Today I write not. I wanted to share with you / you this article that appeared today in "El País". Can you imagine the arrival of the train to Geneva? Or the Goyas hidden in a salt mine? The next time you visit / visited El Prado, see the works with other eyes, thinking of his journey. Impress me much this picture of police with his pistol in hand, and the Sagrada Familia del Greco at his side.
Feature: Masterpieces in exile
And Prado fielded his fate
trip Reconstructionthe art treasures in the Civil War began
November 16, 1936. The Junkers German Condor Legion baited with Madrid. The bombs hit the Prado Museum. The president, Manuel Azana, decides it's time to complete the evacuation of works tentatively begun under the leadership of Rafael Alberti. There may be more republics or even return the monarchy, but a treasure like this there is only one. A few days later begins the long journey that would end with the arrival in Geneva in February 1939 of more than 20,000 works of art.
This wonderful adventure, which included involuntary actors of the stature of Rembrandt, Velazquez, Goya, Titian and Rubens could have been written by the best writer the most intractable thriller.
Despite having been almost seventy years of this, what happened to the funds of the Prado during the war has been poorly treated by historians. As in a strange conspiracy of silence of all parties involved. Until now. The historian Arthur Castellary Colorado (Huelva, 1950) reconstructs the story in Exodus and Exile art. The odyssey of the Prado Museum Civil War (Chair), while a documentary, Save the Prado, Alfonso by Arteseros, added light on the period with the testimony of witnesses and protagonists of the adventure.
The story certainly has all the ingredients. A total of 71 trucks moved to Valencia the jewels of the Prado (which joined other de El Escorial, the Academy of San Fernando, the Royal Palace and the Palace of Liria). From there to Barcelona. And Figueras. Finally, the treasure was safely on the other side of the border along with thousands of English frozen by the cold and confused with hunger in 1939, in that merciless winter exile.
The fate of the pictures ran parallel to the Government of the Republic II. And he was always under the direct control of the president. "Below our room was the Velazquez" writes Azaña in Peralada Castle and in the final days of the fall of the Catalan Republican. "Every time I bombed near despair. I feared that my destiny had brought me to see the museum made a bonfire. It was more than they could bear. "
It had actually begun in August 1936, when the Museo del Prado had to close their doors. The most important works were taken down. Covered with blankets and plastic, occupied the bottom the building, along with other seized by the Board of Seizure and Protection of Artistic Patrimony, who presided Timoteo Pérez Rubio, the protagonist also unexpected rescue operation of the museum.
Alfonso Perez Sanchez, who was director of the Prado for eight years is question in the preface of the book on the need for eye surgery with the benefit of hindsight. His answer is blunt. The bombs dropped on the palace of Villanueva in the first days of war and to justify the decision. Although it had to be in the midst of an environment that discouraged. And against the fascist propaganda that spread the idea that if the pictures came out would be exchanged for weapons. Sánchez Pérez concludes that trip was not only necessary, but all the English have a moral debt owed to those responsible for the operation.
The weak output of the first works, organized by Alberti, continued with the maximum guarantee possible between April and May 1937. Pumps Prado reached in November 1936 had sounded a resounding ultimatum. The carrier was commissioned Macaroni packing thousands of pieces of cardboard coated waterproof and packed aboard trucks traveling at 15 kilometers per hour.
In Valencia, the works are installed in the Torres de Serrano, a veritable fortress. In late 1937, the national troops advancing force to a new transfer. The government moves to Barcelona and decided that the caravan Azaña artistic accompany you to Catalonia. Peralada Castle, 10 kilometers from the border, and the talc mine Vajol are the last hiding places for treasure.
February 1939. Catalonia is about to fall to the forces of the Legion. Output should be organized under the protection of democratic countries. The Catalan painter Jose Maria Sert gets it. On February 2 the agreement is signed Figueras. In France, the works are transported by train. When, after its entry into Geneva on February 13, 1939, workers who opened the 572 boxes of treasure, guarded in the palace of the League of Nations, breathed a sigh of relief. The 45 Velazquez, 138 goyas, Greco 43 were still there with the rest of the treasure.
Shortly after the war began, the Government of the Republic appointed the Valencian painter and poster artist Josep Renau Director of Fine Arts. In front of the Museo del Prado placed a now famous Pablo Picasso. Alberti was in charge of the Romantic Museum. But the real protagonist of this story was the painter Timoteo Pérez Rubio, elected to chair the Board of Seizure and Protection of Artistic Patrimony. Of the three appointments, the latter was, in fact, the most important. Renau action was important during the period in which the works were in Valencia, but the relationship between Picasso and the museum was nonexistent. From Paris encouraged Pérez Rubio to use his name as security for international efforts would be undertaken. "You can see that we are friends since childhood. O brothers. Whatever you want. Use me for what I consider necessary."
Pérez Rubio, married to writer Rosa Chacel, was preparing to leave summer when war broke out. A car drove towards the mountains to rent a room at The Paular. I was looking for new landscapes. They intercepted the pass. The war had broken out. Pérez Rubio, without political affiliation, offered to do anything. Without it, the long journey of Prado would not have been possible. As his wife, Rosa Chacel, "waged war to defend the artistic treasure English. "Taken literally
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