"Spain in the Golden Age is often represented as a monochromatic society, ruled by the Catholic church and a decadent nobility. Spanish painting has shared this fate, seen as a dark reflection of devout piety, gravity, and austerity. ... During the Renaissance the splendid court of Philip II led a society made wealthy by a monopoly on New World trade. His Spain became a mecca for the finest artists of Europe, especially those from Italy and the Netherlands. During the next 250 years, a glorious art of painting flourished at the Habsburg and Bourbon courts in Madrid, and in the cities of Seville, Valencia, and Toledo ; majestic, fiercely emotional, elegant, and urbane. From the insightful portraits of El Greco and Veláquez to the stark poetry of Zurbarn's religious works, from images of monarchic authority to courtly entertainments, painters working in Spain created an art of extraordinary stature, woven into the international world of Mannerism, the Baroque, and the Rococo. Janis Tomlinson traces these myriad influcences as they deveoped from generation to generation of artists, culminating in the unique accomplishment of Francisco goya, last of the old masters and the first of the new moderns." -- cover.