THE DISCOVERY OF
SPAIN
BRITISH ARTISTS AND COLLECTORS: GOYA TO PICASSO
18 July 2009 - 11 October 2009
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound,
Edinburgh,
EH2 2EL
Telephone 0131 6246 6200; recorded information 0131 332 2266
The exhibition is generously supported by The Friends of the National Galleries of
Scotland, The Spanish Tourist Office, The Spanish Ministry of Culture and The
University of
Edinburgh.
Admission £8.00 (concessions £6.00), FREE to children under 12
A spectacular celebration of Spanish culture will bring some Mediterranean colour to
Edinburgh this summer, as the National Gallery of Scotland unveils the highlight of its festival programme for 2009.
The Discovery of Spain will explore the fascination for Spanish art and culture in nineteenth and early twentieth-century
Britain,
and examine the taste of Hispanophile collectors and artists.
Outstanding examples of Spanish art, including works by Velázquez, El
Greco, Murillo and Zurbarán, will form a dramatic centerpiece for the
exhibition. Paintings by major British artists who were captivated by
the experience of travelling through
Spain
will also dominate the show; these include important paintings by Sir
David Wilkie, David Roberts, John Phillip, Arthur Melville and David
Bomberg.
The Discovery of Spain can only be seen in Edinburgh, and will include over
130
paintings, watercolours, drawings, prints and photographs, with important loans from the Royal Collection, the National
Gallery, London, Tate, and other distinguished public and private collections across the
UK.
Spain
is now a familiar and much-loved part of the British view of
Europe, but in the eighteenth century it was relatively little known. The Discovery of Spain will explore the process by which this changed, and convey the
excitement of the period from 1800 to the 1930s (the eras of Goya and
Picasso), when the country's architecture, customs, fashions and
painting were gradually ‘discovered' by artists and collectors, and
created a sensation in Britain.
The period covered by The Discovery of Spain begins and ends with conflicts which prompted extraordinary
artistic responses from both Spanish and British painters - the
Peninsular War (1807-14) and the Spanish Civil War. In the first of
these, British military intervention played a key role in Spain's struggle for independence from
France,
and artists from both countries drew inspiration from the dramatic
events of the war. Goya sensitively depicted the British hero,
The Duke of Wellington (National Gallery, London), and the harrowing reality of the conflict in his
Disasters of War prints; while Sir David Wilkie adopted a more romanticised approach in his magnificent
The Defence of Saragossa (Royal Collection).
The Defence of Saragossa proved extremely popular on Wilkie's return to Britain and the series of paintings to which it belongs
was
quickly acquired by King George IV. Its popularity reflected a growing
enthusiasm among British artists for Spanish subjects, which developed
throughout the nineteenth century. A major stimulus to this was the
publication in 1845 of Richard Ford's Handbook for Travellers in Spain. A landmark in travel literature, it helped shape the British perception of
Spain,
as did the brilliant watercolours and oil paintings of artists such as
John Frederick Lewis, David Roberts and John Phillip, who toured
extensively through the country, delighting in its culture, customs,
costumes and architecture.
Phillip painted animated studies of Spanish life, sometimes on an epic scale, among which
‘La Gloria': A Spanish Wake (National Gallery of Scotland) is the supreme example. At the time of
its purchase in 1897, Phillip's masterpiece was the most expensive
painting the Gallery had ever acquired. David Roberts' extended trips
to Spain in the 1830s and '40s (during which he produced beautiful studies of buildings such as the cathedrals in
Burgos and Seville) were a prelude to his work in Africa and the
Near East. To their fascinated
British audience, the work of these artists depicted an irresistible
culture hovering between the familiar and the exotic. The architecture
of Moorish Spain, represented in the exhibition through the work of
Owen Jones, provided a decorative vocabulary which was to have a
significant impact on Victorian design, and enriched further the
perception of
Spain as being quite unlike any other part of
Europe.
Richard Ford was also a discerning critic and connoisseur who contributed to the growing awareness of Spanish art
in Britain. The Discovery of Spain will celebrate
the extraordinary quality of the collections of Spanish painting formed
in the nineteenth century by figures such as the Duke of Wellington,
Sir William Stirling-Maxwell and
John and Joséphine
Bowes. Among the outstanding loans exploring their taste will be
Velázquez's A Spanish Gentleman (Apsley House), Zurbarán's
St Francis in Meditation (National Gallery,
London), El Greco's The Tears of St Peter (Bowes
Museum) and Woman in a Fur Wrap (Pollok House), and Murillo's
Flower Seller (Dulwich Picture Gallery). Such works created a complex and layered image of the
‘golden
age' of Spanish art, ranging from the moving and profoundly spiritual
paintings of Zurbarán, to the sensual appeal of El Greco's portraits,
and charm of Murillo's scenes of everyday life. It was above all Velázquez's achievement which exerted a powerful influence upon generations of painters in
Britain. The various ways in which this was felt will be explored in the exhibition through works such as Sir John Everett Millais's
Souvenir of Velázquez (Royal Academy of Arts), John Singer Sargent's
Portrait of W. Graham Robertson (Tate) and James McNeill Whistler's
Brown and Gold (Self-Portrait) (Hunterian
Art Gallery).
In the closing years of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth, the explorations of British artists
in Spain
extended beyond the urban centres, when painters such as Arthur
Melville, William Nicholson and David Bomberg became attracted to the
qualities of brilliant light and vibrant colour to be found in the
varied landscapes across the country. The sun-filled exuberance of
Nicholson's
Plaza del Toros, Málaga (Tate),
was in stark contrast to the more sober tones for which the artist is
better known, while Melville's vivid sense of colour found its perfect
expression in watercolours such as
The Orange Market, Saragossa (Fleming Collection) and oils such as
A Spanish Sunday; Going to the Bullfight (Dundee
University).
The exhibition's last section will address the crisis of Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, which prompted a new sense
of sympathy with Spain on the part of many British people. It will include Picasso's extraordinary
Weeping Woman (Tate), which toured
Britain with the artist's iconic depiction of the devastation and suffering caused by warfare -
Guernica - in 1938. The painting will be shown along with the artist's
preparatory drawing for it and a related etching. This group will form
a powerful finale to The Discovery of Spain.
They will be shown alongside diverse and richly imaginative responses
to the conflict from major British artists, such as Percy Wyndham
Lewis, Edward Burra and Henry Moore.
The Discovery of Spain has been organised by Christopher Baker, Deputy Director at the National Gallery of Scotland, and guest-curated by Dr David Howarth (University of
Edinburgh) and Dr Paul Stirton (University of
Glasgow). A team
of specialists will contribute essays to the catalogue, which will make
a major contribution to the study of Hispanic-British cultural
relations:
David Howarth, Paul Stirton, Nick Tromans, Hilary Macartney, Michael Jacobs and Claudia Heide.
PUBLIC PROGRAMME
To
complement the exhibition, a special education programme has been
devised to cater for a wide variety of audiences. This will include
lectures for adults, theatrical and musical evenings, and events for
schools and community groups. Speakers contributing to the lecture
programme include the broadcaster Andrew Graham-Dixon, the artist
Alison Watt, the critic Richard Cork, and Gabriele Finaldi, Deputy
Director of the Prado. In addition, an international conference
exploring the issues raised by the exhibition will be held at the
National Gallery of Scotland in October 2009; the papers will be
published in 2010.
A TASTE OF
SPAIN
To coincide with the opening weekend of the exhibition
Edinburgh - A Taste of Spain (17-19 July) will be held on the Mound, outside the National Gallery in the heart of
Edinburgh.
The Spanish regions will provide live music, theatrical performances
and the opportunity to taste superb food and wine. Taste of
Spain is FREE. For more information see
www.tastespain.info.
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