Tourism in Spain is a major contributor to national economic life, contributing to about 12.4% of Spain's GDP. Ever since the 1960s and 1970s, the country has been a popular destination for summer holidays, especially with large numbers of tourists from the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, the Benelux, and the United States, among others. Accordingly, Spain's foreign tourist industry has grown into the second-biggest in the world.
The Museo del Prado, officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It houses collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on the former Spanish royal collection, and the single best collection of Spanish art. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it also contains important collections of other types of works. The numerous works by Francisco Goya, the single most extensively represented artist, as well as by Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, and Diego Velázquez, are some of the highlights of the collection. Velázquez and his keen eye and sensibility were also responsible for bringing much of the museum's fine collection of Italian masters to Spain, now one of the largest outside of Italy.
Ciudad Real is a municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It is the 5th most populated municipality in the region.
The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, located on the Calle de Alcalá in the centre of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery. A public law corporation, it is integrated together with other Spanish royal academies in the Instituto de España.
The Museum of Mexico City is located at Pino Suarez 30, a few blocks south of the Zocalo, on what was the Iztapalapa Causeway, near where Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma II met for the first time. This building used to be the palace of the Counts of Santiago de Calimaya, who were the descendants of one of the conquistadors with Cortés. The house was extensively remodeled during the colony to much the appearance that it has today and remained in the family until 1960, when the Mexico City government acquired it from them in order to found the Museum that is found there today. The museum contains a number of elements of the old palace as well as 26 rooms dedicated to the history and development of Mexico City from Aztec times to the present. It also contains a library and the studios of painter Joaquín Clausell, who lived here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Museo de la Estampa is a museum in Mexico City, dedicated to the history, preservation and promotion of Mexican graphic arts. The word “estampa” means works in the various printmaking techniques which have the quality of being reproducible and include seals, woodcuts, lithography and others. The museum was created in 1986 and located in a 19th-century Neoclassical building located in the Plaza de Santa Veracruz in the historic center of the city. This building was remodeled both to house the museum and to conserve its original look.
The Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca, Mexico, built between 1523 and 1528, is the oldest conserved virreinal-era civil structure in the continental Americas. The architecture is a blend between Gothic and Mudéjar, typical of the early 16th century colonial architecture. The building began as a fortified residence for conqueror Hernán Cortés and his aristocratic second wife, Doña Juana Zúñiga. It was built in 1526, over a Tlahuica Aztec tribute collection center, which was destroyed by the Spanish during the Conquest. Cortés replaced it with a personal residence to assert authority over the newly conquered peoples. As Cortés's residence, it reached its height in the 1530s, but the family eventually abandoned it due to on-going legal troubles. In the 18th century, virreinal authorities had the structure renovated and used it as a barracks and jail. During the Mexican War of Independence, it held prisoners such as José María Morelos y Pavón. After the war, it became the seat of government for the state of Morelos until the late 20th century, when the state government moved out and the structure was renovated and converted into the Museo Regional Cuauhnahuac, or regional museum, with exhibited on the history of Morelos.
The Black Paintings is the name given to a group of 14 paintings by Francisco Goya from the later years of his life, likely between 1819 and 1823. They portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and his bleak outlook on humanity. In 1819, at the age of 72, Goya moved into a two-story house outside Madrid that was called Quinta del Sordo. Although the house had been named after the previous owner, who was deaf, Goya too was nearly deaf at the time as a result of an unknown illness he had suffered when he was 46. The paintings originally were painted as murals on the walls of the house, later being "hacked off" the walls and attached to canvas by owner Baron Frédéric Émile d'Erlanger. They are now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
The Cerralbo Museum is an art museum in Madrid, Spain. It houses the art and historical object collections of Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa, Marquis of Cerralbo, who died in 1922. It is one of the National Museums of Spain and it is attached to the Ministry of Culture.
The Museum of Romanticism is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, devoted to Romanticism. It was inaugurated in 1924 as Museo Romántico. It is one of the National Museums of Spain and it is attached to the Ministry of Culture.
The Naval Museum is a naval museum in Madrid, Spain, devoted to the history of the Spanish Navy since the Catholic Monarchs, in the 15th century, up to the present. It is one of the National Museums of Spain and it is attached to the Ministry of Defence.
Municipal Museum of Algeciras is a museum in Algeciras, Spain, located at the northern end of the Parque de las Acacias de Algeciras. It was established in 1995 and is run by the city's cultural department. It houses a large collection of archaeological items which were found in different parts of the city. With its two main divisions, archaeology and history, the museum documents three periods in the city's history: Roman-Byzantine Algeciras, the Andalusian city, and the modern era. A third division, religious art, is located in the Capilla del Cristo de la Alameda.
Madrid is the capital and most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and its monocentric metropolitan area is the second-largest in the EU. The municipality covers 604.3 km2 (233.3 sq mi) geographical area. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula at about 650 meters above mean sea level. The capital city of both Spain and the surrounding autonomous community of Madrid, it is also the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country. The climate of Madrid features hot summers and cool winters. The primitive core of Madrid, a walled military outpost, dates back to the late 9th century, under the Emirate of Córdoba. Conquered by Christians in 1083 or 1085, it consolidated in the Late Middle Ages as a sizeable town of the Crown of Castile. The development of Madrid as administrative centre fostered after 1561, as it became the permanent seat of the court of the Hispanic Monarchy.
The architecture of Madrid has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets, even though Madrid possesses a modern infrastructure. Its landmarks include the Royal Palace of Madrid, the Royal Theatre with its restored 1850 Opera House, the Buen Retiro Park, the 19th-century National Library building containing some of Spain's historical archives, a large number of national museums, and the Golden Triangle of Art located along the Paseo del Prado and comprising three art museums: Prado Museum, the Reina Sofía Museum, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which completes the shortcomings of the other two museums. Cibeles Palace and Fountain have become the monument symbol of the city.
The Palacio de La Moncloa before the Spanish Civil War was the original Palacio de La Moncloa before it suffered damage during the Spanish Civil War and was rebuilt into the current palace with a very different layout from the original.
Valentín Carderera y Solano was a Spanish painter, erudite scholar and collector. He was named honorary court painter during the reign of Isabel II.
The Museo Geominero is geology museum displaying minerals and fossils from Spain and its former colonies. It is located inside the Instituto Geológico y Minero de España building in Madrid, Spain.
Summer or The Threshing Floor is the largest cartoon painted by Francisco de Goya as a tapestry design for Spain's Royal Tapestry Factory. Painted from 1786 to 1787, it was part of his fifth series, dedicated to traditional themes and intended for the heir to the Spanish throne and his wife. The tapestries were to hang in the couple's dining room at the Pardo Palace.
Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón (1891–1971) was a Spanish art historian, who from 1960 to 1968 was Director of the Museo del Prado.
