The Golden Age and the Baroque
Velázquez, Zurbarán and Murillo painted in a kingdom in decline – and created Spain’s greatest artistic age.
The 17th century is known as Spain’s Siglo de Oro, the Golden Age. It is a paradox. The kingdom was losing wars, the economy was faltering and the population was shrinking. Yet at the same time Cervantes wrote Don Quixote and Calderón his plays, and painting reached heights it had never attained before. Artists worked above all in Madrid, around the court, and in Seville, the wealthy port where ships from the Americas docked. The Church and the king were the great patrons.
Diego Velázquez became court painter to Philip IV and created portraits and scenes still regarded as among the finest paintings in the world. His Las Meninas of 1656 is one of the most discussed images in the history of art. In Seville, Francisco de Zurbarán painted monks and saints with quiet gravity, and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo bathed the Virgin Mary and street children in a soft, warm light. In Naples, Jusepe de Ribera painted dramatic scenes of martyrdom.
Spanish Baroque was less sensual and more solemn than its Italian counterpart. It was concerned with faith, death and truth. Light falls harshly against dark backgrounds, in the manner of Caravaggio. Still lifes, bodegones, present simple objects with an almost spiritual presence. Sculptors such as Gregorio Fernández and Juan Martínez Montañés created painted wooden figures of the suffering Christ and the grieving Mary, which are still carried through the streets during Holy Week.