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| MUSEUMS: The Prado Museum (5). Spanish Medieval and Renaissance Painting |
 With the new Spanish Medieval and Renaissance sections, the Prado Museum, Spain's emblematic Art gallery, reaches an important milestone in its current transformation process. Wall-paintings reinstalled, old polyptychs shining bright again and recent acquisitions surprise the visitors equally in their new rooms.After Classical Sculpture, the next section that had been waiting for ages to be dignified was Spanish Medieval and Renaissance Painting. March 2010 has therefore been an important date for the museum. The northern end of the lower gallery houses now everything from Romanesque to Spanish Renaissance. The most surprising space is room 51c, where Rafael Moneo (who was also responsible for the extension of the New Prado around a 17th century cloister) has recreated the “mozárabe” architecture of San Baudelio de Berlanga, as the perfect frame for the 12th century frescoes that decorated once the walls of that church in Soria. The 15th century Gothic polyptychs of Juan Rodríguez de Toledo and Nicolás Francés are back in room 50 after a redeeming restoration. Another Prado masterpiece, the 14th century Jaume Serra’s tryptich's wings are now displayed in that same room, but there is also place for novelty: a recently acquired “Virgen de la Leche” by Pere Lembrí. New acquisitions and careful restorations are filling the void of Catalan, Valencian and Aragonese schools amidst the up-to-now mostly Castilian medieval collection. The acquisition of Lembrí’s panel is an excellent example, but restoring and displaying Gonçal Perís, Guerau Genìs, Lluis Borrasà and Jaume Huguet in rooms 51a and 51b is also to be praised. Among the most extraordinary rediscoveries, Bermejo’s “Santo Domingo de Silos” has been restored to its original frame, just recovered from the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, and looks impressive. Pedro Berruguete, Juan de Flandes, Juan de Juanes, Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina and Luis de Morales have traditionally been well displayed and are, therefore, sufficiently known to the public. But even here, their current presentation in rooms 52a, 52b and 52c admits surprise and admiration: Juan de Flandes “Crucifixion” (acquired in 2005), Pedro Berruguete’s monumental “Adoration of the Magi” (almost never shown) and Luis de Morales’ “Birth of the Virgin” (acquired in 2003) are remarkably surrounded by all the other works of these artists. The new rooms are close enough to Italian 14th-16th c. and Flemish 15th-16th c. sections as to allow comparison, although merging sections to allow chronological itineraries might have been a better solution. Couldn’t Juan de Flandes hang by Hans Memling? Juan de Juanes by Bernardino Luini? Couldn’t Blas de Prado be confronted to Alessandro Allori? The result is anyway impressive, and surely deserves a new guided visit to the Prado Museum. |
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