As you sit round the pool of your holiday property in Marbella, you can ponder on all the great artists that Spain has produced.
One of the best known of them has to be Pablo Picasso, one of the founders of Cubism. Although he originally started out by trying several different styles of painting, he is most famous for his Cubist works, dissecting and analysing their shapes and forms.
El Greco (the Greek) was also very well known. Although of Greek origin, he produced many of his best works in Spain, such as the Assumption of the Virgin, his very first commission after he moved to Spain, an elegant and regal painting in pastel colours.
Joan Miro is another favourite of mine. His colourful surrealist paintings such as The Garden and Daybreak can often be seen adorning students' walls. Primitive and distinctive, but never boring, they allow the mind the freedom to interpret them however it so wishes.
Diego Velazquez was also a significant Spanish painter, this time from the seventeenth century. His dark and sombre portraits of the Spanish Royal family give the modern admirer an incredible insight into the lives and the dress of the royal court of the time. His amazing attention to detail is evident in all his works such as the portrait of the Infanta Marie Teresa.