"El Majo de Goya" by Lorenzo BaldissieraTiepolo (1736-1776), son of the better known Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. This is one of the Madrid folk scenes which he painted in the 1770's for the spanish court. A "Majo" is a young gallant, a man-about-town.

mong the oldest graphic testimonies in which various stringed instruments appear perfectly represented, (including the guitar), perhaps the miniatures of the Can tigas de Santa Maria (the canticles of Saint Mary) are the documents which represent them with the most precision and frequency. Thus, for example, in the first canticle of praise of Saint Mary, we notice three players, or minstrels, next to King Alfonso X, two with viols and the third with a Latin guitar. The first instrument, the viol, is what is seen the most throughout the numerous scenes, which represent succeeding canticles-and along with the viol, alternating with the guitar, is the lute.

Two centuries later, at the advent of the Renaissance and with it the first great masters, the most colorful, expressive and monumental graphic testimonies appear. Music, which by then was already very cultivated, is the theme of great pictorial compositions in which the artist's knowledge of musical execution is most notable. From among works in that far away age, one of the most interesting is the symbolic fresco entitled La Musica, by the artist Bernardo Betti (better known as Pinturicchio) which may be found in the Vatican's Borgia Rooms. Very prominently displayed is a Latin guitar in the hands of a skillful player. This graphic pictorial representation leads one to believe, perhaps with good reason, that the player holding the guitar could be none other than a Spaniard, perhaps Valencian, protected by the Borgian Pope. One should not forget that the court of Alfonso the Great a-bounded in guitar minstrels. They were Spaniards frequently found in European courts and, of course, in Italy they were under the protection of the expanding Borgia family, itself of Valencian descent

Albert Durer, the great German artist and engraver, left us with many engravings of vihuelas and lutes, especially the latter that were very common in Germany. The precision of his drawings, prodigious in detail, with the exact location of the player's hands, with fingers strumming and playing perfectly, all lead one to believe that Durer himself played.

In the title page of Luis Milan's first book for I vihuela there is a picture of Orpheus playing the vihuela (itself almost a guitar).

Until the great Velasquez we do not find in Spain any notable painting representing music. His realistic representation of Los Tres Musicos (The Three Musicians) is full of accuracy, sharply capturing the figures and offering us a portrait of two; guitar players next to a violinist.

Tiepolo, who spent a great deal of his life in Madrid, didn't shy from Velasquez' influence and in his painting El Majo Guitarrista (The Dandy Guitarist) the performer appears next to a dandy singing a madrigal.

The romantic painter Gutierrez de la Vega, painted a very expressive portrait of his daughters, in which he has put in one girl's hand not an open book and a look of restrained indolence, but a guitar upon which the little girl's tiny fingers strum.

Another romantic artist, Cabral y Aguado, in his painting Bolero, graciously portrays the beginning of the dance with obvious savor for his epoch, while a guitarist interprets the dance music in the background.

Various mannerist artists from the late eighteen hundreds such as Valeriano Becquer, Milan Ferriz and others use the guitar as the central theme of their composition. And among the most important contemporary artists, Picasso, Miro and Dali use the guitar in their works.

But of all artists none can compare with Romero de Torres for giving life to the guitar in his art, as if inspired by an Andalusian muse, dark and dramatic. Romero de Tones, in painting some of his women, "put in their bronze arms singing guitars in whose strings are sighs and in whose body are cries of anguish."