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( Spanish Golden Age)
The Spanish Golden Age (in Spanish, Siglo de Oro (lit golden century) was a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. This term does not generally imply any great precision about dates, but it begins no earlier than 1492, with the completion of the reconquista and the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the New World, and the publication of Antonio de Nebrija's "Gramática de la lengua castellana". Politically, it ends no later than the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Habsburg Spain in 1659. The last great writer of the period, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, died in 1681 and his death is usually considered as the end of the Spanish Golden "Century" in the arts and literature. The Habsburgs, both in Spain and Austria, were great patrons of art in their countries. El Escorial, the great royal monastery built by King Philip II of Spain, invited the attention of some of Europe's greatest architects and painters. Diego Velázquez, regarded as one of the most influential painters of European history and a greatly respected artist in his own time, cultivated a relationship with King Philip IV and his chief minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares, leaving us several portraits that demonstrate his style and skill. El Greco, another respected artist from the period, infused Spanish art with the styles of the Italian renaissance and helped create a uniquely Spanish style of painting. Some of Spain's greatest music is regarded as having been written in the period. Such composers as Tomás Luis de Victoria, Luis de Milán and Alonso Lobo helped to shape Renaissance music and the styles of counterpoint and polychoral music, and their influence lasted far into the Baroque period which resulted in a revolution of music. Spanish literature blossomed as well, most famously demonstrated in the work of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote de la Mancha. Spain's most prolific playwright, Lope de Vega, wrote possibly as many as one thousand plays during his lifetime, of which over four hundred survive to the present day. Spain, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, had seen few great artists come to its shores. The Italian holdings and relationships made by Queen Isabella's husband and later Spain's sole monarch, Ferdinand of Aragon, launched a steady traffic of intellectuals across the Mediterranean between Valencia, Seville, and Florence. Luis de Morales, one of the leading exponents of Spanish mannerist painting, retained a distinctly Spanish style in his work, reminiscent of medieval art. Spanish art, particularly that of Morales, contained a strong mark of mysticism and religion that was encouraged by the counter-reformation and the patronage of Spain's strongly Catholic monarchs and aristocracy. Widely regarded[weasel&_160;words] as having the greatest impact in bringing the Italian Renaissance to Spain, El Greco, as his name implies (it means the Greek), was not Spanish at all, but was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete. He studied the great Italian masters of his time - Titian, Tintoretto, and Michaelangelo - when he lived in Italy from 1568 to 1577. According to legend[1], after asserting that he would paint a mural as good as one of Michaelangelo's if they demolished one of the Italian artist's, El Greco quickly fell out of favor in Italy, and soon found a new home in the city of Toledo in southern Spain. He was influential in creating a style based on impressions and emotion, with elongated fingers and vibrant color and brushwork. His paintings of the city of Toledo became models for a new European tradition in landscapes, influencing the work of the later Dutch masters.
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