This book offers a survey of the largest and most diverse collection of Spanish art outside Spain - the collection of the Hermitage in St Petersburg. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Golden Age, painters such as El Greco, Ribera and Zurbarán developed a distinctive Spanish style, with exceptionally intense contrasts between light and dark. Their work, often commissioned by the Crown or the Church, exudes the pride and the temperament of the Iberian Peninsula. Murillo and, above all, Velázquez added their own personal artistic signatures. Later Goya swept onto the scene with his impressive talent and confrontational realism. the exhibition will include one Goya painting and a selection of his compelling graphic work.