World culture: “Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain” Exhibition opens in the British Museum

“Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain” Exhibition opens in the British Museum (London) September 20, 2012.

This exhibition brings together for the first time prints and drawings by mainly Spanish and important European artists working in Spain from the mid-16th to the first decades of the 19th century, many of which have never before been on display.

Beginning with works by 16th-century artists working in and around Madrid, including those who arrived mainly from Italy, the selection progresses chronologically to include important works from Spain’s ‘Golden Age’ (the 17th century) by artists Diego Velázquez, Vicente Carducho and Alonso Cano in Madrid, Bartolomé Murillo and Francisco de Zubarán in Seville, and José de Ribera in Spanish Naples.

Turning to the 18th century, key works by Francisco de Goya, his contemporaries and foreign artists such as the Italians Giambattista Tiepolo and his sons demonstrate how printmaking and drawing greatly increased during the period, forever changing the artistic landscape of Spain.