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El Museo Imaginado
Virtual Museum of the Spanish Painting out of Spain

Published in Art Libraries Journal, vol. 26, nº 4, 2001.
We would like to thank to Ms Gillian Varley for her comments and corrections.

Introduction.

From the 17th, through the 18th  and especially during the 19th Century, Spanish Painting experienced an expatriation process with had tremendous consequences, most of them irreversible. As a result, museums and private collections around the world now contain large numbers of works by Spanish painters, including masterpieces by Velázquez, Greco, Murillo, Gris, Picasso, Miró, etc. The exodus began with the exchange of gifts between the Spanish monarch to other royal families, with the natural interchange of knowledge, fashions and artistic tendencies among élites, and with the travels of the artists themselves to Italy, France, etc.  In the 19th century this trend was intensified during the French invasion of Spain (1808-1812) and by the growth of the art market, as a consequence initially of dealers in Europe and then by those in America. Finally, Spain’s own domestic political upheavals forced an important into exile, along with their works. On a positive note, this diffusion of Spanish art has meant that they have served as cultural ambassadors, generating interest in Spain’s artistic output and encouraging the development of an active area of scholarly research. But on the other hand, owing both to the indiscriminate seizure of works by Napoleon’s troops and the aesthetic criteria of other exporters,  Spain’s artistic output has provoked misconceptions among the general public when it has been seen stripped of its cultural and historical context, and this has been true even of the conclusions reached by scholarly research. While these paintings will never return to their birthplace, information technology does enable us today to create a virtual museum of the works of Spanish painting which are now held outside our country. 

 The Project.

This project was born ten years ago, when Dr. Federico García Serrano decided to make his Doctoral These about the history of the collecting InIEurope, the exodus of the Spanish Painting, the phenomenon of  “Musées imaginaires” (Malraux, Tintin-Hergé), the treatment of the work of art and its representation  in different formats, etc. The leitmotiv for this research was the making of a virtual museum  of Spanish painting around the world, having as starting point   Gaya Nuño’s book: La pintura española fuera de España (Madrid, 1958). The mission of our Virtual museum is the study, analysis and collection of the Spanish Painting beyond Spain’s borders wherever it may be found and whatever the reason for its being there. The main objective is to create a research tool for the Spanish and European History of Art.