The culture of Spain is influenced by its Western origin, its interaction with other cultures in Europe, its historically Catholic religious tradition, and the varied national and regional identities within the country. It encompasses literature, music, visual arts, cuisine as well as contemporary customs, beliefs, institutions, and social norms. Beyond Spain, Spanish culture is considered the historical basis of Hispanic American culture and an important influence on Filipino culture.
History The ancient peoples of Spain included Celts, Iberians, Celtiberians, Tartessians, Vascones, as well as Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies. From an early age, It was entirely conquered by Rome, becoming a province of the Roman Empire (Hispania). The ancient Romans left a lasting cultural, religious, political, legal and administrative legacy in Spanish history, being today the cultural basis of modern Spain. The subsequent course of Spanish history added new elements to the country's culture and traditions.
The Visgoths established a united Hispania and kept the Latin and Christian legacy in Spain between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages. Muslim influences played a significant role during the Early Middle Ages in the areas conquered by the Umayyads. However, these influences were not completely assimilated into the Spanish culture, leading to conflicts and ultimately to the Christian Reconquista ("Reconquest") that would largely shape the culture of the country.A comparison can be drawn with the North African nations, who also lived under the Roman Empire before Muslim rule. However, there is scarce reminder of the Roman presence in North Africa as the predominant culture is Arabic nowadays. After the definitive defeat of the Muslims during the Reconquista in 1492, Spain became again an entirely unified Roman Catholic country. In addition, the nation's history and its Mediterranean and Atlantic environment have played a significant role in shaping its culture, and also in shaping other cultures, such as the culture of Latin America through the colonization of the Americas.
, around 85% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin, as is also the case in the other languages of Spain, with the exception of Basque. Ancient Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin. Spanish also features a sizeable vocabulary from medieval Arabic, from other Romance languages, and minor of influences from Basque and Celtic languages, among others.
Spain has one of the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world.
Literature
The term "Spanish literature" refers to literature written in the Spanish language, including literature composed by Spanish and Latin American writers. It may include Spanish poetry, prose, and novels.
Spanish literature is the name given to the literary works written in Spain throughout time, and those by Spanish authors worldwide. Due to historic, geographic, and generational diversity, Spanish literature has a great number of influences and is very diverse. Some major movements can be identified within it.
Highlights include the Cantar de Mio Cid, the oldest preserved Spanish cantar de gesta. It is written in medieval Spanish, the ancestor of modern Spanish.
La Celestina is a book published anonymously by Fernando de Rojas in 1499. This book is considered to be one of the greatest in Spanish literature, and traditionally marks the end of medieval literature and the beginning of the literary renaissance in Spain.
Besides its importance in the Spanish literature of the Golden Centuries, Lazarillo de Tormes is credited with founding a literary genre, the picaresque novel, so called from Spanish pícaro, meaning "rogue" or "rascal". In these novels, the adventures of the pícaro expose injustice while simultaneously amusing the reader.
Published by Miguel de Cervantes in two volumes a decade apart, Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature to emerge from the Spanish Golden Age and perhaps the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, it regularly appears at or near the top of lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published.
Painting and sculpture
Spain's greatest painters during the Spanish Golden Age period included El Greco, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Diego Velázquez, and Francisco Goya, who became world-renowned artists between the period of the 17th century to 19th century also in early parts of the 20th century. However, Spain's best known artist since the 20th century has been Pablo Picasso, who is known for his abstract sculptures, drawings, graphics, and ceramics in addition to his paintings. Other leading artists include Salvador Dalí, Juan Gris, Joan Miró, and Antoni Tàpies.
Architecture
During the Prehistoric period, the megalithic Iberian and Celtic architectures developed. Through the Roman period, both urban development (ex. the Emerita Augusta) and construction projects ( the Aqueduct of Segovia) flourished. After the pre-Romanesque period, in the architecture of Al-Andalus, important contributions were made by the Caliphate of Córdoba (the Great Mosque of Córdoba), the Taifas (Aljafería, in Zaragoza), the Almoravids and Almohads (La Giralda, Seville), and the Nasrid of the Kingdom of Granada (Alhambra, Generalife).
Later, several currents appear: Mudéjar (the Alcázar of Seville), the Romanesque period (the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela), the Gothic period (the Cathedrals of Burgos, León and Toledo), the Renaissance (Palace of Charles V in Granada), the Baroque period (Granada Cathedral), the Spanish colonial architecture, and Neoclassical style (ex. the Museo del Prado) are the most significant. In the 19th century eclecticism and regionalism, the Neo-Mudéjar style and glass architecture bloom. In the 20th century, the Catalan Modernisme (La Sagrada Família by Gaudí), modernist architecture, and contemporary architecture germinated.
Cinema
In recent years, Spanish cinema, including within Spain and Spanish filmmakers abroad, has achieved high marks of recognition as a result of its creative and technical excellence. In the long history of Spanish cinema, the great filmmaker Luis Buñuel was the first to achieve universal recognition, followed by Pedro Almodóvar in the 1980s. Spanish cinema has also seen international success over the years with films by directors like Segundo de Chomón, Florián Rey, Luis García Berlanga, Carlos Saura, Julio Medem and Alejandro Amenábar. Woody Allen, upon receiving the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in 2002 in Oviedo remarked: "when I left New York, the most exciting film in the city at the time was Spanish, Pedro Almodóvar's one. I hope that Europeans will continue to lead the way in filmmaking because at the moment not much is coming from the United States."
Non-directors have obtained less international notability. Only the cinematographer Néstor Almendros, the actress Penélope Cruz and the actors Fernando Rey, Antonio Banderas, Javier Bardem and Fernando Fernán Gómez have obtained some recognition outside of Spain. Mexican actor Gael García Bernal has also recently received international attention in films by Spanish directors.
Today, only 10 to 20% of box office receipts in Spain are generated by domestic films, a situation that repeats itself in many nations of Europe and the Americas. The Spanish government has therefore implemented various measures aimed at supporting local film production and movie theaters, which include the assurance of funding from the main national television stations. The trend is being reversed with the recent screening of mega productions such as the €30 million film Alatriste (starring Viggo Mortensen), the Academy Award-winning Spanish/Mexican film Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno), Volver (starring Penélope Cruz), and Los Borgia (€10 million), all of them hit blockbusters in Spain.
Another aspect of Spanish cinema mostly unknown to the general public is the appearance of English-language Spanish films such as The Machinist (starring Christian Bale), The Others (starring Nicole Kidman), Basic Instinct 2 (starring Sharon Stone), and Miloš Forman's Goya's Ghosts (starring Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman). All of these films were produced by Spanish firms.
Year Total number of spectators (millions) Spectators of Spanish cinema (millions) Percentage Film Spectators (millions) Percentage over the total of Spanish cinema199696.110.410.8%Two Much (Fernando Trueba)2.120.2%1997107.113.914.9%Airbag (Juanma Bajo Ulloa)2.114.1%1998119.814.113.3%Torrente, the stupid arm of the law (Santiago Segura)321.3%1999131.318.116%All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar)2.513.8%2000135.313.411%Commonwealth (Álex de la Iglesia)1.611.9%2001146.826.217.9%The Others (Alejandro Amenábar)6.223.8%2002140.719.013.5%The Other Side of the Bed (Emilio Martínez Lázaro)2.714.3%2003137.521.715.8%Mortadelo & Filemón: The Big Adventure (Javier Fesser)5.022.9%2004143.919.313.4%The Sea Inside (Alejandro Amenábar)4.020.7%2005126.021.016.7%Torrente 3: The Protector (Santiago Segura)3.616.9%2006 (provisional)67.86.39.3%Volver (Pedro Almodóvar)1.828.6%
Languages
Spain is a multilingual country with a relatively complex sociolinguistic situation. According to the article 3 of the 1978 Constitution, Spanish is the official language of the State, while other languages may also be official in autonomous communities according to the latter's regional statutes, as it is the case with Catalan/Valencian, Basque and Galician. Spanish, a Romance language, has become the hegemonic language in Spain. It has also become a global language (with the majority of its speakers now located outside of Spain, most of them in Latin America) and one of six official languages of the United Nations. Its current hegemony in Spain is subtly fostered by neoliberal discourses on educational choice, flexibility and competition.
Another Romance language, Catalan is a co-official language in the autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and the Valencian Community (where it is known as Valencian). It is also spoken in parts of the autonomous communities of Aragon (in La Franja) and Murcia (in El Carche). While most of the native speakers of Catalan are located in Spain, the language is also natively spoken in the microstate of Andorra and parts of Italy (Alghero) and France (Roussillon). Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch closely related to Portuguese, spoken in the autonomous community of Galicia (where it enjoys co-officiality along Spanish) and small areas in neighbouring Asturias and Castile and León.
Aranese, a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan language, is spoken in the Val d'Aran in northwestern Catalonia together with Spanish and Catalan, enjoying official recognition. Other Romance languages of Spain include, Astur-Leonese, Aragonese, Extremaduran, Fala language and Quinqui jargon. Caló language, considered a mixed Romani-Romance language, is spoken by a number of Spanish Romani.
Considered to be a language isolate relative to any other known living language, Basque is a non-Indoeuropean language co-official together with Spanish in the Basque autonomous community and in the northern part of Navarre.
Regarding the Spanish autonomous cities in North Africa, the largely rural variety of vernacular Moroccan "Darija" Arabic characteristic of Jbala is spoken together with Spanish in Ceuta, whereas tamazight is spoken in Melilla in addition to Spanish.
Religion
Per data from 2022, 56% of Spaniards identify as belonging to the Roman Catholic religion; 3% identify with another religious faith, and about 39% as non-religious.
Holidays