“A botanical stroll through the Prado” is an invitation to discover more than 40 botanical species represented in its collection

From today until 30 March this new thematic route offers an approach to the Museum’s permanent collection through a selection of works on display. Devised by Eduardo Barba Gómez, gardener and researcher into art and botany, it reveals how the latter subject plays a significant role in the stories.

The diversity and richness of the Museo del Prado’s collections allow for this new interpretative approach, with a focus on more than 40 botanical species through a selection of 26 paintings by artists of the significance of Patinir, Fra Angelico, Titian, Velázquez, Rubens and Zurbarán. The route is complemented by a publication and an audio guide in Spanish and English.

This thematic route encompasses a broad chronological span, from Roman sculpture to the early 18th century, in order to reveal how the depiction of flowers and plants in paintings can refer to mythological, religious, aristocratic or popular symbols in order to imbue the scene with qualities intrinsic to them.

The Museo del Prado’s thematic routes are intended to encourage a new way of looking at the Museum. To achieve this, the Prado requests the collaboration of professionals from outside the institution and the range of disciplines normally represented in it. The aim is to offer visitors a different, unusual but also rigorous gaze on the collections and one that focuses on themes and issues which normally go unnoticed, like previous examples “Reflexions of the Cosmos”, “The Female Perspective”, “Calderón and Paintings and “Another colecctions: the Museo del Prado Frames”. 

This is the case with “A botanical stroll through the Prado”, a stimulating thematic route created by Eduardo Barba Gómez, gardener and researcher on art and botany Through 26 works by artists of the significance of Patinir, Fra Angelico, Titian, Velázquez, Rubens and Zurbarán, it shows how observing and reflecting on depictions of plants and flowers in works of art creates a connection in time between the artist and the visitor.

Each era has represented plants in a different way, with greater or lesser attention paid to detail and botanical fidelity. In the Romanesque period the extreme simplification of their forms gave plants a particularly unique beauty. In the Gothic period artists aimed at precision and the correct description of each plant and flower, and it can be said that it was at that moment that the botanical portrait became a distinct element within the work of art, culminating in the Renaissance. In that period and as a legacy of previous centuries, plants proliferate in the foreground of works, represented in a notably naturalistic manner.

The species chosen for depiction could be present in the artist’s immediate surroundings, even just outside his studio. On other occasions and as a result of expeditions to different parts the world, exotic plants from distant countries were added to enrich the range of artistic flora, particularly from the 16th century onwards. In all these cases works of art reveal artists’ fascinating ability to observe the natural world, delicately portraying the plants as if they were another character in the scene.

The route covers a broad chronological span, from a Roman classical sculpture to an early 18th-century canvas. In addition, it focuses on a wide range of supports, including marble, semi-precious stones and of course panels and canvases, all of them providing space for botanical representation.