Study says Picasso is Spanish-speaking world's top cultural icon on Internet

Pablo Picasso has beaten out modern-day actors and pop stars as the Spanish-speaking world's top cultural icon on the Internet, a cultural organization says.

Photo: Study says Picasso is Spanish-speaking world's top cultural icon on Internet

In a one-month period, 150,000 people searched the Web for information about the painter, who died in 1973, according to data released by the Cervantes Institute, which aims to spread Spanish language and culture around the world.

Surrealist painter Salvador Dali clocked in second with 100,000 Web searches in the same period, followed by singer Julio Iglesias and Spanish movie star Antonio Banderas.

The searches were recorded by Yahoo in December 2005, said Chimo Soler, author of the Cervantes study, on Monday. He added that the figures were likely much higher, since only about 23 percent of Internet users search the Web with Yahoo's engine, reports AP.

In the realm of literature, poetry and magical realism triumphed over the man of La Mancha. More Internet users searched for the late Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez than for Miguel de Cervantes, author of "Don Quixote."