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Romanesque

The apse of Santa Maria Taüll church, a Catalan fresco in Lérida, early 12th Century

In Spain, the art of the Romanesque period represented a smooth transition from the preceding Roman styles. A major centre for Romanesque frescoes was in Catalonia with good examples in the churches of the Vall de Boí area; many of these were only uncovered during the 20th Century. The finest examples of Castillian Romanesque frescoes are considered to be those in the San Isidoro in Leon, the paintings from San Bauderlio in Castillas de Berlanga, Soria and those from Santa Cruz de Maderuelo in Segovia.

Gothic

The Gothic art of Spain represented a gradual development from previous Romanesque styles, being led by external models, first from France, and then later from Italy. Another distinctive aspect was the incorporation of Mudejar elements. Eventually the Italian influence, which transmitted Byzantine stylistic techniques and iconography, entirely displaced the initial Franco-Gothic style

MGothic painting by Jaime Serra, illustrating the Italian influences Gothic style

Early Renaissance

Due to important economic and political links between Spain and Flanders from the mid-15th century onwards, the early Renaissance in Spain was heavily influenced by Netherlandish painting, leading to the identification of a Hispano-Flemish school of painters. Leading exponents included Fernando Gallego, Bartolome Bermejo, Pedro Berruguete and Juan de Flandes.

* File:Luis de Morales - Pietà.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Pietà, by Luis de Morales

Renaissance and Mannerism

Overall the Renaissance and subsequent Mannerist styles are hard to categorise in Spain, due to the mix of Flemish and Italian influences, and regional variations.

The main centre for Italian Renaissance influence into Spain was Valencia due to it's proximity and close links with Italy. This influence was felt via the import artworks including four paintings by Piombo and many prints by Raphael, the arrival of the Italian Renaissance artist Paolo de San Leocadio, and also by Spanish artists who spent time working and training there. These included Fernando Yanez de la Almedina and Fernando Llanos, who displayed Leonadesque features in their works, such as delicate, melancholic expressions, and sfumato modelling of features.

Elsewhere in Spain, the influence of the Italian Renaissance was less pure, with a relatively superficial use of techniques that were combined with preceding Flemish practices and already included Mannerist features, due the relatively late examples from Italy, when Italian art was already strongly Mannerist. Apart from technical aspects, the themes and spirit of the Renaissance were modified to the Spanish culture and religious environment. Consequently, very few classical subjects or female nudes were depicted, and the works frequently exhibited a sense of pious devotion and religious intensity - attributes that would remain dominant in much art of Counter Reformation Spain throughout the 17th Century, and beyond.

Important Mannerist artists included Juan de Juanes, Vicente Juan Masip, the painter and architect Pedro Machuca, and Juan Correa de Vivar. However, the most the most popular Spanish painter of the early 17th Century was Luis de Morales. Morales was called by his contemporaries "The Divine", because of the religious intensity of his paintings. From the Renaissance he also used sfumato modeling, and simple compositions, but combined them with Flemish style precision of details. His subjects included many devotional images, including the Virgin and Child.

Baroque Painting

Baroque elements were introduced as a foreign influence, through visits by Rubens and van Dyck. Significant Spanish painters taking up the new style were Juan Carreno de Miranda (1614-1685), Francisco Rizi (1614-1685) and Francisco de Herrera the Younger (1627-1685), son of Francisco de Herrera the Elder an initiator of the naturalist emphasis of the Seville School. Other notable Baroque painters were Claudio Coello (1642-1693) and Juan de Valdes Leal (1622-1690).

The pre-eminent painter of the period - and most famous Spanish painter prior to the 19th Century appreciation of Velazquez, Zurbaran and el Greco - was Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-1682). Working for most of his career in Seville, his early work reflected the naturalism of Caravaggio, using a subdued, brown palette, simple but not harsh lighting, and religious themes that are portrayed in a natural or domestic setting, as in his Holy Family with a Little Bird (c. 1650). Later he incorporated elements of the Flemish Baroque from Rubens and Van Dyck. In the Soult Immaculate Conception, a brighter and more radiant colour range is used, the swirling cherubs bringing all the focus upon the Virgin, whose heavenward gaze and diffuse and warmly glowing halo make it an effective devotional image, an important component of his output; the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin theme alone was represented about twenty times by Murillo.

Golden Age

The Spanish Golden Age. a period of Spanish political ascendancy and subsequent decline, saw a great development of art in Spain. Important early contributors included Juan Bautista Maíno (1569–1649), who brought a new naturalistic style into Spain, Francisco Ribalta (1565–1628), and the influential still life painter, Sánchez Cotán (1560–1627).

El Greco (1541–1614) was one of the most individualistic of the painters of the period, developing a strongly Mannerist style, in contrast to the naturalist approaches predominant in Seville, Madrid and elsewhere in Spain at the time. Many of his works reflect the silvery-greys and strong colours of Venetian painters such as Titian, but combined with strange elongations of figures, unusual lighting, disposing of perspective space, and filling the surface with very visible and expressive brushwork.

Although mostly active in Italy, particularly in Naples, José de Ribera (1591–1652) considered himself Spanish, and his style is sometimes used as an example of the extremes of Counter-Reformation Spanish art. His work was very influential (largely though the circulation of his drawing and prints throughout Europe) and developed significantly through his career.

Being the gateway to the New World, Seville became the cultural centre of Spain in the 16th Century, and attracted artists from across Europe, drawn by lure of commissions for the growing empire, and for the numerous religious houses of the wealthy city. Starting from a strongly Flemish tradition of detailed and smooth brushwork, as revealed in the works of Francisco Pacheco (1564–1642), over time a more naturalistic approach developed, with the influence of Juan de Roelas (c. 1560–1624) and Francisco Herrera the Elder (1590–1654). This more naturalistic approach, influenced by Caravaggio, became predominant in Seville, and formed the training background of three Golden Age masters: Cano, Zurbarán and Velázquez.

Francisco Zurbarán (1598–1664) is known for the forceful, realistic use of chiaroscuro in his religious paintings and still lifes. Although seen as limited in his development, and struggling to handle complex scenes. Zurbarán's great ability to evoke religious feelings made him very popular in receiving commissions in conservative Counter-Reformation Seville.

Sharing the same painting master - Francisco Pacheco - as Velázquez, Alonso Cano (16601–1667) was also active in sculpture and architecture. His style moved from the naturalism of his early period, to a more delicate, idealistic approach, revealing Venetian and Van Dyck influences.

18th Century Painting

The beginning of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain under Philip V led to great changes in art patronage, with the new French oriented court favoring the styles and artists of Bourbon France. Few Spanish painters were employed by the court - a rare exception being Miguel Jacinto Melendez (1679-1734) - and it took some time before Spanish painters adapted to the new Rococco and Neoclassical styles. Leading European painters, including Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Anton Raphael Mengs, were active and influential.

• File:'Still Life with Oranges, Jars, and Boxes of Sweets', by Luis Meléndez.jpg|thumb|px|upright| Still Life with Oranges, Jars, and Boxes of Sweets, by Luis Meléndez

Restricted from royal sponsorship, many Spanish painters continued the Baroque style in religious compositions. This was true of Francisco Bayeu y Subias (1734-1795), a skilled fresco painter, and of Mariano Salvador Maella (1739-1819) and who both developed in the direction of the severe Neoclassicism of Mengs. Another important avenue for Spanish artists was portraiture, which was an active sphere for Antonio Gonzalez Velazquez (1723-1794), Joaquin Inza (1736-1811) and Agustin Esteve (1753-1820). But it is in the genre of the still life that some of the most impressive Spanish paintings of the 18th Century were made, in the works by artists such as Bartolome Montalvo (1769-1846) and particularly, Luis Egidio Meléndez (1716-1780).

Continuing in the Spanish still life tradition of Sánchez Cotan and Zurbaran, Meléndez produced a series of cabinet paintings, commissioned by the Prince of Asturias, the future King Charles IV, intended to show the full range of edible foods from Spain. Rather than being merely formal studies in Natural History, he used stark lighting, low viewpoints and severe compositions to dramatise the subjects. He showed great interest and attention to the details of reflections, textures and highlights (such the highlight on the patterned vase in Still Life with Oranges, Jars, and Boxes of Sweets), reflecting the new spirit of the age of Enlightenment

19th Century Painting

Various art movements of the 19th Century influenced Spanish artists, largely through them undertaking training in foreign capitals, particularly in Paris and Rome. In this way Neo-classicism, Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism became important strands. However, they were often delayed or transformed by local conditions, including repressive governments, and by the tragedies of the Carlist Wars. Portraits and historical subjects were popular, and the art of the past - particularly the styles and techniques of Velazquez - were significant.

Early years were still dominated by the academicism of Vincente Lopez (1772-1850) and then the Neoclassicism of the French painter, Jacques-Louis David, as in the works by Jose de Madrazo (1781-1859), the founder of an influential line of artists and gallery directors. His son, Federico de Madrazo (1781-1859), was a leading figure in Spanish Romanticism, together with Leonardo Alenza (1807-1845), Valeriano Dominguez Becquer and Antonio Maria Esquivel.

• Image:Juana la Loca de Pradilla.jpg|right|thumb|200 px|Frederico Pradilla Ortiz: Doña Juana La Loca (Joan the Mad)

The later part of the century saw a strong period of Romanticism represented in history paintings, as in the works of Antonio Gisbert(1834-1901) , Eduardo Rosales(1836-1873) and Francisco Pradilla(1848-1921). In these works the techniques of Realism were frequently used with Romantic subjects. This can clearly be seen in Joan the Mad, a famed early work by Pradilla. The composition, facial expressions, and stormy sky reflect the dramatic emotion of the scene; yet the details of clothing, and texture of the mud, show great realism in perspective and style.

• File:Joaquín_Sorolla_002.jpg|left|thumb|Children on the beach, 1910. (Prado Museum).

The Valencian Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923) excelled in the dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the sunlight of his native land, thus reflecting the spirit of Impressionism in many paintings, particularly his famous seaside paintings. In Children on the beach he makes the reflections, shadows and gloss of the water and skin his true subject. The composition is very daring, with the horizon omitted, one of the boys cut off, and strong diagonals leading to the contrasts and increased saturation of the upper-left of the work.

20th Century

During the first half of 20th Century many leading Spanish artists worked in Paris, where they contributed to - and sometimes led - developments in the Modernist art movement. As perhaps the most important example of this, Picasso, working together with the French artist Braque, created the concepts of Cubism; and the sub-movement of Synthetic Cubism has been judged to have found its purest expression in the paintings and collages of Juan Gris.

Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904), which consisted of somber, blue-tinted paintings, was influenced by a trip through Spain and the death of a friend. Many of Picasso's early works were created while he was living in Spain. There are many precise and detailed figure studies done in his youth under his father's tutelage, as well as rarely seen works from his old age that clearly demonstrate Picasso's firm grounding in classical techniques. Picasso presented the most durable homage to Velázquez in 1957 when he recreated Las Meninas in his characteristically cubist form. While Picasso was worried that if he copied Velázquez's painting, it would be seen only as a copy and not as any sort of unique representation, he proceeded to do so, and the enormous work—the largest he had produced since Guernica in 1937—earned a position of relevance in the Spanish canon of art.

Salvador Dalí was a central artist within the Surrealist movement in Paris. Although Dalí was criticized for accommodating Franco's regime, Andre Breton, the Surrealist leader and poet, asked him to represent Spain at the 1959 Homage to Surrealism Exhibition which celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Surrealism. In line with the Surrealist movement's objectives, Dalí stated that his artistic aim was that "...the world of imagination and of concrete irrationality may be as objectively evident ... as that of the exterior world...", and this goal can be seen in his most familiar painting, The Persistence of Memory. Here he paints with a precise, realistic style, based on studies of Dutch and Spanish masters, but with a subject that dissolves the boundaries between organic and mechanical and is more akin to the nightmarish scenes of the Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, whose Garden of Earthly Delights provided the model for the central, sleeping figure of Dalí's work.

Joan Miró was also closely associated with the Surrealists in Paris, who particularly approved of his use of automatism in composition and execution,designed to expose the subconscious mind. Although his later and more popular paintings are refined, whimsical and apparently effortless, his influential period in the 1920s and 1930s produced works that were provocative in their sexual symbolism and imagery, and employing rough, experimental materials, including sandpaper, unsized canvases, and collage. In mature period painting, La Leçon de Ski, his characteristic language of signs, figures and black linear forms against more textured and painterly background is evident.

Post WW2

The Catalan artist Antoni Tapies became famous for his abstract works, many of which use very thick textures and the incorporation of non-standard materials and objects. Tapies has won several international awards for his works.

References

• Gardner's Art Through The Ages - International Edition, Brace Harcourt Jovanovich, 9th Edn. pg. 985. 1991
• Werner Haftmann Painting in the Twentieth Century - A Pictorial Survey (Translated by Janet Seligman) pg 80. Praeger Publishing, 1965