Zurbarán painted at the height of Spanish Inquisition. His paintings largely reflect this, helping to project and reinforce the power of the church. Zurbarán painted monks and priests as if they were rock stars. Zurbarán has been described by art historians as the Spanish Caravaggio. This is mainly due to his burrowing of the Italian master’s technique of chiaroscuro, the use of intense light and shadowing. To achieve this effect Zurbarán often painted his subjects against a simple black background but bathed them in light. This had the great effect of highlighting the sitters unique facial features whilst also suggesting that the light of God was following them in a spiritual capacity. Zurbarán work filled churches across Catholic Spain throughout the 17th century, making the artist’s name, and cementing his reputation as a defining figure of religious painting across the Continent.

Miró’s paintings are instantly recognisable from their minimalist use of colour and form. Typically, using just one tone of red, yellow and blue with adjoining black lines, Miró work strips down the core elements of painting and embraces modernity. The red and yellow is used to reflect the colours of the Spanish and Catalan flags, whilst the blue symbolises the Mediterranean upon which Miró’s home city of Barcelona looks out. Miró profoundly influenced the direction of modern art throughout the 20th century along with fellow French artist and friend Henri Mattise. It was Mattise’s son Pierre who championed their work across the pond in New York, helping to cement their position as international artistic megastars. Miró’s work now spans all well established modern art museums the world over and remains universality popular. A well sized original Miró will set back the avid art collector over $25 million.

Murillo primarily painted religious scenes, immortalising the Virgin Mary across the great churches and cathedrals of Spain. His religious works in the Seville Cathedral are vast in scale, fitting for the third largest church in the world. Murillo’s works within cover every well trodden chapter and verse of both the Old and the New Testament, from God’s creation to the death and rebirth of his son Jesus Christ. Murillo was however, equally comfortable painting scenes of everyday life within his native Seville. He painted children playing in the street, beggars, street performers and hawkers. Together these lively scenes paint a rich tapestry of Andalusian life during the 17th century.

Dalí was a true original. His art can only best be described as surreal. Melting clocks, animals on stilts and humans with furniture for body parts, all formed part of Dalí’s strange cornucopia of eccentric oddities. He has remained one of the most recognisable and well loved artists of the 20th century, with his artworks adorning the world’s most significant modern art galleries. Sale prices of Dalí’s have soared reaching figures of $22.4 million, the most of any surrealist artist. The huge worth assumed by his estate, has recently been laid claimed by an estranged daughter of Dalí, a 61 year-old tarot card reader from Catalonia. Pilar Abel won a court case to exhume the artist’s body from his mausoleum, a bizarre recent chapter in this artist's unique existence.

Ribera is possibly the greatest ever painter of human flesh. His paintings of Jesus Christ and his followers Saints Bartholomew, Jerome, Luke and Andrew adorn the great Cathedrals of Europe and art museums the world over. Ribera spent a large portion of his career in Naples and is said to have been profoundly influenced by the great Italian artist Caravaggio. Ribera’s paintings demonstrate the same strong chiaroscuro technique of intense light and shade, with typically dark or black backgrounds and the human muscular flesh of religious deities providing the light. The overall effect is often one of stark realism. Dirt, scars and blood across toned muscles are all easily visible. This helps to build a connection with the viewer lucky enough to come across one of Ribera’s paintings face-to-face.

Sorolla’s paintings help demonstrate that life is more fun spent outdoors. A late impressionist painter, practising similar techniques to those of the great French impressionists, Sorolla’s paintings depict the life and leisure of the Spanish middle classes. Painting en plein air, a typical Sorolla scene is like the one shown left depicting life at the beach with children playing carefree in the sea, whilst the sun beats down. Sorolla travelled across all corners his native Spain painting people enjoying everyday life. His great volume of work represents a positive vision of Spain, in stark contrast to military and fascist dictatorships that preceded and followed his life. His paintings are today displayed the world over, particularly in America which he visited twice during his career, but the best place to view Sorolla’s work is in his own house museum in the heart of Madrid.

El Greco “The Greek”, lived and worked in Toledo near Madrid for most of his adult career after having grown up in Crete and trained in Italy. The characters in most of his paintings seem elongated and therefore look rakishly thin, in need of a good square meal. This device was used by the artist to make his subjects look more pious and therefore more divine. His paintings fill the cathedral in his hometown of Toledo as well as the national art museum, the Prado in Madrid. A founding figure of Spanish renaissance painting, El Greco’s work profoundly influenced many later artists, including Delacroix, Cezanne and Picasso.

Picasso is one of the most universally popular modern artists. In era of questionable modern art where people often ask themselves simple questions like “what is that?” or “is that even art?”, Picasso’s semi abstract Cubist paintings maintain their high institutional stature and universal acclaim. His paintings adorn most global modern art museums of international standing. Typically Picasso’s paintings are striking for their solid blocks of colour, bold abstract form and strong symbolism. Picasso most famous work Guernica shown left, was painted in 1937, as an immediate reaction to the bombing of the small Basque town earlier that year during the height of the Spanish civil war. The painting is vast, filling an entire large wall of the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. It is noticeable that Picasso has deliberately chosen to put away vibrant colour pots and replaced them with sober a black and grey palette. Highly regarded as a powerful anti-war image, Picasso depicts a screaming horse, burning man, and headless bull. The painting is purely focussed on the destructive nature of warfare, with no positive unifying messages of hope or prosperity. Many copies of the painting exist the around the world, but perhaps the most notable is a full-size tapestry version at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, the inter-governmental organisation tasked with ensuring world peace.

Velázquez has become known as the father figure of Spanish painting, influencing most if not all the other artists to appear in this list. During his lifetime he was the leading court painter to Philip IV, at the high of both the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Golden Age during the King’s long and successful reign. His prominence in the Royal Court meant Velázquez had a no shortage of rich and powerful figures to sit for his portraits. His most famous and influential painting however isn’t a formal portrait but instead a much more informal backstage scene. Las Meninas shown left, which in English means ‘the ladies in waiting’ shows young Spanish Infanta Margaret Theresa waiting to have her portrait painted whilst Veláquez paints her parents King Philip IV and Queen Mariana. The painting is a clever and fascinating optical illusion, where we the viewer if looking straight onto the painting are standing in the place of the King and Queen, with Velázquez leaning out behind an enormous portrait canvas to take another observation. The painting is therefore almost an autobiographical work, showing the artist busy at his day job, whilst also demonstrating his genius for invention and pure artistic originality.

​Goya is known as the last Old Master and the first modern. This huge acclaim is testament to his immense cannon of work which consists of both brilliant portraiture and historical scenes. The artist grew up from modest humble roots in a small peasant town just outside Zaragoza. At a young age however his talent for painting had already been discovered and he soon moved to Madrid to receive formal training under the prominent German Bohemian painter Anton Rapael Mengs. Goya also made several visits to Italy to study the great renaissance master works in Rome. Here Goya learnt first hand how to balance light and shade to highlight delicate facial features. By 1783 Goya was painting for the Spanish royal court and six years later had become Charles IV’s and therefore Spain’s leading painter, a position he held until the final years of his talented and prolific artistic career.