Art Knowledge News
Museo del Prado Joaquín Sorolla Exhibition Breaks a Ten Year Old Attendance Record |
 |
 |
| Written by Miguel Zugaza |
| Wednesday, 16 September 2009 07:10 |
|
 The exhibition “Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923)”
offered the visiting public an outstanding opportunity to see more than 100
paintings by the great Valencian master in what constituted the most
comprehensive and ambitious survey of his finest works. Among the 102 paintings
on display, loaned from museums and collections worldwide, were all the
masterpieces by Sorolla that brought him most fame. They included Return from
Fishing (1894), loaned by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris; Sewing the Sail (1896),
from the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Ca’Pesaro in Venice; Sad
Inheritance (1899), from the Bancaja Collection; Evening Sun (1903), from The
Hispanic Society of America in New York, which returned to Spain for the first
time since it was sold to New York by the artist himself; The Photographer
Christian Franzen (1903), from the Lorenzana Collection; Female Nude (1902), and
The white Boat. Jávea (1905), both from a private collection. The exhibition also included important examples of Sorolla’s work from the Prado’s own collection, including And they still say Fish is expensive! (1894), and Boys on the Beach (1909), as well as a large number of paintings from the Museo Sorolla in Madrid, including The Horse’s Bath (1909), Strolling along the Sea Shore (1909), and The Pink Gown (1916). The exhibition also featured the dazzling group of fourteen monumental panels entitled Visions of Spain, painted by Sorolla for the Hispanic Society of America in New York. They travelled for the first time in their history for exhibition in Spain through the agreement reached with Bancaja. The large number of works by Sorolla assembled at the Prado, all of which are considered masterpieces by experts on the artist, made this exhibition unique and unrepeatable. Over the last few decades Sorolla has been the subject of study in the form of numerous exhibitions and other projects, but there had not been a major retrospective of this type since the one devoted to the artist in 1963 in the Casón del Buen Retiro, organised by the Ministry of Science and Education. In addition, this exhibition, the first to be devoted to Sorolla by the Prado, emphasised the idea of interpreting him as the last great master within its collections. Sorolla was thus seen to fall within the great tradition of the Spanish School through an exhibition of the same scale, importance and scholarly rigour as the others devoted to the leading names of Spanish art held at the Prado over the years, such as those on Velázquez, Ribera, Murillo, El Greco, Zurbarán and Goya. The Prado Museum is renowned as being the largest art gallery in the world. It also exhibits sculptures, drawings, coins and other works of arts, but it is undoubtedly its large collection of paintings which has given it fame worldwide. It houses more than 8,600 paintings, of which they exhibit less than 2,000 because of lack of space available. Many museums throughout the world have less artistic riches in their halls than the Prado Museum has in storage.
Its history began during the reign of Charles III, when he tried to create a single art collection under one roof. But it was not until the reign of Fernando VII when the Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture was created, on 19th November 1819. The kings death caused inheritance problems and endangered the unity of the collection, but with the disappearance of the monarchy in Spain the museum became national property and became known as the Prado National Museum. Visit : www.museodelprado.es/ Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
Related Articles :
