In 1700 the Spanish throne passed to the Bourbons with Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV. The eighteenth century was when Spanish art, still tied to exuberant Baroque, opened up to French and Italian models and then to Neoclassicism.
Churrigueresque Baroque
Early in the century Spanish Baroque reached its decorative peak with the Churrigueresque style, named after the Churriguera family of architects and sculptors. Examples include the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca (from 1729), one of the finest in Spain, the Obradoiro façade of Santiago cathedral (1738-1750) by Fernando de Casas Novoa, the sacristy of the Charterhouse in Granada and the Transparente in Toledo cathedral, where Narciso Tomé opened the vault to let light fall on a theatrical altar.
The royal palaces
The Bourbons, used to Versailles, built new residences surrounded by gardens:
- the Royal Palace of Madrid, on the site of the old Alcázar destroyed by fire in 1734, designed by the Italians Filippo Juvarra and Giovanni Battista Sacchetti, with rooms decorated by Tiepolo and Mengs;
- the palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, near Segovia, with fountains and French gardens;
- the palace and gardens of Aranjuez on the Tagus, a UNESCO cultural landscape.
Charles III and Neoclassicism
Charles III, king of Naples before becoming king of Spain in 1759, brought to Madrid the taste and artists he had known in Italy and transformed the capital with the architect Francesco Sabatini, who built the Puerta de Alcalá, and Juan de Villanueva, who designed the building of today's Prado Museum, originally a natural science cabinet, and the Botanical Garden. The Paseo del Prado, with the Cibeles and Neptune fountains, is the urban landscape of the Spanish Enlightenment, a UNESCO site since 2021 together with Retiro park. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and the Royal Tapestry Factory were founded.
Painting
Foreign painters worked at court: Giambattista Tiepolo, who died in Madrid in 1770 after painting the vaults of the Royal Palace, and Anton Raphael Mengs, champion of Neoclassicism. Among Spaniards, Luis Meléndez, master of still life, and Luis Paret stood out. But the protagonist of the late century is a young Aragonese who drew cartoons for royal tapestries with scenes of popular festivals and games: Francisco Goya, with whom Spanish painting enters the modern age (see modern art).