Spanish art has been an important contributor to Western art and Spain has produced many famous and influential artists including Velázquez, Goya and Picasso. Spanish art was particularly influenced by France and Italy during the Baroque and Neoclassical periods, but Spanish art has often had very distinctive characteristics, partly explained by the Moorish heritage in Spain (especially in Andalusia), and through the political and cultural climate in Spain during the Counter-Reformation and the subsequent eclipse of Spanish power under the Bourbon dynasty.

The prehistoric art of Spain had many important periods-it was one of the main centres of European Upper Paleolithic art and the rock art of the Spanish Levant in the subsequent periods. In the Iron Age large parts of Spain were a centre for Celtic art, and Iberian sculpture has a distinct style, partly influenced by coastal Greek settlements. Spain was conquered by the Romans by 200 BC and Rome was rather smoothly replaced by the Germanic Visigoths in the 5th century AD, who soon Christianized. The relatively few remains of Visigothic art and architecture show an attractive and distinct version of wider European trends. With the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th century there was a notable Moorish presence in art specially in Southern Iberia. Over the following centuries the wealthy courts of Al-Andalus produced many works of exceptional quality, culminating in the Alhambra in Granada, right at the end of Muslim Spain.

Meanwhile, the parts of Spain remaining Christian, or that were re-conquered, were prominent in Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque art. Late Gothic Spanish art flourished under the unified monarchy in the Isabelline Gothic and Plateresque styles, and the already strong traditions in painting and sculpture began to benefit from the influence of imported Italian artists. The enormous wealth that followed the flood of American gold saw lavish spending on the arts in Spain, much of it directed at religious art in the Counter-Reformation. Spanish control of the leading centre of North European art, Flanders, from 1483 and also of the Kingdom of Naples from 1548, both ending in 1714, had a great influence on Spanish art, and the level of spending attracted artists from other areas, such as El Greco, Rubens and (from a safe distance) Titian in the Spanish Golden Age, as well as great native painters such as Diego Velázquez, José de Ribera, Francisco de Zurbarán and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Spanish Baroque architecture has survived in large quantity, and has both strains marked by exuberant extravagance, as in the Churrigueresque style, and a rather severe classicism, as in the work of Juan de Herrera. It was generally the former which marked the emerging art and Spanish Colonial architecture of the Spanish Empire outside Europe, as in Latin America (New Spanish Baroque and Andean Baroque), while the Baroque Churches of the Philippines are simpler. The decline of the Habsburg monarchy brought this period to an end, and Spanish art in the 18th and early-19th century was generally less exciting, with the huge exception of Francisco Goya. The rest of 19th-century Spanish art followed European trends, generally at a conservative pace, until the Catalan movement of Modernisme, which initially was more a form of Art Nouveau. Picasso dominates Spanish Modernism in the usual English sense, but Juan Gris, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró are other leading figures.

Ancient Iberia

The early Iberians have left many remains; northern-western Spain shares with south-western France the region where the richest Upper Paleolithic art in Europe is found in the Cave of Altamira and other sites where there are cave paintings made between 35,000 and 11,000 BC.some are as old as 40,800 years old, according to "U-series dating of Paleolithic art in 11 caves in Spain", Science, 2012 Jun 15; 336(6087):1409–1413. The Rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin (as UNESCO term it) is from the eastern side of Spain, probably dating from about 8000–3500 BC, and shows animal and hunting scenes often developed with a growing feeling for the whole composition of a large scene.Gudiol, 10–11 Portugal in particular is rich in megalithic monuments, including the Almendres Cromlech, and Iberian schematic art is stone sculpture, petroglyphs and cave paintings from the early metal ages, found all over the Iberian peninsula, with both geometric patterns, but also a higher usage of simple pictogram-like human figures than is typical of comparable art from other areas.Gudiol, 11–12 The Casco de Leiro, a late Bronze Age gold ritual helmet, may relate to other golden hats found in Germany, and the Treasure of Villena is a huge hoard of geometrically decorated vessels and jewellery, perhaps from the 10th century BC, including 10 kilos of gold.

Iberian sculpture before the Roman occupation reflects the contacts with other advanced ancient cultures who set up small coastal colonies, including the Greeks and Phoenicians; the Sa Caleta Phoenician Settlement on Ibiza has survived to be excavated, where most now lie under large towns, and the Lady of Guardamar was excavated from another Phoenician site. The Lady of Elche (probably 4th century BC) possibly represents Tanit, but also shows Hellenistic influence, as do the 6th century Sphinx of Agost and Biche of Balazote. The Bulls of Guisando are the most impressive examples of verracos, which are large Celtiberian animal sculptures in stone; the 5th century BC Bull of Osuna is a more developed single example. Some decorated falcata, the distinctive curving Iberian sword, have survived, and large numbers of bronze statuettes used as votive offerings. The Romans gradually conquered all of Iberia between 218 BC and 19 AD.Gudiol, 13–21

As elsewhere in the Western Empire, the Roman occupation largely overwhelmed native styles; Iberia was an important agricultural area for the Romans, and the elite acquired vast estates producing wheat, olives and wine, with some later emperors coming from the Iberian provinces; many huge villas have been excavated. The Aqueduct of Segovia, Roman Walls of Lugo, Alcántara Bridge (104–106 AD), and the Tower of Hercules lighthouse are among a number of well-preserved major monuments, impressive remains of Roman engineering if not always art. Roman temples survive fairly complete at Vic, Évora (now in Portugal), and Alcántara, as well as elements in Barcelona and Córdoba. There must have been local workshops producing the high-quality mosaics found, though most of the better free-standing sculpture was probably imported.Gudiol, 21–28 The Missorium of Theodosius I is an important Late Antique silver dish that was found in Spain but was probably made in Constantinople.

Early Medieval

The Christianized Visigoths ruled Iberia after the collapse of the Empire, and the rich 7th century Treasure of Guarrazar, probably deposited to avoid looting in the Muslim Conquest of Spain, is now a unique survival of Christian votive crowns in gold; though Spanish in style, the form was probably then used by elites across Europe. Other Visigothic art in the form of metalwork, mostly jewellery and buckles, and stone reliefs, survives to give an idea of the culture of this originally barbarian Germanic people, who kept themselves very largely separate from their Iberian subjects, and whose rule crumbled when the Muslims arrived in 711.Gudiol, 29-33

The jewelled crux gemmata Victory Cross, La Cava Bible and the Agate Casket of Oviedo are survivals from the 9-10th century of the rich Pre-Romanesque culture of the Asturias region in north-western Spain, which remained under Christian rule; the Santa María del Naranco banqueting house overlooking Oviedo, completed in 848 and later surviving as a church, is a unique survival in Europe. The Codex Vigilanus, completed in 976 in the region of Rioja, shows a complex mixture of several styles.Gudiol, 59-61

Muslim and Mozarab Spain

The extraordinary palace-city of Medina Azahara near Córdoba was built in the 10th century for the Umayyad Caliphs of Córdoba, intended as the capital of Islamic Andaluz, and is still being excavated. A considerable amount of the highly sophisticated decoration of the main buildings has survived, showing the enormous wealth of this very centralized state. The palace at Aljafería is later, from after Islamic Spain split into a number of kingdoms. Famous examples of Islamic architecture and its decoration are the Cathedral–Mosque of Córdoba, whose Islamic elements were added in stages between 784 and 987, and the Alhambra and Generalife palaces in Granada from the final periods of Muslim Spain.Gudiol, 34–42, 47–51

The Pisa Griffin is the largest known Islamic sculpture of an animal, and the most spectacular of a group of such figures from Al-Andalus, many made to hold up the basins of fountains (as at the Alhambra), or in smaller cases as perfume-burners and the like.

The Christian population of Muslim Spain (the Mozarabs) developed a style of Mozarabic art whose best known survivals are a series of illuminated manuscripts, several of the commentaries on the Book of Revelation by the Asturian Saint Beatus of Liébana (c. 730 – c. 800), which gave subject matter that allowed the brightly coloured primitivist style full scope to demonstrate its qualities in manuscripts of the 10th century like the Morgan Beatus, probably the earliest, the Gerona Beatus (illuminated by a female artist Ende), Escorial Beatus and the Saint-Sever Beatus, which was actually produced some distance from Muslim rule in France. Mozarabic elements, including a background of brightly coloured strips, can be seen in some later Romanesque frescos.Gudiol, 53–59, 86

Hispano-Moresque ware pottery began in the south, presumably mainly for local markets, but Muslim potters were later encouraged to migrate to the Valencia region, where the Christian lords marketed their luxury lustrewares to elites all over Christian Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, including the Popes and the English court. Spanish Islamic ivory carving and textiles were also very fine; the continuing industries producing tiles and carpets in the peninsula owe their origins largely to the Islamic kingdoms.Gudiol, 43–44, 51–52

After the expulsion of the Islamic rulers during the Reconquista, considerable Muslim populations, and Christian craftsmen trained in Muslim styles, remained in Spain, and Mudéjar is the term for work in art and architecture produced by such people. The Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the 14th century Patio de las Doncellas built for Peter of Castile in the Alcázar of Seville is another outstanding example. The style could harmonize well with Christian European medieval and Renaissance styles, for example in elaborate wood and stucco ceilings, and Mudéjar work often continued to be produced for some centuries after an area passed to Christian rule.Gudiol, 188–197

Painting

Romanesque