CASTLES IN SPAIN

Spain once exerted a magnetic force on the American imagination. After losing most of its New World colonies in the 1820s, Spain entered a long period of political and economic decline during which it came to seem like a backwater of Europe, a land that time forgot. The country represented the opposite of modernity, an improbable survival of folkish and even medieval ways of life. During the later part of the century, and for Americans in particular, tourism in Spain was a trip back in time to a romanticized rural Mediterranean world of colorful costumes and customs, exotic dances and music, and delightfully affordable arts and crafts. In addition to the ambience there was the Prado in Madrid, full of works by Spanish Old Masters such as Velásquez, Murillo, and Ribera who were profound inspirations to the realist painters of the time.

This little-known history is brought to life in a fascinating and innovative exhibition, “Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel, 1820–1920” co-orga-nized by the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va., and the Mil-waukee Art Museum, which runs at the Chrysler through May 16 and then moves to Milwaukee, where it will be on