Long an object of travelers' fascination, Spain in the Golden Age is often represented as a monochromatic society, ruled by the Catholic church and a decadent nobility. Spanish painting has shared this fate, seen as a dark reflection of devout piety, gravity, and austerity. Yet painting in Spain is far richer than this view supposes. During the Renaissance the splendid court of Philip II led a society made wealthy by a monopoly on New World trade. His Spain became a mecca for the finest artists of Europe, especially those from Italy and the Netherlands. During the next 250 years, a glorious art of painting flourished at the Habsburg and Bourbon courts in Madrid, and in the cities of Seville, Valencia, and Toledo: majestic, fiercely emotional, elegant, and urbane. From the insightful portraits of El Greco and Velazquez to the stark poetry of Zurbaran's religious works, from images of monarchic authority to courtly entertainments, painters working in Spain created an art of extraordinary stature, woven into the international world of Mannerism, the Baroque, and the Rococo. Janis Tomlinson traces these myriad influences as they developed from generation to generation of artists, culminating in the unique accomplishment of Francisco Goya, last of the old masters and first of the moderns.

The National Gallery has one of the finest collections of Spanish paintings outside Spain, and this book features nearly all the pictures normally on display.

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