Oscar winner Jeremy Irons narrates the Prado Museum at the Cinema. From April 15

April 15, 16 and 17 in Italian theaters is the event film The Prado Museum. The Court of Wonders, a new event in Nexo Digitali’s Great Art at the Movies project: a journey through Madrid ’s great museum narrated by Oscar winner Jeremy Irons, famous for films such as The Mystery Von Bulow, The Damage, Mission, I Dance Alone, The House of Spirits, and The Correspondence. 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the Prado (which was founded on November 19, 1819 as Museo Real de Pinturas): to enter its halls is to walk through at least six centuries of history, because the life of the Prado collection begins with the birth of Spain as a nation and the marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

The stars of the film are the Prado’s masterpieces, the great masters who made them, the crowned heads who collected them, but also the European inspiration of a museum that is a treasure chest of treasures and stories. This is the thread that runs through the new docu-film written by Sabina Fedeli and directed by Valeria Parisi, a 3D Produzioni and Nexo Digital production in collaboration with the Prado Museum, with the support of Intesa Sanpaolo and with the participation of SKY Arte. The Prado Museum. The Court of Wonders is coming to Italian theaters for three days only, April 15, 16, 17 (the list will be available soon at www.nexodigital.it).

“The paintings of the Prado,” reads the film’s introduction, “reflect a unique epic that gave rise to one of the most important museums in the world. A collection ’made more with the heart than with reason’; because kings and queens chose only what they loved. An inventory of taste and pleasure that chronicles public affairs, dynasties, cardinals, wars and coalitions. And an inventory of private affairs: a wedding, a table setting, the madness of a queen. It is an interweaving of crowned heads, hidalgos, majas y caballeros, all with their lives, their truths, their messages. It is the story of an era of great patronage, of the Spanish monarchs’ love for great masters, such as Goya, who is present at the Prado with a very rich corpus of more than nine hundred works, including most of the drawings and letters, such as the correspondence with his childhood friend Martin Zapater. Goya’s art has influenced many modern artists. As in the case of May 3, 1808, a painting about the effect of the Spanish uprising against the French army. A work that would become a symbol of all wars and inspired Picasso for his Guernica. Like Picasso, Dali and Garcia Lorca were also bewitched by the museum while the writer and painter Antonio Saura, who returned here again and again to take in the atmosphere of a magical setting, called the Prado ’a treasure trove of intensity.’ So, an art that illuminates the present and questions us: what has the Prado Museum been in these two hundred years, what is it today and what will it continue to represent for future generations this living museum, this museum that has been a beacon for all Spaniards in the dark moments of the dictatorship, a homeland to return to for artists and intellectuals in exile?”

Thus, the authors’ goal was to recount not only the formal beauty and charm of the Prado’s collection but also how topical are the themes dealt with by the works on display, capable of narrating through the history of art, also that of society, with its ideals, prejudices, vices, new conceptions, scientific discoveries, human psychology, and fashions. The Prado Museum. The Court of Wonders is thus intended to be not only the narrative of its works, which will be the heart of the documentary, but also the landscape of the Royal architectures that have been the theater and custodians of the birth and development of the art collections. A universal patrimony that includes not only the works of Vélazquez, Rubens, Titian, Mantegna, Bosch, Goya, and El Greco preserved at the Prado, but also the Escorial, Pantheon of the Royals, the Royal Palace of Madrid, the Convento de Las Descalzas Reales, and the Salon de Reinos. A fresco that contrasts interiors and exteriors, paintings and palaces, brushstrokes and gardens. The birth of the Prado Museum is a compelling story. In 1785 Charles III of Bourbon, commissioned court architect Juan de Villanueva to design a building to house the Gabinete de Historia Natural: it would never become one. In fact, the building would be transformed into the museum we know today.

The development of the docu-film will thus interweave the art narrative with the study of architecture and the analysis of valuable archival materials, and will be punctuated by the testimonies of the various Museum experts interviewed: Miguel Falomir, Director of the Prado, and Conservators Andrés Úbeda de los Cobos, Deputy Director Conservation Museo del Prado; Javier Portús, Chief Curator Spanish Painting up to 1800 Museo del Prado; Manuela Mena, Chief Conservator Painting 1800 and Goya Museo del Prado; and Enrique Quintana, Coordinator Chief Conservation Museo del Prado; Alejandro Vergara, Chief Conservator Flemish Painting up to 1700 and North European Schools Museo del Prado; Almudena Sánchez, Restorer Painting Museo del Prado; Leticia Ruiz, Head of Department Spanish Painting up to 1700 Museo del Prado; José Manuel Matilla, Chief Conservator Prints and Drawings Museo del Prado; José de la Fuente, Restorer Wooden Painting Tables Museo del Prado. Also speaking will be Lord Norman Foster, architect of the Salón de Reinos project (Priztker Prize); Helena Pimenta, Director of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico in Madrid; Laura Garcia Lorca, President of the Foundation named after her uncle, poet Federico Garcia Lorca; Marina Saura, actress and daughter of Painter Antonio Saura; Olga Pericet, dancer; and Pilar Pequeno, photographer.

For all info on films and programming you can visit the Nexo Digitali website.

Oscar winner Jeremy Irons narrates the Prado Museum at the Cinema. From April 15

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