An Authentic Ritual or a Cruel Spectacle?
The distinctive Spanish culture has been shaped by the country’s parade of rulers. Roman emperors, Muslim sultans, hard-core Christians, conquistadors, French dandies, and Fascist dictators have all left their mark on Spain’s art, architecture, and customs. Start by understanding the country’s long history of invasions and religious wars, and you’ll better appreciate the churches, museums, and monuments you’ll visit today.
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue—and Spain became a nation, too. The sunny weather, fertile soil, and Mediterranean ports of the Iberian Peninsula made it a popular place to call home. A mix from various migrations and invasions, the original “Iberians” crossed the Pyrenees around 800 B.C. The Phoenicians established the city of Cádiz around 1100 B.C., and Carthaginians settled around 250 B.C.
The future Roman Emperor Augustus finally quelled the last Iberian resistance (19 B.C.), making the province of “Hispania” an agricultural breadbasket (olives, wine) to feed the vast Roman Empire. The Romans brought the Latin language, a connection to the wider world, and (in the fourth century) Christianity. When the empire began crumbling around A.D. 400, Spain made a peaceful transition, ruled by Christian Visigoths from Germany who had strong Roman ties. Roman influence remained for centuries after, in the Latin-based Spanish language, irrigation methods, and building materials and techniques. The Romans’ large farming estates would change hands over the years, passing from Roman senators to Visigoth kings to Islamic caliphs to Christian nobles. And, of course, the Romans left wine.
In A.D. 711, 12,000 zealous members of the world’s newest religion—Islam—landed on the Rock of Gibraltar and, in three short years, conquered the Iberian Peninsula. These North African Muslims—generically called “Moors”—dominated Spain for the next 700 years. Though powerful, they were surprisingly tolerant of the people they ruled, allowing native Jews and Christians to practice their faiths, so long as the infidels paid extra taxes.
The Moors themselves were an ethnically diverse culture, including both crude Berber tribesmen from Morocco and sophisticated rulers from old Arab families. From their capital in Córdoba, various rulers of the united Islamic state of “Al-Andalus” pledged allegiance to foreign caliphs in Syria, Baghdad, or Morocco.
With cultural ties that stretched from Spain to Africa to Arabia to Persia and beyond, the Moorish culture in Spain (especially around A.D. 800-1000) was perhaps Europe’s most advanced, a beacon of learning in Europe’s so-called “Dark” Ages. Mathematics, astronomy, literature, and architecture flourished. Even winemaking was encouraged, though for religious reasons the Muslims didn’t drink alcohol. The Moorish legacy lives on today in architecture (horseshoe arches, ceramic tiles, fountains, and gardens), language (the Spanish el comes from Arabic al)...and wine.
The Moors ruled for more than 700 years, but throughout that time they were a minority ruling a largely Christian populace. Pockets of independent Christians remained, particularly in the mountains in the peninsula’s north. Local Christian kings fought against the Moors whenever they could, whittling away at the Muslim empire, “reconquering” more and more land in what’s known as the Reconquista. The last Moorish stronghold, Granada, fell to the Christians in 1492.
The slow, piecemeal process of the Reconquista split the peninsula into many independent kingdoms and dukedoms, some Christian, some Moorish. The Reconquista picked up steam after A.D. 1000, when Al-Andalus splintered into smaller regional states—Granada, Sevilla, Valencia—ruled by local caliphs. Toledo fell to the Christians in 1085. By 1200 the neighboring Christian state of Portugal had the borders it does today, making it the oldest unchanged state in Europe. The rest of the peninsula was a battleground, a loosely knit collection of small kingdoms, some Christian, some Muslim. Heavy stone castles dotted the interior region of Castile, as lords and barons duked it out. Along the Mediterranean coast (from the Pyrenees to Barcelona to Valencia), three Christian states united into a sea-trading power, the kingdom of Aragon.
In 1469, Isabel of Castile married Ferdinand II of Aragon. These so-called Catholic Monarchs (Reyes Católicos) united the peninsula’s two largest kingdoms, instantly making Spain a European power. In 1492, while Columbus explored the seas under Ferdinand and Isabel’s flag, the Catholic Monarchs drove the Moors out of Granada and expelled the country’s Jews, creating a unified, Christian, militaristic nation-state, fueled by the religious zeal of the Reconquista.
Spain’s bold sea explorers changed the economics of Europe, opening up a New World of riches and colonies. The Spanish flag soon flew over most of South and Central America. Gold, silver, and agricultural products (grown on large estates with cheap labor) poured into Spain. In return, the stoked Spaniards exported Christianity, converting the American natives with persistent Jesuit priests and cruel conquistadors.
Ferdinand and Isabel’s daughter (Juana the Mad) wed a German prince (Philip the Fair), and their son inherited both crowns. Charles V (1500-1558, called Carlos I in Spain) was the most powerful man in the world, ruling an empire that stretched from Holland to Sicily, from Bohemia to Bolivia. The aristocracy and the clergy were swimming in money. Art and courtly life flourished during this Golden Age, with Spain hosting the painter El Greco and the writer Miguel de Cervantes.
But Charles V’s Holy Roman Empire was torn by different languages and ethnic groups, and by protesting Protestants. He spent much of the nation’s energies at war with Protestants, encroaching Muslim Turks, and Europe’s rising powers. When an exhausted Charles announced his abdication (1555) and retired to a monastery, his sprawling empire was divvied up among family members, with Spain and its possessions going to his son, Philip II (1527-1598).
Philip II conquered Portugal (1580, his only successful war), moved Spain’s capital to Madrid, built El Escorial, and continued fighting losing battles across Europe (the Netherlands, France) that drained the treasury of its New World gold. In the summer of 1588, Spain’s seemingly unbeatable royal fleet of 125 ships—the Invincible Armada—sailed off to conquer England, only to be unexpectedly routed in battle by bad weather and Sir Francis Drake’s cunning. Just like that, Britannia ruled the waves, and Spain spiraled downward, becoming a debt-ridden, overextended, flabby nation.
The fast money from the colonies kept Spain from seeing the dangers at home. The country stopped growing its own wheat and neglected its fields. Great Britain and the Netherlands were the rising sea-trading powers in the new global economy. During the centuries when science and technology developed as never before in other European countries, Spain was preoccupied by its failed colonial politics. (Still, 1600s Spain produced the remarkable painter Diego Velázquez.)
By 1700, once-mighty Spain lay helpless while rising powers France, England, and Austria fought over the right to pick Spain’s next king in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), which was fought partly on Spanish soil (Britain held out against the French in the Siege of Gibraltar). Spanish king Charles II didn’t have an heir, so he willed his kingdom to Louis XIV’s grandson, Philip of Anjou, who was set to inherit both France and Spain. But the rest of Europe didn’t want powerful France to become even stronger. The war ended in compromise: Philip became king of Spain (Spain lost several possessions), but he had to renounce claims to any other thrones. The French-born, French-speaking Bourbon King Philip V (1683-1746) ruled Spain for 40 years. He and his heirs made themselves at home, building the Versailles-like Royal Palace in Madrid and La Granja near Segovia.
The French invaded Spain under Napoleon, who installed his brother as king in 1808. The Spaniards rose up (chronicled by Goya’s paintings of the second and third of May 1808), sparking the Peninsular War—called the War of Independence by Spaniards—that finally won Spain’s independence from French rule.
Nineteenth-century Spain was a backward nation, with internal wars over which noble family should rule (the Carlist Wars), liberal revolutions put down brutally, and political assassinations. Spain gradually lost its global possessions to other European powers and to South American revolutionaries. Spain hit rock bottom in 1898, when the upstart United States picked a fight and thrashed them in the Spanish-American War, taking away Spain’s last major possessions: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
A drained and disillusioned Spain was ill-prepared for modern technology and democratic government.
The old ruling class (the monarchy, church, and landowners) fought new economic powers (cities, businessmen, labor unions) in a series of coups, strikes, and sham elections. In the 1920s, a military dictatorship under Miguel Primo de Rivera kept the old guard in power. In 1930 he was ousted and an open election brought a modern democratic Republic to power. But the right wing regrouped under the Falange (fascist) party, fomenting unrest and sparking a military coup against the Republic in 1936, supported by General Francisco Franco (1892-1975).
For three years (1936-1939), Spain fought a bloody civil war between Franco’s Nationalists (also called Falangists) and the Republic (also called Loyalists). Some 500,000 Spaniards died (due to all causes), and Franco won. (For more on the Spanish Civil War, see here.) For nearly the next four decades, Spain was ruled by Franco, an authoritarian, church-blessed dictator who tried to modernize the backward country while shielding it from corrupting modern influences. Spain was officially neutral in World War II, and the country spent much of the postwar era as a world apart. (On my first visit to Spain, in 1973, I came face-to-face with fellow teenagers—me in backpack and shorts, the Spaniards in military uniforms, brandishing automatic weapons.)
Before Franco died, he handpicked his protégé, King Juan Carlos I, to succeed him. But to everyone’s surprise, the young, conservative, mild-mannered king stepped aside, settled for a figurehead title, and guided the country quickly and peacefully toward democratic elections (1977).
Spain had a lot of catching up to do. Culturally, the once-conservative nation exploded and embraced new ideas, even plunging to wild extremes. In the 1980s Spain flowered under left-leaning prime minister Felipe González. Spain showed the world its new modern face in 1992, hosting both a World Exhibition at Sevilla and the Summer Olympics at Barcelona.
From 1996 to 2004, Spain was led by prime minister José María Aznar. He adopted moderate policies to minimize the stress on the country’s young democracy, fighting problems such as unemployment and foreign debt with reasonable success. However, his support of the United States’ war in Iraq was extremely unpopular. In spring of 2004, the retiring Aznar supported a similarly centrist successor, Mariano Rajoy, who seemed poised to win the election. On the eve of the election, on March 11, three Madrid train stations were bombed at the height of rush hour, killing 191 people. The terrorist group claiming responsibility denounced Spain’s Iraq policy, and three days later, Aznar’s party lost the election. The new prime minister, left-of-center José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, quickly began pulling Spain’s troops out of Iraq, as well as enacting sweeping social changes. But Zapatero and his party were shown the door in 2011, a casualty of the economic crisis. The more-conservative Popular Party regained the majority, and Mariano Rajoy became prime minister.
Spain enjoyed a strong economy through the late 1990s and early 2000s, thanks in part to a thriving tourism industry and a boom in housing construction. But the country was hit hard by the 2009 global economic downturn, and its economy entered a recession. Spain’s real-estate bubble burst, banks stopped lending, and by 2013 unemployment had soared to 27 percent. So many young Spaniards are out of work (one-fourth of those under 30, and nearly half of those under 25) that a new name was coined to describe them: “generación ni-ni” (the neither-nor generation). In danger of default, Spanish banks in 2012 received over $100 billion in bailout loans from the EU. Under pressure from the EU to cut its national debt, Spain’s government has limited payouts to new parents, scaled back government pensions and salaries, and made cuts in education and health care. These “austerity measures” have drawn criticism from unions and the public.
El Greco (1541-1614) exemplifies the spiritual fervor of much Spanish art. Known for his ethereal paintings of “flickering” saints, the drama, surreal colors, and intentionally unnatural distortion of his compositions have the intensity of a religious vision. (For more on El Greco, see here.)
Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) went to the opposite extreme. His masterful royal court portraits are studies in camera-eye realism and cool detachment from his subjects. Velázquez was unmatched in using a few strokes of paint to suggest details.
Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) lacked Velázquez’s detachment. He let his liberal tendencies shine through in unflattering portraits of royalty and in emotional scenes of abuse of power. He unleashed his inner passions in the eerie, nightmarish canvases of his last, “dark” stage. (For more on Goya, see here.)
Bartolomé Murillo (1617-1682) painted a dreamy world of religious visions. His pastel soft-focus works of cute Baby Jesuses and radiant Virgin Marys helped make Catholic doctrine palatable to the common folk at a time when many were defecting to Protestantism. (For more on Murillo, see here.)
In the 20th century, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Surrealist Salvador Dalí made their marks. Great museums featuring all three are in or near Barcelona. Although Picasso (1881-1973) lived most of his adult life in France, the 20th century’s greatest artist explored Spanish themes, particularly in his inspirational antiwar Guernica mural, which depicts civil war destruction (described on here). A flamboyant, waxed-mustachioed Surrealist painter, Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) and a fellow Spaniard, filmmaker Luis Buñuel, made the landmark art film Un Chien Andalou (see here).
Besides the works of its native sons, Spain’s museums have plenty of foreign art. During its Golden Age, wealthy Spanish aristocrats bought wagonloads of the most popular art of the time—Italian Renaissance and Baroque works by Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and others. They also loaded up on paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Hieronymus Bosch, and Pieter Brueghel from the Low Countries, which were then under Spanish rule.
The two most fertile periods of architectural innovation in Spain were during the Moorish occupation and in the Golden Age. Otherwise, Spanish architects marched obediently behind the rest of Europe. Modern architects have finally brought Spain back to the forefront of construction and design.
Spain’s history is dominated by 700 years of pushing the Muslim Moors back into Africa (711-1492). Throughout Spain, it seems every old church was built upon a mosque (Sevilla’s immense cathedral, for one, and Córdoba’s remarkable Mezquita, which preserved the mosque but plopped a cathedral right in the middle of it). Granada’s Alhambra is the best example of the secular Moorish style. It’s an Arabian Nights fairy tale: finely etched domes, lacy arcades, stalactite-studded ceilings, keyhole arches, and lush gardens. At its heart lies an elegantly proportioned courtyard, where the designers created an ingenious microclimate: water, plants, pottery, thick walls, and darkness...all to be cool. The stuccoed walls are ornamented with a stylized Arabic script, creating a visual chant of verses from the Quran. Meanwhile, simple Romanesque churches dotted the northern part of Spain not controlled by the Moors (such as along the Camino de Santiago and in the folds of the Picos de Europa).
As the Christians slowly reconquered Iberian turf, they turned their fervor into stone, building churches in the lighter, heaven-reaching stained-glass Gothic style (Toledo and Sevilla). Gothic was a French import, trickling into conservative Spain long after it had swept through Europe.
History comes to life when you visit a centuries-old church. Even if you don’t know your apse from a hole in the ground, learning a few simple terms will enrich your experience. Note that not every church has every feature, and a “cathedral” isn’t a type of church architecture, but rather a designation for a church that’s a governing center for a local bishop.
Aisles: The long, generally low-ceilinged arcades that flank the nave.
Altar: The raised area with a ceremonial table (often adorned with candles or a crucifix), where the priest prepares and serves the bread and wine for Communion.
Apse: The space beyond the altar, generally bordered with small chapels.
Barrel Vault: A continuous round-arched ceiling that resembles an extended upside-down U.
Choir: A cozy area, often screened off, located within the church nave and near the high altar, where services are sung in a more intimate setting.
Cloister: Covered hallways bordering a (usually square-shaped) open-air courtyard, traditionally where monks and nuns got fresh air.
Facade: The exterior surface of the church’s main (west) entrance, viewable from outside and generally highly decorated.
Groin Vault: An arched ceiling formed where two equal barrel vaults meet at right angles. Less common usage: term for a medieval jock strap.
Narthex: The area (portico or foyer) between the main entry and the nave.
Nave: The long, central section of the church (running west to east, from the entrance to the altar) where the congregation sits or stands during the service.
Transept: In a traditional cross-shaped floor plan, the transept is one of the two parts forming the “arms” of the cross. The transepts run north-south, perpendicularly crossing the east-west nave.
West Portal: The main entry to the church (on the west end, opposite the main altar).
As Christians moved in, many Muslim artists and architects stayed, giving the new society the Mudejar style—Moorish in appearance, but commissioned by Catholics. (Mudejar means “those who stayed.”) In Sevilla’s Alcázar, the Arabic script on the walls relates not the Quran, but New Testament verses and Christian propaganda, such as “Dedicated to the magnificent Sultan, King Pedro—thanks to God!” (In contrast, the style of Christians living under Moorish rule is called Mozarabic.)
The money reaped and raped from Spain’s colonies in the Golden Age (1500-1600) spurred new construction. Churches and palaces borrowed from the Italian Renaissance and the more elaborate Baroque. Ornamentation reached unprecedented heights in Spain, culminating in the Plateresque style of stonework, so called because it resembles intricate silver (plata) filigree work (see, for example, the facade of the University of Salamanca).
The 1500s were also the era of religious wars. The monastery/palace of El Escorial, built in sober geometric style, symbolizes the austerity of a newly reformed Catholic Church ready to strike back. King Philip II ruled his empire and directed the Inquisition from here, surrounded by plain white walls, well-scrubbed floors, and simple furnishings. El Escorial was built at a time when Catholic Spain felt threatened by Protestant heretics, and its construction dominated the Spanish economy for a generation (1563-1584). Because of this bully in the national budget, Spain has almost nothing else to show from this most powerful period of her history.
For the next three centuries (1600-1900), backward-looking Spain recycled old art styles.
As Europe leapt from the 19th into the 20th century, it celebrated a rising standard of living and nearly a hundred years without a major war. Art Nouveau architects forced hard steel and concrete into softer organic shapes. Barcelona’s answer to Art Nouveau was Modernisme, and its genius was Antoni Gaudí, with his asymmetrical “cake-in-the-rain” Barcelona buildings like Casa Milà and Sagrada Família.
Much of Spain’s 20th-century architecture—the minimal fascist style of the Valley of the Fallen and ugly concrete apartments—follows patterns seen elsewhere in Europe. But Spain today produces some of Europe’s most interesting structures. Santiago Calatrava (from Valencia, born 1951) uses soaring arches and glass to create bridges (such as the iconic one in Sevilla, and a brand-new one in Venice), airports, and performance halls (including Valencia’s Opera House). One of the world’s most striking and well-known buildings in recent years—Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum—is in Bilbao, and similarly innovative structures are popping up everywhere.
The Spanish bullfight is as much a ritual as it is a sport. Not to acknowledge the importance of the bullfight is to censor a venerable part of Spanish culture. But it also makes a spectacle out of the cruel killing of an animal. Should tourists boycott bullfights? I don’t know.
When the day comes that bullfighting is kept alive by tourist dollars rather than by the local culture, then I’ll agree with those who say it’s immoral and that tourists shouldn’t encourage it by buying tickets. Consider the morality of supporting this gruesome aspect of Spanish culture before buying a ticket.
While no two bullfights are the same, they unfold along a strict pattern. The punctual ceremony begins with a parade of participants across the ring. Then the trumpet sounds, the “Gate of Fear” opens, and the leading player—el toro—thunders in. A ton of angry animal is an awesome sight, even from the cheap seats (with the sun in your eyes).
The fight is divided into three acts. Act I is designed to size up the bull and wear him down. With help from his assistants, the matador (literally, “killer”) attracts the bull with a shake of the cape, then directs the animal past his body, as close as his bravery allows. The bull sees only things in motion and (some think) in red. After a few passes, the picadores enter, mounted on horseback, to spear the swollen lump of muscle at the back of the bull’s neck. This tests the bull, causing him to lower his head and weakening the thrust of his horns. (Until 1927, the horses had no protective pads and were often killed.)
In Act II, the matador’s assistants (banderilleros) continue to enrage and weaken the bull. They charge the charging bull and—leaping acrobatically across its path—plunge brightly colored barbed sticks into the bull’s vital neck muscle.
After a short intermission, during which the matador may, according to tradition, ask permission to kill the bull and dedicate the kill to someone in the crowd, the final and lethal Act III begins.
The matador tries to dominate and tire the bull with hypnotic cape work. A good pass is when the matador stands completely still while the bull charges past. Then the matador thrusts a sword between the animal’s shoulder blades for the kill. A quick kill is not always easy, and the matador may have to make several bloody thrusts before the sword stays in and the bull finally dies. (One of the matador’s assistants may go in at the end to finish the job with a dagger between the eyes.) Mules drag the dead bull out, and his meat is in the market mañana (barring “mad cow” concerns—and if ever there was a mad cow...). Rabo del toro (bull-tail stew) is a delicacy.
Throughout the fight, the crowd shows its approval or impatience. Shouts of “¡Olé!” or “¡Torero!” mean they like what they see. Whistling or rhythmic hand-clapping greets cowardice and incompetence.
You’re not likely to see much human blood spilled. In 200 years of bullfighting in Sevilla, only 30 fighters have died (and only three were actually matadors). If a bull does kill a fighter, the next matador comes in to kill him. Historically, even the bull’s mother is killed, since the evil qualities are assumed to have come from her.
After an exceptional fight, the crowd may wave white handkerchiefs to ask that the matador be awarded the bull’s ear or tail. A brave bull, though dead, gets a victory lap from the mule team on his way to the slaughterhouse. Then the trumpet sounds, and a new bull charges in to face a fresh matador.
Fights are held on most Sundays from Easter through September (at 18:30 or 19:30). Serious fights with adult matadors are called corrida de toros. These are often sold out in advance. Summer fights are often novillada, with teenage novices doing the killing. Corrida de toros seats range from €20 for nosebleed seats in the sun to €140 for front-row seats in the shade. Novillada seats are half that, and generally easy to get at the arena a few minutes before showtime. Many Spanish women consider bullfighting sexy. They swoon at the dashing matadors who are sure to wear tight pants (with their partas nobles—noble parts—in view, generally organized to one side, farthest from the bull).
A typical bullfight lasts about two hours and consists of six separate fights—three matadors (each with his own team of picadores and banderilleros) fighting two bulls each. If you’re curious to see a bullfight without making an expensive and time-consuming trip to the ring, keep an eye out for televised bullfights in bars. For a closer look at bullfighting by an American aficionado, read Ernest Hemingway’s classic Death in the Afternoon.