123- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
The age of the Spanish masters ended abruptly with
the 17thcentury.The Bourbons, like their Habsburg
predecessors, brought foreign artists to their court
but few mustered the prestige or verve of old.The
imported fussiness of Rococo seemed to combine with
Spain’s wider economic and social decline to puncture
the nation’s rich flair for simple austerity and stirring
realism. Of the homegrown crop that did surface, only
Luís Meléndez seems to have avoided post-mortem
obscurity. He was a master of still life, taking the usuals
of kitchen living – jugs, cheese, fruit, fish – and painting
them with a breathtaking concern for detail and the
subtleties of lighting: melons never looked so good.
Meléndez didn’t quite make it as a court painter, his
chances partly sunk by a family quarrel with the new
national art academy, and he apparently died a poor,
bitter man in 1780. Despite the skills of Meléndez and
a sparse scattering of other painters, in the 200 years
between Coello and Picasso, only one Spanish artist,
Francisco de Goya, shone through as a genuine master.Eurovisions: foreign artists at court
With little homespun talent on show, Spain looked to the foreign artists of
the Habsburg’s court for inspiration.They included the greatest Venetian
artist of the 18thcentury, Giovanni BattistaTiepolo. He painted out his final
days in Madrid, bringing lush colour and Rococo frippery to the ceiling of
the city’s Palacio Real. Not everyone likedTiepolo’s style. Indeed, another
foreigner in court, the German Anton Raphael Mengs, apparently despised
the Venetian painter. Under Mengs, Spain had its rather half-hearted
dalliance with Neoclassicism. He too painted ceilings at the royal palace,
takingTrajan and Aurora as subjects, but also governed contemporary
portraiture with highly detailed paintings of King Carlos III and his kin.The King’s sculptor
The most lauded sculptor
to emerge in the post-
Baroque lull of Spanish
art was José Alvarez.
Essentially a Neoclassicist,
Alvarez became court
sculptor to Ferdinand VII
in 1816, not long after
snubbing a similar position
offered up by Napoleon
Bonaparte. Busts of the
King and of Italian
composer Rossini were
celebrated for their
physical accuracy. Few
would match his talent
over the next two
centuries.3.1.5 One-man show: Goya guides
Spain toward modernity