The
Beginnings
Humans
have been creating images in Spain for as
long as 14,000
years, as the cave paintings in Altamira
(Cantabria)
attest.
Later, the Celtiberian
tribes were producing fine ceramics
and statuary,
perhaps influenced by the presence of the
Greeks,
Carthaginians
and ultimately Romans.
More strictly
speaking, the origins of Spanish painting
lie in the early Middle Ages. From this
period some magnificent frescoes
have been preserved. Although much-faded
examples remain visible in some of the pre-Romanesque
churches
of Asturias,
among the oldest and most invaluable surviving
frescoes
are those in the 11th
century Mozarabic
Ermita de San Baudelio,
near Berlanga
de Duero
(Castilla
y Leon).
In the same unique building is a rich serving
of Romanesque
frescoes
from the following century. Some have been
removed for display at the
Prado in Madrid,
the New
York Met and Boston’s Museum of Fine
Arts.
The single most
outstanding collection of 12th
century Romanesque frescoes can be
seen in the Museu
Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
in Barcelona. It is a collection of pieces
taken from churches
and chapels
across northern Catalunya and carefully
preserved and presented in a unique display.
The most outstanding frescoes of the same
era still in situ are those of the
Panteón Real of the Real Basilica
de San Isidoro in León.
16th Century
One of
the most remarkable artists at work in Spain
in the latter half of 16th
century
was an ‘adopted’
Spaniard. Domenikos
Theotokopoulos
(1541-1614), known as El
Greco
(the Greek), was schooled in both Crete
and Italy,
but spent his productive working life in
Toledo.
His slender, exalted figures and, in the
latter part of his career, a striking simplicity
of colour and fluidity of movement are hallmarks
that many tried to imitate but none emulated.
One of his earlier works is also one of
his greatest –
El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz
(The Burial of the Count of Orgaz) in Toledo’s
Iglesia de Santo Tomé.
El Greco
and Spanish artists in general had a hard
time raising interest in their material
at the court
of Felipe II, who above all preferred
Titian
and a series of lesser Italian
Mannerists. Holding up the Spanish
side to a certain extent was
El Mudo (the Mute), Juan
Navarrete (1526-79), who became one
of Spain’s first practitioners of
‘tenebrism’,
a fashion that largely aped Caravaggio’s
chiaroscuro style.
The Golden
Years
As the 16th
century gave way to the 17th,
a remarkably fecund
era in the history of Spanish painting
dawned.
Amongst
the most admired and famous were Goya,
Picasso,
Dali
and Gaudi,
to name but a few. Goya
Mengas
could spot talent. He encouraged
Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes
(1746-1828), a provincial hick from Fuentedos
in Aragon,
as a cartoonist
in the Fabrica
Real de Tapices
in Madrid.
Here began the long and varied carreer
as Spain’s only true great artist
of the 18th
(and indeed the 19th) century. Goya,
known for his masterpieces such as La
Maja
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