A Taste of Spain: The Reception of Spanish Art in Britain 1850-1920

During the nineteenth century the art of Diego Velázquez rose dramatically to prominence both within art history and as an inspiration for practising artists. Velazquez, according to R.A.M. Stevenson (painter, art critic, and cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson), 'copes with the most difficult problems of modern impressionism'. This lecture argues that the art of Spain can help us to find a way out of the simplistic binary divides, Impressionist versus Pre-Raphaelite, French versus British.