The great stories of art history hinge on constructing a canon. Yet the way they are formed is continually reassessed through new research and the cultural, social, and political context of each era. When a museographic narrative moves through ups and downs, reshaping the system of values and judgments it rests on, it mirrors the turbulence of 19th century art. The surge of Artistic Pioneers showed that artists rejected by the Academy were, in fact, the ones creating something new, translating their era into language and vision that forged their own lineage.
These early pioneers and the avant-gardes that followed did not appear evenly across the Western world. France drew attention while Spain often looked inward toward ironic academic guidelines laid down by institutions like San Fernando and the National Fine Art Exhibitions. Our country nonetheless boasted a remarkable repository in the Prado Museum, opened in 1819, which houses a European collection rooted in the 16th century. Its radical approach touched not only French romanticism but also the works of Manet and the Impressionists who came after him. Although Spanish painters sometimes copied from museums, their approach remained conservative, drawing on the early neoclassicism of David and its pictorial formulas. This helps illustrate how normative discourse operates and how it is applied: Eduardo Rosales faced misunderstanding and outright rejection of his fresh modernity, Goya was underrepresented for long stretches, and even El Greco did not always enjoy the prominence we grant him today.
Matilde Periche, Antonio Gisbert, and below them Portrait of a Knight by Emilio Sala, both from the Prado, now housed in the Alicante museum, reflect the shifting pathways of art history.
But the 20th century altered everything. Its turning point came with Alfred Barr’s opening of MoMA in 1929 in New York, presenting Post-Impressionists; in 1933 he welded an 18th-century genealogy of the avant-garde into a single narrative, sometimes sidelining much of the academic and institutional art of the era. National and international exhibitions of national heritage carried the same tension. While France tended to store, Spain often left Goya to the past in El Prado, even as contemporaries like the patriarch Madrazo moved to the Museum of Modern Art, and later the current National Library building in BC. Since then, collections have undergone endless shifts: sometimes hung with care, sometimes kept in storage, or displayed in spaces like the Casón del Buen Retiro. The XIX century works eventually found their way back to El Prado, in a process accelerated by Rafael Moneo’s extension, and in 2007 the XIX works were shown in a temporary exhibition curated by Javier Barón and José Luis Díez before returning to the Villanueva building in 2009. More than a century after their separation, dialogue with the Musée d’Orsay, opened in 1986, underscored a broader aim: to describe a century with its lights and shadows, centers and margins, including academicism as a fold in the larger canon. D’Orsay signaled a paradigm shift, letting 19th-century works seep into other collections more slowly.”
Marianela by Vicente Bañuls Aracil, from the National Art Museum of Catalonia and held at Mubag in Alicante since 2017, stands as an example of the shifting web of collections.
Provincial museums
In academic circles, analysis of the 2007 museography and the 2009 museographic decisions shows a debate about an art history that does not take into account cultural studies and new materialisms. No major participation by female artists, no inclusion of illustrated magazines or photography—the invention that reshaped vision and imagination, as well as painting itself—and no clear inclusion of colonial histories in continually presented pieces. Those are precisely the gaps that marked the XIX century as the period when much of the non-peninsula Spain lost its voice. The Royal Decree reorganizing state collections between the Prado and MNACRS in 1995 complicated tracing a genealogy from Goya to Picasso within the Villanueva building. This helps explain the complexity of presenting the 19th century in Spain. Some issues have gradually been corrected through more timely decisions. The Las Furias exhibition, curated by Falomir, is an example of that progress. The 2014 project De Tiziano a Ribera quietly but decisively normalized the presence of women by highlighting the patronage role of the Hungarian Mary in the royal collections. The MNAC’s 19th-century galleries, steered by Francesc Quílez, offer another strong model. Prado’s latest exhibitions also reveal discoveries, re-hanging painters from the 19th and early 20th centuries who had long been overlooked. The path forward is clear, even if there is still work to do in aligning collections with broader historical narratives.
A possible explanation of 19th century art in Alicante
And if telling Spanish 19th-century history proves difficult for the nation’s top museum, it is even harder for provincial Fine Arts museums. With two decades of existence, MUBAG remains young, yet its holdings were built from pension funds formed by provincial councils from 1863 onward to study in San Fernando, Rome, or Paris during the 19th and 20th centuries. The museum houses works that emerged from national and provincial painting competitions between 1952 and 1960 and others that illustrate the development of Alicante’s art from the 19th century onward. Prado remains aware of its 1800s collections, publishing a catalog raisonné in 2015 and pursuing recovery of lost artifacts led by José Luis Díez. The idea of collaboration suggests that provincial museums can grow by working more closely with major institutions.
Loans and deposits of large collections matter for telling micro-stories and local narratives. Starting from a practice begun by the Madrid museum, once called El Prado disperso and later renamed El Prado extended, the policy of loaning pieces—often small enough to fit in a case—has become a lifeline for provincial museography. Pieces stored in Madrid warehouses in the 1930s found homes in Alicante and in local memory. The current permanent collection at Gravina Palace includes deposits from National Heritage, the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts, the San Pío V Museum in Valencia, Alicante City Council, and the MNAC, including works like Marianela. Donations from donors such as Rafael Beltrán Ausó and José Manuel Magro have accompanied and contextualized these paintings and sculptures with cabinets, fans, and various applied art objects. This policy of loans and deposits strengthens the province’s ability to tell its own art story and to connect with the national story. A thoughtful approach to cultural policy helps these centers reach the public more effectively, rather than keeping culture locked behind private walls. Museums should be seen as ideas, not just buildings.
Public heritage
There is a push to defend a public heritage that belongs to everyone, including works from MNCARS. Emilio Varela, though rooted in Madrid, holds a vital place in the regional collections as Alicante’s premier painter of the early to mid-20th century. The goal is to keep his work—along with pieces by Sala, Casanova, Bañuls, Bushell, Gisbert, Agrasot, Cabrera, and Poveda—visible at MUBAG. Beyond that, annual budgets should fund acquisitions that reflect the founding goals of the provincial collection and close gaps in the narrative. The absence of female-produced work remains a major shortcoming. Public funds should invest in the local and national identity, not lean toward tourist-first schemes or external collections that fail to strengthen civic fabric. The landscape of culture deserves sustained support and genuine engagement with its people, because culture is nourishment now and for the future.