Influence of the Netherlands
Due to important economic and political links between Spain and the Netherlands (which included present-day Holland and Belgium) from the mid-15th century onwards, the early Renaissance in Spain was heavily influenced by Netherlandish painting, leading to the identification of a Hispano-Netherlandish school of painters. Overall the Renaissance and subsequent Mannerist styles are difficult to categorize in Spain, due to the mix of Netherlandish and Italian influences, and regional variations.
Apart from technical aspects, the themes and spirit of the Renaissance were modified to the Spanish culture and religious environment. Consequently, very few classical subjects or female nudes were depicted. Rather, the works frequently exhibited a sense of pious devotion and religious intensity—attributes that would remain dominant in much art of Counter Reformation Spain throughout the 17th century and beyond.
Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age, a period of Spanish political ascendancy and subsequent decline, saw a great development of art in Spain. The period is generally considered to have begun at some point after 1492 and ended by or with the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659; in art the start is delayed until the reign of Philip III (1598–1621) or just before, and the end is also delayed until the 1660s or later.
Luis de Morales
The most popular Spanish painter of the early 16th century was Luis de Morales (c. 1510–1586), called "The Divine" by his contemporaries, because of the religious intensity of his paintings. From the Renaissance style, he also frequently used sfumato modeling, and simple compositions but combined them with Netherlandish style precision of details. His subjects included many devotional images, including the Madonna and Child.
Luis de Morales, Madonna and Child
Oil on canvas. 1586. Museo del Prado, Madrid.
El Greco
Doménikos Theotokópoulos, better known as El Greco (1541–1614) "the Greek," was one of the most individualistic of the painters of the period, developing a strongly Mannerist style based on his origins in the post-Byzantine Cretan school, in contrast to the naturalistic approaches then predominant in Seville, Madrid, and elsewhere in Spain.
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Portrait of a Man by El Greco, 1604
This is presumably a self-portrait by the great Spanish Mannerist.
Universally known for his great impact in bringing the Italian Renaissance to Spain, El Greco studied the great Italian masters of his time—Titian, Tintoretto, and Michelangelo—when he lived in Italy from 1568 to 1577. Many of his works reflect the silvery grays and strong colors of Venetian painters such as Titian, while adding strange elongations of figures, unusual lighting, disposing of perspective space, and filling the surface with very visible and expressive brushwork. Although his signature style would eventually become renowned and influence later artists, during his lifetime, El Greco received harsh criticism in his native Crete and his adopted country of Spain for not conforming to stylistic norms.
In 1577, El Greco relocated to Spain, where he produced his mature works. His mature style is characterized by a tendency to dramatize rather than to describe. The strong spiritual emotion transfers from painting directly to the audience. El Greco's preference for exceptionally tall and slender figures and elongated compositions, which served both his expressive purposes and aesthetic principles, led him to disregard the laws of nature and elongate his compositions to ever greater extents, particularly when they were destined for altarpieces.
The Disrobing of Christ (El Espolio) by El Greco, 1577–79
Oil on canvas. Sacristy of the Cathedral, Toledo. This is one of the most famous altarpieces by El Greco. His altarpieces are renowned for their dynamic compositions and startling innovations.
A significant innovation of El Greco's mature works is the interweaving between form and space. A reciprocal relationship is developed between the two that completely unifies the painting surface. This interweaving would re-emerge three centuries later in the works of Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso.
El Greco's most famous painting, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586–88) blends his signature style with the classical revival of the Renaissance and medieval renderings of the body. The lower register represents the earthly plane in which mourners gather for the count's burial. The count, the mourners, and most of the clergy are rendered in a manner that acknowledge the body beneath the clothing. However, the two high-ranking clergy members burying the body, as well as the one reading the sermon on the right, wear bulky garments that do not acknowledge the body, as figures were often depicted in the Middle Ages. On the upper register, Christ, the Virgin Mary, and a host of members of the heavenly court gather to welcome the count's soul (the kneeling semi-naked man in a loincloth) to heaven. In this other worldy depiction, El Greco has elongated the bodies and filled negative spaces with sweeping, expressive lines and forms to create a sense of drama.
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz by El Greco
Now El Greco's best known work, this painting illustrates a popular local legend. It is clearly divided into two zones: the heavenly above and the terrestrial below, brought together compositionally.