Spanish Eclecticism was a movement among Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 painters from 1845 to 1890. It was named after the tendency by artists to select from among multiple established styles of that era. A sensibility of relative renewal dominated the rest of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, while in Spain, Realism

Realism (visual arts)

Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...

 and Impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 were slow to take hold. The movement is also said to be associated with the idea that models and innovations had run their course.

Criticism

Detractors consider it to be among the least brilliant periods in Spanish painting, in which there was a highly respectable level of skill, but no significant advancement of the form. This extends as far as the claim that practitioners used enormous canvases, of many meters in surface area, to give importance to something which didn't have any.

Themes

Spanish history was a predominant theme, especially from the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 and the reign of the Catholic Monarchs

Catholic Monarchs

The Catholic Monarchs is the collective title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; they were given a papal dispensation to deal with...

 (Reyes Católicos). Anecdotal and sentimental scenes were the most popular, depicting highpoints of Spanish history with a human perspective, though not venturing beyond the earthly specifics of the subject. The style was frequently boosted by official establishments such as the Salones de Otoño (Salons of Autumn) and the Spanish Academy itself, which was chiefly interested in rigorous drawing and historical documentation.

Development

The subject of landscapes gained prominence with Spanish Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 until it became almost exclusive around the time of the Belgian painter Carlos de Haes, the first professor of landscape painting at the Spanish Academy. At the same time, a Catalonian tendency toward urban and bourgeois scenes was developing. It eventually culminated in Catalonian Pre-impressionism, which arrived with Marià Fortuny and Eduardo Rosales

Eduardo Rosales

Eduardo Rosales was a Spanish realist painter. He joined the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1851, studying under Federico de Madrazo.-References:*...

. Fortuny was credited with creating the tableautin (small tableau), a diminutive format depicting a comic or pleasant theme mainly intended to adorn the interior of a home.

Artists

The movement was exemplified by Francisco Pradilla Ortiz

Francisco Pradilla Ortiz

Francisco Pradilla Ortiz was a prolific Spanish painter famous for creating historical scenes.He was born in Villanueva de Gállego, near Zaragoza in Aragon, and studied initially in Zaragoza and then transferred to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and the Academia de Acuarelistas...

 and Cano de la Peña. Two others, Antonio Gisbert

Antonio Gisbert

Antonio Gisbert Pérez was a Spanish artist situated on the cusp between the realist and romantic movements in art. He was known for painting pictures of important events in a country's history in a realistic style, yet clearly with a political aim as well; his variance in styles puts him in the...

 and Casado del Alisal, were exponents of the bipartisan front for the imperial political regime of the time.

Sources and references

• Artehistoria.com Spanish Eclecticism article (in Spanish)
• Entry for Marià Fortuny i Marsal in Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana (in Catalan)
• Artehistoria.com biography of Mariano Fortuny (in Spanish)
• Artehistoria.com biography of Eduardo Rosales (in Spanish)
• Artehistoria.com article on Spanish Romanticism (in Spanish)
• Artehistoria.com article on Carlos de Haes (in Spanish)
• Artehistoria.com article on Jose Casado del Alisal (in Spanish)
• Artehistoria.com article on Antonio Gisbert (in Spanish)