Enfilade

From the Prado:

Rome in Your Pocket: Sketchbooks and Artistic Learning in the Eighteenth Century
Roma en el bolsillo: Cuadernos de dibujo y aprendizaje artístico en el siglo XVIII
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 15 October 2013 — 19 January 2014

José del Castillo, Allegory of the Arts, Italian sketchbook I, p. 3, 1762
(Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado)

Curated by José Manuel Matilla, Head of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Museo del Prado, Studying Rome focuses on a group of artists’ sketchbooks that the Museum has acquired over the past few decades, produced by a series of Spanish artists including Goya and José del Castillo during their formative years in Rome in the last quarter of the 18th century. These sketchbooks allow for a study of the type of training experienced by young Spanish artists in Italy as they used them to set down their artistic interests. On occasions they also include later works directly inspired by the motifs that they studied.

The exhibition includes 6 of the small sketchbooks that accompanied these artists in Rome and 23 more from various Spanish and international institutions, in addition to 22 independent drawings that offer a complete overview of the artistic practice that was common to European culture at this period. As such, this material provides a source of first-hand information for understanding the artistic and personal context of the period.

The exhibition also provides a unique opportunity for seeing the complete contents of the sketchbooks belonging to the Prado through electronic screens sponsored by Samsung, which visitors can consult in the exhibition space.