad did not display a unified “Spanish School” (which was in part explained by the severe lack of space), the 1865 catalogue Cruzada established three chronologies of Spanish “schools”: the workshop-based transnational “primitive” schools, the locality-based “Spanish schools” of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (which included the “escuelas Madrazo , Pedro de . Catálogo descriptivo e histórico del Museo del Prado de Madrid: seguido de una sinopsis de las varias escuelas … y de una noticia histórica sobre las colecciones de pinturas de los palacios reales de España y sobre la formación y progreso de este establecimiento . Madrid : Rivadeneyra , 1872 . [Google Scholar]” of Madrid, Seville, Granada, Toledo and Valencia) and the “contemporáneos”. The “Escuela de Madrid” (capitalized) had the overwhelming numeric and qualitative advantage. 11. The catalogue was issued two years after the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War. 12. In any case, in 1840, only 10% of Spaniards could read; in 1860, this number doubled, reaching 20%, and in 1900, approximately one-third of the Spanish population could read and write (Carnero Carnero , Guillermo . “Cultura y literatura en la vida española del siglo XIX.” El mundo literario en la pintura del Museo del Prado . Madrid : Ministerio de Cultura , 1994 . 19 – 66 . [Google Scholar] 26). 13. The accounts by Hermenegildo Giner de los Ríos Ríos Font , Wadda . “National Literature in the Protean Nation: The Question of Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literary History.” Spain beyond Spain. Modernity, Literary History, and National Identity Brad Epps and Luis Fernández Cifuentes . Lewisburg : Bucknell U P , 2005 . 127 – 47 . [Google Scholar] (Giner's brother) and Manuel Bartolomé de Cossío (Giner's disciple and successor in the Institución Libre de Enseñanza) trace the new discipline's genealogy. It begins with José Fernández Jiménez's 1867 precursory lectures at Nicolás Salmerón's Colegio “El Internacional”, followed by Juan Facundo Riaño's 1868 first monographic courses on History of the Arts at the Escuela Diplomática (H. Giner de los Ríos Ríos Font , Wadda . “National Literature in the Protean Nation: The Question of Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literary History.” Spain beyond Spain. Modernity, Literary History, and National Identity Brad Epps and Luis Fernández Cifuentes . Lewisburg : Bucknell U P , 2005 . 127 – 47 . [Google Scholar] viii) and later in the Escuela de Institutrices (Cossío “Programa de un curso elemental de Historia de la Arquitectura en España Cossío , Manuel Bartolomé de . “Programa de un curso elemental de Historia de la Arquitectura en España.” Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza 16 1882 : 177 – 81 , 197–201 . [Google Scholar]” 177). The “plan de estudios” adopted after the 1868 revolution included “el estudio de los principios del arte y de su historia en España” into the curricula of secondary education (Decreto de 25 de octubre de 1868 Decreto de 25 de octubre de 1868 . Ministerio de Fomento de España. Dando nueva organización a la Segunda Enseñanza y a las Facultades de Filosofía y Letras, Ciencias, Farmacia, Medicina, Derecho y Teología . Accessed 15 Dec. 2008 http://www.filosofia.org/mfa/fae868b.htm [Google Scholar]). Francisco Giner de los Giner de los Ríos , Francisco . Ensayos sobre educación . Madrid : Ediciones de la lectura , 1915 . [Google Scholar], Ríos Ríos Font , Wadda . “National Literature in the Protean Nation: The Question of Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literary History.” Spain beyond Spain. Modernity, Literary History, and National Identity Brad Epps and Luis Fernández Cifuentes . Lewisburg : Bucknell U P , 2005 . 127 – 47 . [Google Scholar] was named the first Chair of the Principles and History of the Arts (without retribution) at the Instituto del Noviciado (later the Instituto de Cisneros). For more information about the Krausista education of art history, see Falero Falero Folgoso , Francisco José . La teoría del arte del krausismo español . Granada : Universidad de Granada , 1998 . [Google Scholar] Folgoso and Jiménez-Landi Jiménez-Landi , Antonio . La institución libre de enseñanza y su ambiente: La otra historia de España . Barcelona : Edicions Universitat Barcelona , 1996 . [Google Scholar]. 14. For an overview of Cossío's educational program, see Otero Urtaza. 15. The tradition of referring to the Spanish collection of the Prado as a unified “Spanish school” continued in the twentieth century. It is present in the 1992 catalogue of the “Spanish School” by Santiago Alcolea Alcolea Blanch, Santiago. 1992. Museo del Prado. Escuela española. Spanish School, Madrid: Ediciones Polígrafa. [Google Scholar] Blanch. Yet the author does not provide any theoretical explanation for his use of the term “School” in the introductory notes, limiting his exposition to the history of the museum collection and the museum's institutional history (3–7). In the latest guidebook of the Prado (2008), the notion of the”Spanish School’’ is used extensively (Introduction, 5, 10, 23, 66 and so on). The authors, however, also recognize regional and local “schools”, such as the “schools” of Toledo, Valencia, Seville and Madrid (42, 84, 132, and so on). The concept of the “Spanish School” refers to the ways in which Spanish national tradition was declared to the international community thanks to its representation at the Prado: “it is not by chance that the Prado's inauguration coincided with the international discovery of the ‘Spanish School”’ (23, see also 66, 140, 198).