Romanticism, history painting and Realism
A turbulent century in which painters wrote the nation’s history on huge canvases and foreigners discovered “romantic Spain”.
After Goya’s death in 1828, Spain entered a century of civil wars, revolutions and changes of regime. Artistic life centred on Madrid, the academy and the national exhibitions, held from 1856. The Romantic generation painted portraits of the bourgeoisie and writers, scenes of popular life and dramatic landscapes. Meanwhile French and British writers and painters travelled around the country and created the image of an exotic Spain of bullfighters, Gypsies and Moorish palaces.
Around the middle of the century history painting became the most prestigious genre. Large canvases with scenes from Spain’s past, such as Queen Isabella on her deathbed or Joanna the Mad beside her husband’s coffin, won prizes at the exhibitions and were bought by the state. They were meant to give the young liberal nation a shared history. Eduardo Rosales and Francisco Pradilla were among the leading exponents of the genre. Their works are now in the Prado. Many of them were seen by large crowds at the exhibitions.
Towards the end of the period a new realism emerged. Landscape painters such as Carlos de Haes began painting directly from nature. Marià Fortuny from Catalonia became internationally famous for small, glittering genre pictures and Orientalist subjects, sold through a Parisian dealer. The Prado Museum, which had opened in 1819, became the property of the nation in 1868. When Barcelona hosted a world’s fair in 1888, a new, modern Spain was ready to step forward. With that, a new era began.