by Jon Lackman | 21 March 2007 | Modern, Museums
From The Virginian-Pilot: “‘It’s an understudied period,’ [curator Jeff Harrison] said, grinning because the Chrysler Museum of Art is able to exhibit what few Americans have seen: 19th century and early 20th century Spanish paintings. The show, which opened last week, contains about 65 works from the collection of New York City’s Hispanic Society of America, which hardly ever loans its paintings … ‘It’s a black hole in art history, but people are beginning to be shamed into knowing something about it,’ said [Hispanic Society curator] Marcus Burke, who thinks he knows why Spanish paintings from this period did not get included in the art history books: Prejudice. ‘A whole constellation of prejudices,’ insisted Burke … One trigger was Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship from 1939 to 1975, he said. Paintings made just before Franco’s takeover could be seen as nationalist, since they feature the ‘pure’ values of an earlier Spain shown in landscapes, peasants and gypsies. Art historians did not want to champion paintings they felt might have led to fascism, Burke said, an idea he debunks … Then there’s the ‘black legend.’ ‘The United States was settled by English, Dutch and French, and they were Spain’s principal enemies,’ Burke said. ‘So we inherited from our ancestors a suspicion of Spain. It didn’t hurt that Spain was so ardently Catholic,’ unlike much of the United States … ‘It has kept people from studying the art. It certainly explains why nobody knows about it. How else do you explain that an artist of the magnitude of Beruete is not in the books?’ … Another top scholar on this material, Mark Roglan, director of the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, has a different view. He believes Spanish art from that period has been overshadowed by the emphasis on French Impressionism but has been no more neglected than 19th century art from many other places. ‘How many exhibitions and how much appreciation in the United States has there been for Italian painting of the 19th century? For Portuguese painting of the 19th century? For Swiss painting? There are all these countries that increasingly we are studying and learning more about.’”
