'The Spanish Gallery, Bishop Auckland', The Burlington Magazine ,164 (Mar. 2022): 276-83 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, 2010
Important: The images displayed on this page are for reference only and are not to be reproduced in any media. To obtain images and permissions for print or digital reproduction please provide your name, press affiliation and all other information as required(*) utilizing the order form at the end of this page. Digital images will be sent via e-mail. Please include a brief description of the kind of press coverage planned and your phone number so that we may contact you. Usage: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of the exhibition at the National Gallery of Art. All published images must be accompanied by the credit line provided and with copyright information, as noted. File Name: 2871-071.jpg Spanish Pietà, c. 1680-1700 polychromed plaster, macerated linen fibers, gesso-or glue-soaked fabric, wood, papier-mâché, glass and other materials 115 x 113 x 84 cm (45 1/4 x 44 1/2 x 33 1/16 in.) Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Eugene V. Klein and Mary Jones-Gaston in memory of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Stone Jones, by exchange Cat. No. fig. 109 / File Name: 2871-070.jpg After Pedro de Mena Mary Magdalene meditating on the Crucifixion, late 1660s polychromed wood height: 64 3/16 in. (163 cm) Church of San Miguel, Valladolid
Codex Aqvilarensis 36/2020, pp. 199-218, 2020
Can a museum, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, embrace the art and culture of Medieval Iberia in a way that is honest, informative and stimulating? Focusing primarily on the Museum’s display of medieval art of Iberia and its 1993 exhibition project The Art of Medieval Spain: A.D.500-1200, that remained unfulfilled, and its 1992 prequel Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain I reflect on these ambitious enterprises endeavoring to look at their international context. The goal of both projects was to offer an overview of the main artistic trends in Iberia —from 500 to 1200— using strategic portable works of art in all media. The Museum’s rich holdings of Spanish art made it the logical institution to explore these issues. The Museum could also utilize monumental settings at the Museum such as the Romanesque apse of San Martin from Fuentidueña (Segovia) installed at The Cloisters and Romanesque wall paintings as a critical springboard for exploring artistic identity, meaning and interchange. Combined with major art collectors such as Archer Huntington (1870-1955), founder of the Hispanic Society of America, J. P. Morgan (1837-1913) and William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) American museums nurtured a new understanding of Medieval Spain. Recent interest in Medieval Spain is exemplified by the Minneapolis Institute of Art 2015 key acquisition of a monumental Romanesque stone crucifixion group. Possibly originating in Northern Spain it also reveals many rich sculptural links to Burgundian Brionaise sites, and, thus, exemplifies important issues of identifying artistic place in a time of mobility.
National Museums in Spain: A History of Crown, Church and People
Lanzarote Guiral, J.M. (2011), "National Museums in Spain: A History of Crown, Church and People", in: Aronsson P. and G. Elgenius, Eds., 'Building National Museums in Europe 1750–2010'. EuNaMus Report No. 1. Linköping (Sweden), pp. 847-880.
The present report provides an overview on the history of national museums in Spain as well as an analysis of a selected set of case studies. In the first part of this report a historical outline of the creation and evolution of museums is provided from the point of view of the enlarging scope of the concept ‘national heritage’. The choice of national museums in the second part exemplifies the role played by different categories of heritage in the construction of national master narrative in Spain, including fine arts (Museo del Prado), archaeology (Museo Arqueológico Nacional) and nature (Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales). The study of the Museum of the Americas (Museo de América) allows to explore the complex relationship between Spanish national identity and the imperial past, whereas the Museum of History of Catalonia (Museu d’Història de Catalunya) leads reflection to the competing nationalist projects within the state. Finally, the case of the Museum of the Spanish Army (Museo del Ejército Español) is considered in the light of the contemporary debates on ‘historical memory’ that have marked its recent renovation.
2019
In December 2018, the Victoria & Albert Museum reopened Cast Court after a period of intensive rehabilitation. Its collection of plaster casts of the principal monuments and works of art is one of the very few that is still held in the original place for which they were designed. The impact of this encyclopaedic, exhaustive and universal collection on visitors to what was then London’s South Kensington Museum was summarized as “an excursion around the world”, in a spirit close to that which lit up the Great Exhibition of 1851. Originally, the dual function of museums as teaching workshops and catalysts of the general public’s critical culture placed collections of full-scale architectural reproductions in the ambiguous terrain between the academy and the market. Architecture in the museums took on board the risks of defining the value of the copy, its pedagogic purpose and its circulation as manifesto. This article concentrates on two reproductions of Spain’s architectural heritage that allow us to reconstruct this journey: from the Court of the Alhambra to the Pórtico de la Gloria.
The Museum is Open: Towards a Transnational History of Museums 1750-1940 (Meyer and Savoy, eds.)
Museum Anthropology Review, 2015
Towards a Transnational History of Museums 1750-1940, and touted as aimed at an academic audience of art historians, museologists, historians, cultural scholars, and historians of science, the volume seems to promise a museological panograph that is sweeping not only in terms of geography and chronology, but also in addressing the variety of museums that burgeoned during those nearly two hundred years.
Communicating Context: Spain's Newly Renovated Museo Arqueológico Nacional
American Journal of Archaeology, 2017
Archaeology museums are one of the most important ways that our field communicates its findings to the wider public. 1 The work of archaeology museums, however, is by no means simple. Archaeologists, curators, and museum directors have grappled with recent debates focusing on the politics of display, the cult of the masterpiece, the appeal to multiple publics, and the acquisition and ownership of cultural property. 2 This is an exciting and fraught time for archaeological collections. It is in this context that we should look to the recent renovation of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España (MAN) in Madrid. The new installation , opened to the public in April 2014, addresses many current issues in the field in meaningful ways: it aims for universal accessibility; it embraces technology; it values the effective communication of archaeological findings to a wide audience; it emphasizes the fundamental importance of archaeological and historical context; and it historicizes the museum itself. Potential dangers lurk in the choices that guided MAN's renovation. Appeals to a broad audience, for instance, can lead to the watering down of scholarly rigor, the Disneyfication of the past, the valorization of attention-grabbing technologies over the objects themselves, and the heavy-handed intrusion of the curator onto the viewer's experience. While these threats exist, they are not in evidence at MAN. The new installation offers an importantand what is likely to be influentialmodel for the exhibition of archaeological collections. MAN holds one of the outstanding archaeological collections in Europe. Its origins lie in the 19th-century European creation of national museums. It was founded in 1867 by Queen Isabella II (1830-1904) with the aim of documenting the entire history of Spain and offering an overview of ancient civilizations. Originally, MAN brought together material from three different institutionsthe Museum of Medals and Antiquities at the National 1 The reviewer would like to thank Andrés Carretero Pérez, director of the Museo Ar-queológico Nacional, who kindly provided much information about the renovation project. Thanks also to Elaine Gazda, for sharing her knowledge about many recent museum renovations, and to Yolanda García. Additional figures can be found under this article's abstract on AJA Online (www.ajaonline.org).