Madrid School. 17th century. "View of El Escorial" Oil on canvas. 108 x 160 cm. Spectacular painting of an architectural view, which is not just a painting of a building but the relaxed view of a great “architectural complex” that houses several buildings and that forged Spanish history, a living legend that defies the passage of time. On April 23, 1563, the first stone was laid for the construction of this great Monastery, one of the most representative monuments of Spanish architecture. A colossal architectural ensemble consisting of a monastery and a church, a palace and a royal pantheon, it is known as the Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real or, simply, El Escorial. It was designed in the second half of the 16th century by King Philip II and his architect Juan Bautista de Toledo, although it was later completed by Juan de Herrera, and also by Juan de Minjares, Giovanni Batistta Castello “El Bergamasco” and Francisco de Mora. At the time it was the largest building in Europe and is considered to be the Eighth Wonder of the World. Since 1984 it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The architecture of the Escorial is symmetrical and balanced. The building is built in granite and divided into three vertical zones. In the central axis is the courtyard of Monarchs, the Temple and the King's House; to the left is the College and the Palace; and to the right, the monastery and kitchens. The architectural mass is simplified ny using squares, rectangles and circles through  the rule of  “Universal Trace” (or Universal Path). It consists of 15 cloisters, 13 oratories, 86 stairways, 88 forts, and 73 sculptures. The church has a Greek cross plan and in its main chapel are the funerary monuments of Charles V and Philip II. The painting controls space and perspective, showing painted architecture “that rationalizes the gaze”. The painting presents us with a stage of very ordered stones harboring some characters, (carriages that bring and carry ladies and gentlemen of court, characters that walk through the courtyards and that give life “to the theater and scene of so much stone”, the beginning of a procession with altar boys in front...), and that shows us the evolution of the scenography through time. This painting is a metaphor for ideal architecture, ordered, perfect, with inner order being expressed on the exterior ...., and showing the external order that is imposed on the interior.  This is undoubtedly a marvelous painting that “frames and orders” our aesthetic tastes, that idealizes our thoughts, that erases stress with its mere contemplation, as it is designed to delight the viewer's gaze. A painting that serves to perpetuate the grandeur of the past and the memory of so much contained opulence. An exquisite perspective understood as a symbolic way of ordering the world and the gaze.