The Prado: Spanish Culture and Leisure, 1819–1939

The Prado, we are told, means simply ‘meadow’, designating a stretch of land that regularly played host to Madrid’s many popular festivals (such as the festival of San Isidro) and not the museum that would eventually be named after this location.

This is an ambitious book. As the subtitle suggests, it attempts to tell the story of Spanish culture and leisure across two centuries. The scope is broad, the story complex, unfolding a veritable pageant that includes a cast of thousands, cultural, urban, political history; history of class and taste as well as museum history, all rolled into one. Such ambition is to be commended. It lifts the writing of cultural history to new heights, offering a contextual reading of the Paseo del Prado and the museum that came to bear its name. The simultaneous focus on leisure, culture and politics allows Eugenia Afinoguénova to map the different roles the museum was assigned to play in Spain’s shifting political landscape.

Book review of The Prado: Spanish Culture and Leisure, 1819-1939, by Eugenia Afinoguénova, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017, ISBN 9780271078571

• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....