Spanish Painters
Painter
El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos)
(1541-1614)
 Was born in Greece
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez.
(1599 – 1660)
 Was born in Seville, Spain.
 He married the daughter of his
teacher Pacheco
Political
Climate in
Spain
 Battle of
Lepanto
 Catholic
Reformati
on
Spain and
France fought
for a Catalan
territory in the
north of the
Pyrenees.
Influenced by
Tiziano y
Tintoretto
Miguel Ángel
and Rafael
Style / Most important work
• Mannerism. Lack of
proportion: long, crooked, and
wavy shapes.
• Contrast of light and dark.
• Mysticism: feelings of another
world.
Important work:
 El Entierro del Conde
Orga
 El Caballero de la mano
en el pecho
 Vista de Toledo
Caravaggio and Baroque art (was one of the
Rubens.
great artists of the Baroque
style)
• Use of aerial perspective.
• Depth.
• Topics that Velázquez painted
at this early stage are religious
and popular, drawn from
everyday life.
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes
(1746-1828)




War of
Independence
Was born in Fuendetodos-Aragón, against the
Spain.
French empire
represented by
Goya married Josefa Bayeu, the
Napoleon
sister of famous painters Ramón
Bonaparte.
and Francisco.
In 1792 an unknown illness left
Goya deaf (deaf).
He died at 82 years in exile in
Bordeaux (Bordeaux).
Diego
Velázquez and
Rembrandt.
Francisco and
Ramón Bayeau
y Subías
Important work:
 Adoración de los Reyes
Magos
 La Vieja friendo huevos
 El Aguador de Sevilla
 Bodegón a lo divino
 Retrato de Felipe IV
 Las Meninas
Baroque and Rococo styles but
never fully incorporated into
the influence of neoclassicism.
Romanticism.
Most important work:
• La Maja desnuda
• La Maja Vestida
• Los Caprichos
• Los Desastres de Guerra
• El 2 de Mayo
• Los Fusilamientos del 3 de
mayo
Joan Miró (pintor y escultor)
(1893 – 1983)
 Was born in Barcelona, Spain
The civil war in
Spain
(Republicans.
Popular front
against the
military
command led
by General
Francisco
Franco. His
dictatorship
went from 1939
until 1975 when
he died.
Cézanne, Van
Gogh, and
cubism’s
artists.
• Saturno Devorando a su Hijo
• El Perro Semihundido
• La Duquesa de Alba, in
NY(we will see it in
April)
Surrealism, Dada and modern
art (Dada: artistic and literary
movement born in 1916, based
on the absurd, irrational and
spontaneous).
He combined abstract art with
the fantastic surrealism.
Most important work:
 La masía
 Paisaje Catalán (El cazador)
 Cabeza de campesino de
catalán
 Naturaleza muerta del zapato
 Aidez
Salvador Dalí
(1904 – 1989)
 Was born in Figueras, Spain
The civil war in
Spain.
Government of
General Franco
(1939-1975).
Bombing of
Guernica.
Sigmund Freud’s
writings on the
erotic significance
of subconscious.
A group of
surrealist painters
from Paris.
Raphael (The
Italian Raffaello
Sanzio)
Pablo Picasso
(1881 – 1973)
 Was born in Málaga, Spain
• Considered one of the creators of
Cubism.
The civil war in
Spain.
Government of
General Franco
(1939-1975).
Bombing of
Guernica.
El Greco,
Matisse and
Paul Cezanne.
Surrealism style
Most important work:
 La persistencia de la
memoria
 Leda atómica
 El Cristo de San Juan de
la Cruz
 Cubism
Most important work:
 Las señoritas de Avignon
(The Young Ladies of
Avignon)
 Guernica
 La llorona (The Weeping
Woman)
Important Notes
Pablo Picasso
The main phases of his Picasso's art (as the world and his life changed, so did his art) were:
1. Blue Period (1903-5). Sad, gaunt people in gloomy settings, and then circus and harlequin
subjects. The predominant colour is a melancholy blue.
Example: "Harleqins family" 1906.
2. Rose Period (1905-6). Romantic, delicately treated subjects in pale pink. Example: "The two
brothers" 1906.
3. Cubism (1907-25, includes the Proto-Cubist, Analytical and Synthetic Periods).
Natural forms were changed to geometric-like shapes. Distortion and multi-view figures in mainly
dull colours.
Examples: "Guitar" 1913, "Three Musicians" 1921.
4. Neo-Classicism (1920-30). Heavily-built sculpturesque Grecian women. Example: "Three
Woman at the spring" 1921.
5. Surrealism (1926 onwards). Dream-world compositions. Example: "Drawing for Guernica"
1937.
6. A style reminiscent of stained glass (1932 onwards). Grotesque conventionalized and
disjointed forms outlined with thick black lines. Examples: "Interior with girl drawing" 1935.
7. A style with strong expressionist elements (1938 onwards). Subjects that anticipate the
terror of war and reveal the conflict in his mind. Double images and extreme distortion. Example:
"Two women by the sea". At one stage he appeared to be influenced by Negro sculpture His first
consideration in artistic expression is form.
Even when his Cubist paintings bear a resemblance to objects, we must not look for realism in the
usual way, but we should aim at deriving satisfaction from the patterned compositions of
fragmentary and overlapping shapes. Sometimes we wonder what an object or a head looks like
on the other side and we walk around to see. Similarly, certain paintings of Picasso's show both
the front and the side of a person or object. The painting "Three Musicians'' is often referred to as
the last great work of Cubism.
Diego Velazquez
Velazquez’s Las Meninas is a 1656 painting, in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Las Meninas (Spanish for
the Maids of Honor) is a portrait of Infanta Margarita, the daughter of King Philip IV, and his second wife
Mariana of Austria. The painting's complex and enigmatic composition is an excellent example of how
great works of art are made.
The person who stands in the middle is the Infanta Margarita (the princess, daughter of the king and
queen). She has two maids of honor, one on each side of her, a chaperone, a bodyguard, two dwarfs, and
a dog. Velázquez has also painted himself, standing just behind the princess and her companions. He is
standing at the artist’s easel. He has stopped painting for a moment and looks straight out at the viewer.
At the back of the room is a mirror in which we can see the top halves of the bodies of the king and
queen. This means that the king and queen are the viewers who are looking at the painting. The king and
queen are probably being painted by Velázquez.