11 Facts About Spanish art

Spanish art has been an important contributor to Western art and Spain has produced many famous and influential artists including Velazquez, Goya and Picasso.

Spanish art was particularly influenced by France and Italy during the Baroque and Neoclassical periods, but Spanish art has often had very distinctive characteristics, partly explained by the Moorish heritage in Spain, and through the political and cultural climate in Spain during the Counter-Reformation and the subsequent eclipse of Spanish power under the Bourbon dynasty.

Late Gothic Spanish art flourished under the unified monarchy in the Isabelline Gothic and Plateresque styles, and the already strong traditions in painting and sculpture began to benefit from the influence of imported Italian artists.

The rest of 19th-century Spanish art followed European trends, generally at a conservative pace, until the Catalan movement of Modernisme, which initially was more a form of Art Nouveau.

Spanish art's subjects included many devotional images, including the Virgin and Child.

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Spanish art's work was very influential and developed significantly through his career.

Spanish art's style moved from the naturalism of his early period, to a more delicate, idealistic approach, revealing Venetian and van Dyck influences.

Significant Spanish art painters taking up the new style were Juan Carreno de Miranda, Francisco Rizi and Francisco de Herrera the Younger, son of Francisco de Herrera the Elder an initiator of the naturalist emphasis of the Seville School.

Spanish art showed great interest and attention to the details of reflections, textures and highlights reflecting the new spirit of the age of Enlightenment.

Spanish art's son, Federico de Madrazo, was a leading figure in Spanish Romanticism, together with Leonardo Alenza, Valeriano Becquer and Antonio Maria Esquivel.

Spanish royal collection was accumulated by Spanish monarchs beginning with Isabel the Catholic, Queen of Castile, who accumulated large and impressive collections of objets d'art, 370 tapestries, and 350 paintings, a number by important artists including Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Hieronymus Bosch, Juan de Flandes, and Sandro Botticelli.