Page 28 - Contemporary Art and Old Masters

contexts that allow for a reflection from the starting
point of the Museum’s own collection and for an
analysis of some of the most profound consequences
of a common mindset. The women present in all these
contexts are rarely the protagonists through their own THE EXHIBITION
initiatives, nor are they located where they wished to
be: rather, they were merely “uninvited guests” in the
The Museo del Prado presents a survey of the situation of
art world of the day.
women in the Spanish art system through some of the least
known works in its collection of art from the nineteenth
As Miguel Falomir, Director of the Museo Nacional
and early twentieth centuries, together with a small but
del Prado observes: “I think that one of the most
significant group of loans from other institutions.
interesting aspects of this exhibition lies precisely in
the fact that it is directed towards official art of the
Circumscribed within a chronological period going from
time rather than the periphery. Some of these works
the times of Rosario Weiss (1814-1843) up to those of
may be surprising to our modern sensibility but not
Elena Brockmann (1867-1946), the exhibition is divided into
for their eccentricity or doom-laden aura, rather for
two sections articulated in their turn in various thematic
being an expression of an already outmoded time and
fragments. The first illustrates the official support given
society.”
to those images of woman which conformed to the
bourgeois ideal. The State legitimised these works through
This survey also reveals the Museum’s commitment to
commissions, prizes or acquisitions, and they were taken as
the conservation, study and dissemination of its own
valuable demonstrations of an artist’s maturity. At the same
holdings in its intention to give visibility to works not
time, all those which failed to conform to this imagery were
always accessible to the public through their inclusion
rejected. The context in which these representations were
in new narratives.
validated serves as an antechamber to the second part of
the exhibition. This looks at central aspects of the careers of
women artists, whose development was determined by the
predominant thought of the time. This laid down the rules
for their training, their participation in the art scene, and
their public recognition. To give visible shape to this second
field of activity, the exhibition presents works by the key
women artists from Romanticism to those working within
the framework of the avant-garde movements.

INTRUDER QUEENS
The Chronological Series of the Kings of Spain was a
museum project planned in 1847 by José de Madrazo to
adorn four of the new rooms at the Real Museo de Pinturas
(Royal Museum of Paintings), then under his direction. At
the height of the confrontation between the supporters of
Isabella II and the Carlists, who denied the sovereign’s right
to occupy the throne because she was a woman, the queen
assented to the creation and display of a portrait gallery that
would represent all the preceding monarchs in chronological
order. To fill the gaps of the medieval kings, of whom there
were no images in the Royal Collections, portraits were
commissioned from a number of young painters. At the
same time, given that the clear political purpose of the
series was to provide visual legitimisation for Isabella’s right
Joaquina Serrano Painting in Espalter’s Studio, Joaquín Espalter y Rull
(1809-1880), Oil on canvas,1876. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Romanticismo. to the crown, a special effort was made to represent the
Photo © Museo Nacional del Prado queens of Spain’s history.

28 WORLD of ART