Visual tapas.(Spanish painting)

Spanish Masters York Art Gallery, until 26 March

Last spring, in honour of the reopening of the refurbished York Art Gallery, the statue of local artist William Etty RA outside the entrance--striking a swagger pose to rival Reynolds's outside the Royal Academy--got a wash and brush-up from the City Council. This spring, it welcomes the public to an ambitious exhibition for a provincial gallery: Spanish Masters, the first Spanish painting survey in Britain since the one at the Academy in 1976.

Admittedly, York's survey is a little smaller. By borrowing ten works from the Bowes Museum--owner of the UK's biggest collection of Spanish paintings outside London--and adding others from here and there to its own holdings, …