From Mozarabic monks to the Spanish Renaissance
The manuscripts illuminated by Mozarabic monks in the 10th century are the earliest known manifestations of Spanish painting in the Iberian Peninsula - known as Al-Andalus - which covers an area much larger than present-day Andalusia. Today, few traces remain of this Christian art of the 8th and early 10th centuries, as the manuscripts are poorly preserved and therefore little known. However, the Seville Bible, otherwise known as the Biblia Hispalense, has been preserved. It dates from the end of the 9th century, and miniatures depicting three prophets were added at the end of the 10th century. The entire decoration, made up of zoomorphic lettering and friezes framing titles, is of Muslim inspiration, even including references in Arabic script. Then, in the 11th and 12th centuries, wall paintings became widespread in churches. They offer no perspective and the attitudes of the figures are stiff, but realistic details make them a typically Spanish creation.
In the Gothic period, artists working on altarpieces in churches and cathedrals marked their creations with Italian, French and Flemish influences. Andalusian artists of the period are not particularly distinguished from other regions of Spain, but not far away, at the Museum of Valencia, we can see remarkable works by Ferrer Bassá (1285-1348).
In Castile, in the 14th and 15th centuries, French and then Italian influences increasingly marked the Spanish Renaissance. Perspective was studied and the human body glorified. Andalusia wasn't exactly the birthplace of the best artists during this period, but the influence of Fernando de Llanos in Valencia, who introduced Leonardo da Vinci's technique, left its mark on Andalusians.
From painting to baroque sculpture
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, baptized in Seville in 1599, opened a new chapter in Spanish art in Andalusia, then in Madrid, where he settled at the age of 24. He painted portraits of the royal family. The famous painting Las Meninas, exhibited in Madrid at the Prado, is his major, equivocal and surprising work, which Michel Foucault commented on at length in Les mots et les choses, where he wrote that this painting, with the painter's presence in the background, is the "representation of the representation of classical space".
Born in Alcalá la Real, Jaén in 1568, Andalusian sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés, whose work is depicted in a famous portrait painted by Velázquez in 1635, is also one of the leading masters of Sevillian and Spanish sculpture. The sacristy of Seville Cathedral, for example, displays his Christ of Clemency (Crucified Christ), sculpted between 1603 and 1604. Trained in his workshop, Juan de Mesa y Velasco (born in Cordoba in 1583 and died in Seville in 1627) is the author of the Cristo del Amor, 1.80 m high.
The sculptor Pedro de Mena y Medrano (born in Granada in 1628, died in Malaga in 1688), who with Alonso Cano created a group of statues of saints now in the Granada Museum of Fine Arts, was a Baroque sculptor of the Granada school. Trained by his father, he also brought into his workshop another Andalusian sculptor who became no less famous, Pedro Roldán. In the choir of Málaga's Cathedral of the Incarnation, he also sculpted the stalls.
The Andalusian avant-garde
Rafael Romero Barros (1832-1895) painted landscapes and war scenes. Curator of the Cordoba Museum of Fine Arts and the city's Archaeological and Ethnological Museum, he taught painting to his son Julio Romero de Torres, a realist painter born in Cordoba in 1874. Romero de Torres was very popular, obsessively depicting Andalusian women.
Andalusia is first and foremost the birthplace of Pablo Ruiz Picasso, who was born in Malaga on October 25, 1881 and died in Mougins on April 8, 1973. The Spanish artist, who needs no introduction, spent most of his life in France. The Picasso Museum in Málaga is world-renowned for its fine collection.
In Granada, cubist painter Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, born in Jaén, Andalusia, in 1895, frequented the Café Alameda, which opened in 1909 and was a meeting place for the region's leading intellectuals, including composer Manuel de Falla and writer Federico García Lorca. Although García Lorca studied here and made a lasting impression, he later settled in Paris, after passing through Madrid. During the Second World War, he was incarcerated in a camp in the south of France, only to be freed by Picasso. In 1981, the mayor of Jaén awarded him the city's Gold Medal and made him "Favorite Son". He died in Paris in 1984.
José Guerrero, born in Granada in 1914, became a painter under the guidance of García Lorca. After studying in Madrid, in particular at the Casa de Velásquez, he moved to Paris after the Second World War, where he became one of the artists of the École de Paris. The family of this abstract painter, who lived for several years in the United States before returning to Barcelona, made a donation to the city of Granada, which opened the José Guerrero Foundation in 2000.
Pioneers of the photographic avant-garde
Carlos Pérez Siquier (1930-2021) was born in the province of Almería. In 1950, this Andalusian artist founded AFAL, a photographic agency at the forefront of Spanish photography. His first series, entitled La Chanca, is a humanist account of the poor neighborhoods of the coastal city of Almería. He experimented with color, notably with La Playa, a series of portraits and pop seaside scenes in the 1970s.
Jorge Rueda (1943-2011) was an Andalusian photographer, considered the father of photographic surrealism. He worked as a graphic editor for Triunfo magazine. In 1971, he was one of the founders of Nueva Lente magazine, of which he was artistic director from May 1975 to December. 1979. He also curated the Rencontres internationales de la photographie in Arles, and on several occasions directed the Rencontres photographiques en Andalousie (FOTOPLIN).
Contemporary art and street art
Born in Málaga in 1959, Rogélio López Cuenca is one of Spain's most popular painters. During his studies, he became interested in art forms in which text is included in the representation. He produced his first works based on this concept. Fascinated by cultural diversity, this native of Spain has become a benchmark in the art world, with some of his works exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.
Born in 1968 in Seville, Pilar Albarracín is a performance artist who works around Andalusian identity, although she now lives and works in Madrid. She ironically hijacks Andalusian folklore and popular traditions such as bullfighting, as well as the role of women in society. She doesn't hesitate to stage herself in tragicomic situations that can sometimes offend the senses.
"Sex69" or "El Niño de las Pinturas", real name Raúl Ruiz, is a street artist born in Madrid in 1977. He has been painting in the alleys of Granada's Realejo district since the 1990s. Today, he is internationally recognized. In 2017, he was part of a film on street art entitled Sikame, El alma del oro or Sikame, The soul of gold screened in Granada, Barcelona and New York. It features several Spanish graffiti artists and can be viewed on YouTube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKeC7efS2I). Few other cities in Andalusia are as creative as Granada when it comes to graffiti.
