Rilke y el arte español

The Prado Museum exhibition devoted to Rainer Maria Rilke, marking the centenary of his death, explores the influence of Spanish painting on the work of the Austrian writer.

The exhibition at the Prado Museum brings together the mark that Spanish painting left on the work of the Austrian writer Rainer Maria Rilke. It is presented in the museum's Jerónimos building, as part of the centenary of his death, and its proposal centres on the writer's relationship with the art of the Iberian Peninsula.

The core of the exhibition is the journey Rilke made through Spain and his stays in Toledo, Ronda and Madrid. In the capital he visited the Prado Museum and the Royal Armoury, and during that trip he rekindled his admiration for El Greco and his interest in Goya and Velázquez. The works and documents it comprises serve to follow that itinerary and to see how this dialogue with the old masters gradually took shape.

The exhibition also covers the close relationship he maintained for several years with the painter Ignacio Zuloaga, as documented in their correspondence. Rilke was able to see paintings by this artist in Berlin, Dresden, Paris, Munich, Venice and Düsseldorf, and that admiration forms part of the route. It is a proposal designed for anyone keen to discover the Hispanic side of a leading poet.