Culture of Spain
It encompasses literature, music, visual arts, cuisine as well as contemporary customs, beliefs, institutions, and social norms.
The ancient peoples of Spain included Celts, Iberians, Celtiberians, Tartessians, Vascones, as well as Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies.
The Visgoths established a united Hispania and kept the Latin and Christian legacy in Spain between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages.
However, Spain's best known artist since the 20th century has been Pablo Picasso, who is known for his abstract sculptures, drawings, graphics, and ceramics in addition to his paintings.
[citation needed] In the long history of Spanish cinema, the great filmmaker Luis Buñuel was the first to achieve universal recognition, followed by Pedro Almodóvar in the 1980s.
Spanish cinema has also seen international success over the years with films by directors like Segundo de Chomón, Florián Rey, Luis García Berlanga, Carlos Saura, Julio Medem and Alejandro Amenábar.
Woody Allen, upon receiving the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in 2002 in Oviedo remarked: "when I left New York, the most exciting film in the city at the time was Spanish, Pedro Almodóvar's one.
Mexican actor Gael García Bernal has also recently received international attention in films by Spanish directors.
Today, only 10 to 20% of box office receipts in Spain are generated by domestic films, a situation that repeats itself in many nations of Europe and the Americas.
The Spanish government has therefore implemented various measures aimed at supporting local film production and movie theaters, which include the assurance of funding from the main national television stations.
The trend is being reversed with the recent screening of mega productions such as the €30 million film Alatriste (starring Viggo Mortensen), the Academy Award-winning Spanish/Mexican film Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno), Volver (starring Penélope Cruz), and Los Borgia (€10 million), all of them hit blockbusters in Spain.
Its current hegemony in Spain is subtly fostered by neoliberal discourses on educational choice, flexibility and competition.
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch closely related to Portuguese, spoken in the autonomous community of Galicia (where it enjoys co-officiality along Spanish) and small areas in neighbouring Asturias and Castile and León.
Aranese, a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan language, is spoken in the Val d'Aran in northwestern Catalonia together with Spanish and Catalan, enjoying official recognition.
The people decorate the streets, build bonfires, set off fireworks and hold large parades, bullfights, and beauty contests.
The Spain national football team have won three UEFA European Championship titles and the FIFA World Cup in 2010.
Spain is one of only eight countries ever to have won the FIFA World Cup, doing so in South Africa in 2010, the first time the team had reached the final.
Several ingredients from the Americas were introduced to Europe through Spain during the so-called Columbian exchange, and a modern Spanish cook could not do without potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and beans.
In some areas, such as Almería, Granada or Jaén in Andalusia, and Madrid, León, Salamanca or Lugo tapas are given for free with a drink and have become very well known for that reason.
The Chocolatería San Ginés in Madrid is especially famous as a place to stop and have some chocolate with churros, often late into the night (even dawn), after being out on the town.
[1] As is true in many countries, the cuisines of Spain differ widely from one region to another, even though they all share certain common characteristics, which include: The Spanish educational system follows a highly decentralized model.
[17] This is largely due to the salient role of the so-called "educación concertada", which allows for privately owned centres funded by public money.
There are also several communities where there is a mild sense of national identity (but a great sense of regional identity): Galicia, Andalusia, Asturias, Navarre (linked to Basque culture), Aragon, Balearic Islands and Valencia (the last two feeling attached to Catalan culture in different ways) each have their own version of nationalism, but generally with a smaller percentage of nationalists than in the Basque Country and Catalonia.
