El Museo del Prado en Filipinas, Part I

Instituto Cervantes Manila’s Día del Libro 2017 signaled the inauguration of El Museo del Prado en Filipinas, the month-long photographic exhibition of some of Museo Nacional del Prado’s greatest masterpieces. 54 life-size reproductions of works from the 12^th to the 19^th centuries, each with very informative description in both English and Spanish, are on display in Ayala Triangle Gardens, Makati City starting on April 22, 2017.

There are four collections of painting included in the El Museo del Prado en Filipinas exhibit: Spanish, Italian, Flemish, and Other Schools. This entry includes painting from the Spanish Painting and Other Schools. Italian Painting and Flemish Painting will appear in the next entry. To view Italian Painting and Flemish Painting, please read this.

 

The content that follows is from the exhibit or from the El Museo del Prado en Filipinas booklet. I just took photos of the life-size photographic reproductions of artworks on display.

 

The Prado Museum, History and Collections

In 1819, King Ferdinand VII inaugurated the Royal Museum of Painting, origin of The Prado Museum today, in a grand neo-classical building his grandfather, Charles III, had ordered constructed at the end of the 18^th century for a Natural History Museum.

The Spanish royal collection forms the nucleus of the Prado and reflects the long tradition of interest in the arts by Spanish monarchy to embellish palaces and residences, for diplomatic purposes or also to decorate diverse religious institutions under royal patronage.

In 1872, the museum incorporated the religious art works of the Trinity Museum created from the desentailment laws in 1835 – 1836, and in 1971, the 19^th century works from the Modern Art Museum. Additionally, the Prado has continued to expand its collection through acquisitions, donations, and other incorporations.

Today, The Prado Museum safeguards more than 8,200 paintings; this exhibit shows 54 of its most important masterpieces.

El Prado en calles

El Prado en calles started in 2011 in Dominican Republic and in its sever-year existence, it has visited Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, and Equatorial Guinea. In 2017, the exhibition arrives in the Philippines.

Reproductions of masterpieces by Goya, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Raphael, and the Philippines’ very own Juan Luna, among others, are expected to attract the attention of Filipino art lovers.

El Museo del Prado en Filipinas is presented by the Embassy of Spain, Instituto Cervantes, and The Prado Museum.

Pintura Española (Spanish Painting)

The Spanish school of painting is best represented in The Prado Museum collection with nearly 5000 works spanning from the 12^th century – with mural paintings of San Baudelio de Berlanga – up to the beginning of the 20^th century with creations by Aureliano de Beruete and Joaquín Sorolla.

Holding impressive examples from the medieval period, the collection – initiated by Charles V and Philip II – shows the appearance and influence of the Renaissance style in Spain of which, El Greco stands out with over 30 compositions.

The 17^th century Spanish Golden Age represents the largest and best part of the painting collection with works from principal artists such as Ribera, Zurbarán, Murillo, Alonso Cano, Claudio Coello and Carreño de Miranda. The most significant of all of these are the almost 50 works on display in the Museum by Diego Velázquez.

Francisco de Goya is the leading Spanish artista overlapping the change between 18th and 19th centuries. The Prado holds over 140 paintings of the artista, as well as an extensive selection of his drawings and engravings.

Lastly, the 19^th century painting includes examples of the diverse artistic movements from Neoclassicism to social denouncement, passing through Romanticism by Federico de Madrazo, landscapes by Carlos de Haes and Bereuete, and history painting by Eduardo Rosales, Francisco Pradilla, and Antonio Gisbert.

Otras Escuelas (Other Schools)

With more than 300 works, French painting is the fourth best represented national school in the Prado. During the reign of Philip IV, leading representatives of French 17^th-century classicism such as Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain were directly commissioned to decorate the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid, sending their works to Spain although never actually present there themselves. In the early 18^th century, the installation of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain saw the arrival of French painters and of works sent from the French court, accompanied by a growing interest in painting in general.

The German school is not extensively represented in the Prado despite the close links between Spain and the Empire during the Habsburg period. Particularly outstanding are the works by Albrecht Dürer, the greatest German artist oft he 16th century, and by Anton Raphael Mengs, who was summoned to Spain by Charles III in the 18th century and exercised a notable influence on his Spanish contemporaries.

Dutch painting of the 17th century is represented in the Prado by just over 100 works, notably Rembrandt’s Judith (formerly entitled Artemisia).

For historical reasons, British painting is the least well represented school in the collection, although there are notable examples of late 18th century and early 19th century portraiture.

Pintura Filipina (Philippine Painting)

In celebration of the 160^th birth anniversary of Juan Luna, the El Museo del Prado en Filipinas includes Luna’s Cleopatra, which took home the silver medal in the 1881 Expocisión Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Exposition of Fine Arts) in Madrid. Cleopatra has since been under the guardianship of The Prado along with some of Luna’s works.

 

Visit the El Museo del Prado en Filipinas (The Prado Museum in the Philippines) Exhibit at Plaza Roma, Intramuros, Manila until July 31, 2017.

For more information, please visit www.museodelprado.es.

• El Museo del Prado en Filipinas,
• El Museo del Prado en Filipinas Intramuros Manila,
• El Prado en calles,
• El Prado en calles Philippines Filipinas,
• Instituto Cervantes Manila,
• Museo Nacional del Prado,
• The Prado Museum,
• The Prado Museum exhibit,
• The Prado Museum in the Philippines