Golden Age of Spanish Painting

Golden Age of Spanish Painting (1492-1659). In seventeenth century, Spanish painters produced outstanding artworks in Mannerist and Baroque style. The Burial of Count Orgaz, Las Meninas, Surrender of Breda, St. Luke the Painter before Christ on the Cross, Dead Christ Supported by an Angel, and Beggar Boys Eating Melon are some of this great masterpieces. Spanish art contained a strong mark of mysticism and religion that was encouraged by the counter-reformation and the patronage of Spain's strongly Catholic monarchs and aristocracy. [1] It was, in fact, the great Spanish masters who guided European painting along the paths of naturalistic realism. [2]

> The culmination of Spanish seventeenth-century painting, and one of the climaxes of world art in general, is reached in the work of Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660), an artist whose mastery of space and light was admirably served by an impeccable technique. [3]

Diego Velázquez, La Rendición de Breda, 1635.

Masterpieces

By El Greco

* A View of Toledo

* The Burial of the Count of Orgaz

* Portrait of a Nobleman with His Hand on His Chest

* Christ in the cross adored by two donors.

By José de Ribera

* The Beggar

* El Martirio de San Felipe

* Immaculate Conception

* The Penitent Magdalen

By Francisco de Zurbarán

* La defensa de Cádiz

* Cristo en la cruz

* St. Luke the Painter before Christ on the Cross

* Aparición de San Pedro a San Pedro Nolasco

* The Apotheosis of Thomas Aquinas

By Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

* La Asunción de la Virgen

* Dolorosa

* The Little Fruit Seller

* Beggar Boys Eating Grapes and Melon

* Inmaculada de El Escorial.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1667-1670.

Landscape painting is rare in Spanish art, and appeared mainly as background in this era.

* El Greco, The Vision of Saint John, ca. 1608-1614

* Diego Velazquez, Villa Medici, Pavilion of Ariadne, 1630.

* Diego Velazquez, Cardinal Infante Don Fernando as a Hunter, 1632-1633.

* Diego Velazquez, King Philip IV as a Huntsman, 1634-1635.

* Diego Velazquez, St Anthony Abbot and St Paul the Hermit, 1635.

* Diego Velazquez, Prince Baltasar Carlos with the Count-Duke of Olivares at the Royal Mews, 1636.

Diego Velazquez, View of Zaragoza, 1647.

Some Spanish Still life painters in the Golden Age were: Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560-1627), Christóbal Ramírez de Arellano, Juan van der Hamen y León (1596-1631), Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) and Antonio de Pereda (1611 - 1678). Sánchez Cotán, stylistically, falls within the school of El Escorial, with Venetian influence. For approximately twenty years he pursued a successful career in Toledo as a painter. [4]

Still Life with Game Fowl, Vegetables and Fruits by Juan Sánchez Cotán, 1602.

* Christóbal Ramírez de Arellano, Still Life with Grapes, Melon and Apricots.

* Juan van der Hamen y León, Still Life with Fruit and Glassware.

* Francisco de Zurbarán, Tazas y vasos, 1633.

* Antonio de Pereda, Still Life with Fruits, 1650.

## See also[edit]

El Greco, La Sagrada Familia.

* Painting of the Dutch Century
* Dutch Golden Age
* Gallery of Spanish Masterpieces

Diego Velazquez, Infanta Maria Theresa.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Assumption of the Virgin.

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MAKING ART WITH ART

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