The intellectual children of modernity, Europe's national art museums were designed to raise their nations' prestige, improve the trade, and civilize the morals, yet most visitors did notknow how to look at paintings and sculptures. Using the example of The Prado-Spain's famous art museum founded as the Museo Real in 1819 and nationalized following the dethronement of Queen Isabel I in 1868-this talk approaches museums as sites in which the ways of looking rehearsed in churches, on the street, in theaters, and in stores met the aesthetic gaze to produce a democratic polity.
Co-Sponsored by the Department of Art History.
Spanish and Portuguese
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