Lección Doce- Los artistas españoles

Domenico Theotocopulos was a Greek painter during the Spanish Renaissance known by the nickname "El Greco" (the Greek). In Italy, El Greco studied under Titian, the great Italian Renaissance painter. He then moved to Spain and embraced the school of Mannerism, a movement that emphasized the artist's interpretation of nature. El Greco's paintings of human and divine dramas often resulted in deformed figures and bold colors. His work even had some elements of abstraction, or art without reference to a specific object. El Greco's masterpiece, The Burial of the Conde de Orgaz, a depiction of a count's funeral said to be attended by angels, is a good summary of his style.

Diego Velazquez painted in a realistic style using natural colors, vivid brushstrokes, and strong contrasts of light and shade. In 1623, Velazquez became a court painter to King Philip IV in Madrid. Las Meninas, one of Velazquez's late masterpieces, reveals the experimentation of his final work. In the wall-size biographical painting, Velazquez is interrupted from painting by a young princess and her maids.

Francisco de Goya painted realistic portraits for the Spanish aristocracy but in an era of revolution and personal hardship. In the 1790s, Goya's work took on a darker tone when an illness left him deaf. When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, Goya witnessed many French atrocities. In response, he painted The Third of May 1808 in which innocent Spaniards face a French firing squad. The painting's emotional punch and crude human forms greatly influenced the French impressionists. Many called Goya the "father of the Moderns."


Pablo Picasso is credited with creating Cubism, an influential style that stresses geometric shapes and fragmentation. Hints of Cubism could be seen in earlier Picasso paintings such as Les Demoiselles de Avignon. The painting has a brutish beauty that takes cues from native African art. In 1937, Picasso contributed Guernica to the Spanish pavilion at the World's Fair in Paris. The nightmarish mural, named after a Basque town bombed during the Spanish Civil War, foreshadowed the surrealism of Picasso's later work.