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SPANISH PAINTING

TEXT BY A. DE BERUETE Y MORET
(DIRECTOR OF THE PRADO MUSEUM, MADRID)

EDITED BY GEOFFREY HOLME “THE STUDIO,” Ltd. , LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK

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LIST OF ARTISTS WHOSE WORKS
ARE REPRODUCED IN THIS VOLUME

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SPANISH PAINTING—WITH SPECIAL
REFERENCE TO THE EXHIBITION AT
BURLINGTON     HOUSE,     LONDON
NOVEMBER, 1920 TO JANUARY, 1921

HE exhibition of Spanish Painting held in London in the galleries of the Royal Academy from November to January last, excited a lively interest in the English public and inspired numerous articles on the subject in English journals and reviews. If all of these were not in accord on certain issues and critics adopted various points of view, it may still be said that the crowds of visitors which it attracted and the manifold expressions of opinion it evoked supply the clearest evidence that the exhibition aroused the curiosity of the English public, and consequently may be regarded as a triumph for Spanish art and a success for its promoters.

The reasons underlying the interest which Spanish art awakens to-day in enlightened circles (this is the second exhibition of the kind which Spain has of late witnessed beyond her borders, recalling that of Paris in 1920) are worthy of reflection and may be said to have inspired the Royal Academy’s exhibition.

Spain—her life, history, customs, art—is often regarded subjectively as though enveloped in a haze, or through the medium of legend, which, however accommodating it may be to literary expression, is by no means conformable to the facts of history or present realities. Viewed in this picturesque manner and because of the isolation in which the country remained for generations, and perhaps still remains, it has attracted the attention of writers and poets, and even scientists and philosophers, unfamiliar with their theme and dubious in their assertions. Doubtless the typical, the true native spirit has not been misunderstood by the outside world. Thus in the case of Cervantes and Velázquez, their names are household words in every land. But the kind of knowledge to which we allude is not usually imparted by such lofty spirits, who speak to humanity from the heights, without distinctions of race or frontier. That which they accomplish is only a part of the national achievement. It is the medium in which it is fashioned, the environment in which it comes into being, its artistic matrix, which determines the precise type of racial endeavour. To its national character the new Spain cleaves, and by its light her ideas will be readjusted, her history interpreted, her present respected as in line with her tradition, which, in the sphere of things {2} artistic, Spaniards regard as a potent factor in the advancement of world art.

Spain is familiarly spoken of as a country of distinctive character, and is so not only because of its geographical situation, which has kept it somewhat apart from frequented routes, but because it aspires to such a reputation. At the present time it is incessantly productive of art, its output exhibiting a specific character of its own, obvious and intelligible to those who examine it with sufficient care. Undoubtedly it has been influenced at certain periods by extraneous currents, but during the sixteenth century, when the true Spanish school was created, it was notably independent and unique. Its productions, these national qualities which above all determine that which is called a school, possess a character of their own, a special determinative essence, which can only be explained by metaphysical processes. But at the same time they display external manifestations, an ultimate expression, a speech, an idiom, so to speak, peculiarly national. And this speech in art is quite as fundamental as the spirit which determines the nature of the creation. All-powerful, or at least very great, is the spiritual capacity for creating mighty works in mente . But the various schools of art came into being not only because they enshrined an idea, but because they were able to give it form. The characteristics of the expression, not of the idea, of form, not of essence, these it is to which the critic should address himself in the first instance when he desires to differentiate between the works of one school and another, and when trying to distinguish the work typical of one artist from that of others of the same school, who have been less successful in following a common master. The creative idea, the spirit which animates every work, is distinct, according to the period of its origin, even in the case of the productions of the same race at different periods; but in expression its form is always similar, its ideas the same. As in literature writers of one nationality have to employ a common tongue, so in painting an expression equally conclusive, a palette, a technique, an idiom quite as definitive, determines the compositions typical of each race. If we find scattered throughout a museum where there are examples of all schools, a Saint by Greco, an ascetic figure by Ribera, a portrait by Velázquez, an image by Zurbarán, a visionary subject by Valdes Leal, a Virgin by Murillo, and a woman by Goya, it is probable that these works will contrast with one another too forcibly, or at least will not blend harmoniously. Each of them belongs to an epoch, and possesses a distinct creative and æsthetic spirit. But, even so, we will find that although the works belong to different schools, and variations and dissimilarities abound, all have one speech, one ultimate idiom in common; in a word, all have been painted in Spanish. {3}

It is not easy to state precisely in what this ultimate expression consists, but on general lines it is possible to affirm of Spanish artists that their work is characterised by a decided tendency towards sincerity, simplicity of composition and tonal harmonies in grey. Velázquez appears to have fixed the character of the Spanish palette and technique: the scale of very subtle greys, the harmonies of grey and silver, the use of certain carmines and violets, first encountered in the work of Greco, were tested and employed by him, as were those coloured earths especially indigenous to Spain, the earth of Seville and the preparation of animal charcoal, the use of which is noticeable in his canvases. These determined the material elements by the aid of which was developed a method of painting as simple as characteristic. Velázquez, like the painters of the great Italian school and the schools of the North, grew tired of conventionalism in colour and perspective, and, employing an exuberant palette and gifted with vision of extraordinary keenness, turned to the natural, and, with the lesson of Greco before him, and by aid of his own gifts of observation, sincerity, and a supreme simplicity, did not employ more than the necessary colours to obtain those gradations of tone which to our eyes appear so natural and present the harmony afforded by reality, the master by choice and temperament inclining to those in which were combined all the shades of grey. He created by his unique palette the true and unmistakable Spanish style. Goya, more than a hundred years after him, during the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, a period when the national characteristics tended towards insipidity, maintained this traditional spirit and thus saved Spanish painting from becoming confounded with the works of his contemporaries in France and England.

The years which followed those of Goya, the remainder of the nineteenth century, those years of easy communication, of rapid transit, of frequent travelling, of international study and residence abroad, so much more advanced in some respects, were less rich for Spanish painting. Spanish artists, absent from their country, engaged in many departments of work and instruction, lost something of their former qualities. At the present time, in which there seems to have been born into the world a new assertion and exaltation of nationality, Spaniards have regained their ancient spirit, and while aspiring to absolute modernity, remain faithful to a tradition which is peculiarly their own, which makes for national individuality, and has caused them to be regarded with that interest which always accrues to the original, the characteristic, the intelligent, and consequently arouses attention and anticipation.

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England has ever followed the progress of Spanish art with enthusiasm {4} and interest. During the nineteenth century, the majority of the works of art which left Spain found a resting place in England. In London within recent years three exhibitions of Spanish painting ante-dated that of 1920—one in the New Gallery (1891), another in the Guildhall (1901), and the last in the Grafton Gallery (1913). All of them were rich in results, more especially the third, which was remarkable for its modern section. The difference in character between the exhibition of 1913 and that of the Royal Academy in 1920 consists more especially in the display of works belonging to English collections, the latter being composed for the most part of examples sent from Spain as an act of homage to the English people, and to assure them once more of the existence of a spiritual bond or tie between the two countries, which with the passage of time aspire to a more intimate relationship.

It was at first the intention of the organisers of the exhibition of 1920 not to send as representative of the older art any except the works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and a few pictures by Goya, as examples of the golden age of Spanish painting, and especially in view of the exceptional interest in Goya. But it was ultimately decided to furnish an exhibit completely representative of all epochs. At the same time the Spanish Committee recognised that the section devoted to Primitive Art—in which among the many artists represented the most remarkable was Ribera—was lacking in distinction. This it regretted and felt a pleasure in its ability to compensate for the omission by providing a full representation of the greater Spanish painters, and in being able to lend ten Grecos and twenty-one Goyas, preserved in Spain, to Burlington House, a thing until now impossible of accomplishment and which it will not be easy to repeat.

The works of the primitive period placed on view, though all of peculiar interest, and several of striking character, were still inadequate to give a just idea of the development of early art in the Iberian Peninsula. The first essays of Spanish art were indeed lacking in national characteristics. At a time when Italy and Flanders produced painters of distinctive note, Spain, and perhaps the whole Peninsula—for in this connection we must not forget Portugal—filled its churches, monasteries and convents with panels and altarpieces. With the exception of the names of several artists now identified, all of its productions are of doubtful paternity, its style is borrowed and in general is distinguished only by the possession of regional characteristics of a minor kind. Therefore the paintings on panel that it produced are to-day referred to, in order to distinguish them one from another, as belonging to the Castilian, Portuguese, Catalan, Aragonese or Valencian Schools. For this there is an historical reason. The Peninsula, at the time in which its early art was produced, was {5} divided into different kingdoms and states, each absolutely independent and having its own history and traditions. Thus the kingdom of Aragon, with Valencia, was intimately connected with the Mediterranean, and came within the sphere of Italian influence. Castile was more closely related to the states of Flanders and the Rhine, admitting and developing Flemish and German tendencies. Catalonia possessed an art very similar to that of Provence. But I believe that all this work, chaotic, lacking in national expression, and in determinative characteristics, presents a difficult problem for its investigators. Add to this that these panels and altarpieces were often the joint work of several artists, one painting costumes, others specialising in heads and hands, others in drapery, still others in backgrounds, so that the whole resulted frequently in a composition confused and equivocal. All that can be said with any degree of certainty is that the production of this time was large, rich and of great merit, so far as that can be attained by a race of colourists who were lacking in discipline and insight.

This manifestation of pictorial art did not obtrude itself in any decided manner until the fourteenth century. To discover its origin we may have to compare it with the miniatures in the manuscripts of San Isidor, or the archaic mural decorations traceable by Byzantine art, and it would seem to possess a greater archæological than artistic interest.

Spanish art during the last years of the thirteenth century and until two centuries later is so incomplete in its details, presents so many diverse aspects, and the circumstances of its rise and tendency are so vague, that to venture any general opinions regarding it would be unwise. Its study has recently been confined to short monographs by various critics and scholars, both Spanish and foreign, which do not go beyond the discussion of specific works and artists, and the particular investigation of obscure titles and documents exhumed from the archives.

The arrival of Starnina and the Florentine Dello at the Court of Juan I of Castile in the second half of the fourteenth century, appears to have given a very great impetus to that style to which the Spanish painters were growing accustomed. But this Italianism notwithstanding, Flemish influences penetrated, if more lately, still more rapidly into Spain. The early Spaniards pursued and sought a realism in art which they were unable to find in that of Italy, hence their predilection for the style and manner of the Flemish and German painters and those of other countries whom they came to call painters of the North. The appearance of Van Eyck in the Peninsula in 1428, and that of other Flemish painters who arrived there about that time, aroused a true enthusiasm and imparted to Spanish art a tendency to copy faithfully from nature which henceforth came to be one of the characteristics which have never left it. Among {6} these painters of the North it is strange to find, a little before the middle of the fifteenth century, an artist called Jorge Inglés (George the Englishman), so named, without doubt, from his origin, who did some important work, especially in the hospital of Buitrago, the study of which we heartily commend to the English public and critics. We should like to have sent this work to the exhibition of the Royal Academy, but its enormous dimensions, as well as other circumstances, rendered this impracticable.

During this epoch, the composition of Spanish works begins to show the use of colours prepared with oil, thus permitting the development of a technique more in conformity with the Spanish temperament. Consequently the new medium appears in the works of many masters, among the first of these recorded being La Virgen de los Consellers , painted and signed by Luis Dalmau in 1445.

Andalusia, a region which has come in more recent times to be regarded as the cradle of Spanish artists, produced at this time not a few painters. The work, Saint Michael , of the master Bartolomé de Cárdenas, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy, pertains to this rich and flourishing period, which gave an impetus to the forces then impelling all Spanish life toward the national union which came to pass in the reign of the Catholic kings. Two new centres of activity arose at this epoch, which greatly fostered the rise of Spanish civilisation and favoured the development of pictorial art—two cities glorious and historical in Spain—Toledo and Salamanca.

Side by side with this budding art—which was in a certain sense inspired by the schools of the north, but nevertheless began to display a national tendency—a few isolated artists, either by preference or training, still retained the Italian style. We recall the Santa Catalina of Hernando Yáñez de la Almedina ( Plate I. ), shown at the exhibition, a work which has not been sufficiently appreciated and must be regarded as a beautiful example of that period.

Arising at the close of the epoch of national unity, the House of Austria, in the person of its most exalted representative, the Emperor Charles V, commenced to govern the destinies of Spain. The victorious expansion of Spanish arms, both in the Old World and the New, during the first half of the sixteenth century, had but little influence upon artistic effort, and none of the Spanish painters of this period are regarded as the equals of their Italian, Flemish, German or Dutch contemporaries. And our artists, at a time when the entire national fortunes were hazarded in campaign after campaign, had enough to do to maintain an epoch of gestation, to comprehend the laws and trace the spiritual current of the Renaissance which now dawned upon the world of culture. This great {7} movement failed also to take a national direction with Spanish artists, and the few books and treatises on art printed in Spain during this period are poor in conception and lacking in information.

Even to mention the names of the painters of the period, it would be necessary to burden this critical sketch with a list of artists of secondary importance. In his art Alonso Berruguete was certainly Italian, but in spite of this, he gave to his works a marked national stamp, maintaining in the central portion of the Peninsula a patriotic inspiration which resulted later in a separate school of culture. Valencia, with artists trained in Italy, was preparing a great reputation for the future, and then a painter of individuality, isolated in a minor province, and having few relations with the Court, created with his brush an austere art, a little dry and stiff, ascetic in its inspiration and scarcely suggestive at first sight, but striking in its individuality, and reflecting that spirit of Spanish theology and mysticism which was to dawn somewhat later. I refer to Luis de Morales, the maker of all these Dolorosas and Ecce Homos , so unmistakable and so much esteemed in Spain.

We come now to the reign of the son of Charles V, Philip II, a man whose memory has had to endure much criticism, but to whom, from the point of view of art, his country owes not a few of those works which it treasures most. The portraits of Moro, a wealth of Flemish and Italian paintings and, among others, a very complete collection of Titians, are due to the commands of Philip II, who, before he shut himself up in the Monastery of the Escurial, and during his visits to Italy, Germany and Flanders, was gathering choice examples of the art of that time, and of the period immediately preceding it, installing in the castles of Spain those paintings which are to-day the most important of the foreign collections housed in the Prado Museum.

But meanwhile the true national output of those years, mostly of religious pictures, was destined for the churches and convents, and must no longer be regarded as of minor importance. Meanwhile, also, by royal command, there arrived in Spain the works of foreign masters, and in Court circles there arose a style of painting exclusively devoted to the genre of the portrait, and which is known to-day as the school of portraitists of Philip II and Philip III. Its origin is known to us. It is due to the teaching which our painters received from that famous Hollander, Antonis Moor, who had so close a relation with our country that his name has become hispanicised, and who is equally well known to-day by his Dutch name, as by the more Spanish-sounding Antonio Moro. Patronised by Philip II, he gave instruction to certain Spanish painters, especially to one, Alonso Sanchez Coello, who was his disciple and successor in art. Another Spanish follower of his, besides Coello, was Pantoja de la Cruz, {8} and the third and last of those who maintained this school and who completed its cycle, was Bartolomé González, who flourished during the first years of the reign of Philip IV. Other portrait painters, disciples and imitators of these might be mentioned, but the artists alluded to typify this school, brief in its development, very distinguished and typical, though, as we have said, not of Spanish origin. Their characteristics are quite unmistakable. They paint a life-like portrait, dry, hard, minute in execution, and complete in all its details, to the treatment of which they pay much attention, especially as regards personality. But although skilful and sincere, their school degenerated and the last of its manifestations is practically an imitation of the first, possessing little excellence and scanty inspiration. Portrait painters of the Court, as we have indicated, the works of these men, though in general replete with strong personality, especially as regards the royal family portraits, have been scattered throughout the world, and were practically confined to the palaces of other reigning houses.

In the London exhibition we were able to study the most important of these several works, for example that of Pantoja, Portrait of Philip II ( Plate II. ), who is represented as elderly and on foot, a full-length portrait which faithfully reflects the appearance of this monarch, and which is housed in the Monastery of the Escurial. It appeared at the Royal Academy, being lent for the purpose by His Majesty the King of Spain. There were others, the property of His Britannic Majesty, which are housed in Buckingham Palace, the portraits by Sánchez Coello of the Archdukes of Austria , Wenceslaus , Rudolf and Ernest , the Portrait of the Infante Don Diego , and that of Margaret of Austria . That by Pantoja, Portrait of a Lady of the Palavicino Family (regarding the authorship of which various doubts have arisen), though not of artistic importance, certainly presents a critical problem, for while the art of portrait painting was being developed in Spain, in other countries and particularly in Italy, the disciples of the school of Moor created works which might at times be confounded with those of Spanish painters. Bartolomé González was also represented by the portrait of the Cardinal Infante Don Fernando of Austria , lent by the Marquis de Viana.

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About the year 1575 there came from Italy to the city of Toledo, a young artist, scarcely thirty years of age, born in the island of Crete, of Greek parents. He was called Domenico Theotocopuli, and was known then, as he is to-day throughout the whole world, as El Greco (“the Greek.”) There was reserved for this man the mission of shaping and, in the course of time, perfecting through the medium of his works, a technique, especially as regards execution, performance and character, which is {9} manifest in all his creations, and the great enthusiasm which the lovers of Spanish Art evince for it is natural and explicable. The fame which the first works of El Greco aroused in Toledo reached the Court, and Philip II commanded him to work in the Monastery of the Escurial on pictures for the Church. They were at issue from time to time, the King and the painter, and do not quite seem to have understood one another. Philip II, used to an Italian and Flemish artistic atmosphere, and an enthusiastic admirer of Titian, was unable to comprehend the work of El Greco, which, though of the Venetian tradition, represented an innovation profound and complete, and to-day, as four centuries ago, it perplexes many people. But lovers of Spain, those who apprehend her true genius and have studied her characteristics and idiosyncrasies, see in El Greco one of the most interesting figures in international art. In the spirit which appears in his works, the genius with which they have been performed, the marvellous technique developed in them, and the workmanship which gives such brilliance and quality to the colour, so that it appears at times to have been executed with enamels, he triumphs, disarming criticism, making us not only forget, but even applaud the extravagances and lack of proportion of which his works are full.

The work of El Greco may be divided into two distinct groups: one comprising human figures in general, portraits; the other divine figures, images, and religious paintings. In one work, the most complete and important of all, the Burial of the Count of Orgaz ( Plate V. ), these two aspects are joined. The upper portion, the heavenly, which it would seem the painter suffused with his idealism, is peopled with divine figures, symbolic and incorporeal. In the lower part, which represents an earthly scene, the form and colouring have the qualities of things terrestrial. In the exhibition of the Royal Academy, in the salon set apart for the works of El Greco, there were gathered ten examples eloquent of these two phases of his effort. His Self-portrait and A Trinitarian exhibit the second; The Annunciation and the Christ embracing the Cross the first. Another canvas which occurs to one as affording a good example of his brilliance of colouring and individuality is the picture full of miniature figures, The “Glory” of Philip II ( Plate III. ), sent to London by His Majesty King Alfonso XIII.

In this collection of his works, as indeed, in all those from the brush of this master, one could study the origin of the greyish tonality characteristic of the Spanish school which he was the first to introduce and give effect to, and to which Velázquez, in later years, gave definite form, thus founding a technical characteristic of the school. It may interest those curious regarding such problems of painting that the shadows which abound in the works of El Greco, though intense, are never black, {10} and this lends to them a singular profundity and atmosphere. From this relation of the light and shade, never attaining a pure black or white, there results a wonderful transparency and corporality, and all this is attained with fluid colours, in most instances blurred and rubbed and nearly always rather soft, slight only in the brighter places and in the points of light. He observes and understands that the reproduction of these things in the art of the painter is not due to faithful copying alone. The atmosphere, the light, the reflections, which these objects display to our sight, change according to conditions, and are represented on canvas not as they actually appear, but according to the aspect they present to the vision, modified by external agencies. Only thus is it possible to obtain the impression of truth, of movement, of depth. In the work of the copyist the objects and figures are petrifications, rigid and dead, in one and the same plane, in which, perhaps, the ability of the artist can more readily be appreciated, but which never gives the impression of movement or of life.

Distinctive as a creator, originator and master of technique, statements regarding El Greco’s artistic antecedents are debatable, as for example the relationship to other masters of Byzantinism which some profess to be able to discern in his pictures. But it remains clear that in his typical works he is above all the true interpreter of the Spain that was noble, pious and mystical, and the most sympathetic delineator of the spirit of the time in which he lived. We believe that it is correct to regard him as the adopted son of the Spain of his day.

Although his work has been discussed since the times of Philip II, to-day it ought to be regarded as consecrated. It is not only among painters that we should seek the true influence of El Greco. It is more extensive, and embraces diverse manifestations, therefore the causes which animate it are diverse. And so, in the studios of painters, in the studies of the cultured, among wise and refined critics, among literati, we may discover the most fervent and impassioned lovers of El Greco. There exists, without doubt, an invisible bond between this painter and the world of modern intellectualism, and this is owing in great part to the enthusiasm which his works arouse, to the peculiar mystery in which they are enveloped—which we do not find in any other painter—to the suggestive power which he wields, to something which impassions and completely subdues us. It is for this reason that disciples of El Greco, who in past years were scarce, are to-day a legion in number, and their pictures, once unknown and without value, are now celebrated and occupy prominent positions in museums and private collections.

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Neither Tristan, nor Mayno, nor Jorge Manuel Theotocopuli are figures {11} sufficiently important to allow us to say that El Greco, their master, founded a school, much less that he formed with them the so-called Toledan school, which, in reality, had no existence and did not give rise to an output from that city possessing those marked characteristics which would place it in the category of a school.

It has to be recorded that in the last years of the sixteenth century Philip II brought from Italy several Italian decorative artists to paint in fresco the extensive walls of the Monastery of the Escurial. He may have wished to bring with him for the purpose some celebrated foreign masters, but this was not possible, for the most important epoch of the Italian Renaissance had come to an end; and instead of great masters, there came others, decadents, facile “hacks,” who in a short time covered these enormous wall-spaces with compositions of scanty inspiration. We mention the visit of these painters to Spain, not because of any importance it has in itself, but in order to show that Spanish painters, even those of standing, have in all times been lacking in the qualities which especially characterise the decorative painter. Philip II might have encouraged Spanish artists. But whom—Morales, El Greco, the artists of the Court, the lesser followers of El Greco in Toledo? No, none of these appear to have been qualified to bring such a task to a conclusion. This and nothing else was the cause of the coming of the Italians; and for the rest the King favoured the works of various Spaniards, placing many examples of their work in his palaces and in the religious houses he founded. And so Spanish painting remained in this particular position to the close of the sixteenth century and during the first years of the seventeenth, which is regarded as its golden century, when, in the midst of fruitful invention there arose four great figures, each to-day world-renowned—Ribera, Zurbarán, Velázquez and Murillo. What centres of artistic life did Spain possess at this time? Two, fundamentally; those two cities which have since produced the greatest number of painters and the most able—Seville, the capital of Andalusia, the open gate to the New World, and Valencia, a Mediterranean port exposed to the influences of that which had been the classical world, and in close and direct communication with Italy, which bequeathed to it the last sparks of the marvellous life of the Renaissance. In Valencia, Francisco Ribalta, a conscientious painter, who had studied in Italy, introduced a style of colouring after the manner of Ribera. In Seville, frequented by all the Andalusian intellectuals, Pacheco, a most cultured artist, came later on to be the master of Velázquez and Zurbarán. In the exhibition with which we are concerned Ribalta and Pacheco, more famous for the disciples they left than for the works they produced, were represented, the first by Saint Peter ( Plate VII. ) and his portrait of himself as Saint Luke painting the Virgin ; {12} and the second by the Portrait of a Knight of Santiago .

A disciple of Ribalta, the figure of Ribera rises suddenly like that of a great master, with all the distinction which the title implies. Going to Italy while yet very young, he passed the greater part of his life there, and was known as “Lo Spagnoletto” (the little Spaniard). The Italians have tried to appropriate this artist to themselves, but his truly Spanish character is so manifest that no one can entertain any doubt upon the point. On arriving in Italy, he studied the works of Raphael and Correggio, finding his true métier at last in the energy and the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio, who then opposed a realistic style to the pseudo-classicism so noticeable at this time. Ribera, whose work exhibits the attributes of Spanish technique, and who above all excelled in drawing, a quality which distinguished him while still very young, naturally found in Caravaggio, the master of the chiaroscuro, more inspiration than in others of the classical painters and those Bolognese eclectics who were afterwards his imitators and rivals. He went to Naples, where he quickly achieved a fame which spread throughout Italy and Spain, his native land, with which he had never lost the most intimate relations as an artist, and here, in Naples, flattered by fortune and with riches heaped upon him, he continued to produce his admirable canvases, until the seduction of his daughter, the most beautiful of all his models, by the second Don John of Austria, the natural son of Philip IV, hastened his end.

The frequency with which he represented tatterdemalions, beggars, martyrs, saints, scenes of violence, of torture, of asceticism, marks, as everyone knows, the style of Ribera in its more superficial sense, and there is scarcely a scene of horror nor a picture of exaggerated tenebrosity belonging to that period and of Spanish tendency, which has not been attributed to him by persons of slight experience, so typical of him are these qualities, in which, moreover, he has no equal. Quite as exceptional are his vigour, his skilful modelling—which has the appearance of sculpture—and the anatomical construction of his figures, the effects of lighting which he knows how to achieve, and the exact appearance of reality, accentuated, but never repugnant, which he accomplishes. Always in touch with reality, two styles are apparent in his work: one, in which he appears to have revelled in violence of contrast, seeking out scenes of grief, old age or death; and another, less frequent it is true, in which he represents the more serene and placid aspects of reality.

It is a pity that the London exhibition did not have a full and brilliant display of the work of this master, as thereby his fame, which to-day is, in our judgment, less than he merits, for reasons expressed above, might have been securely founded. It is necessary to mention among the Valencians of this period Espinosa and Orrente. {13}

In Seville, as we have said, Pacheco was at the height of his fame, the master of all, the fount of culture. But the technique of this school at that time was under the influence of a man of a perplexing and stubborn genius, little suited by character as a guide for youth, but still animated by the Spanish spirit, subtle in technique and possessing a notable force of expression. The young men followed his style, which was in consonance with the progressive tendency of their years. We refer to Herrera el Viejo (the elder) one of the most remarkable painters Spain has ever produced. But it is a curious circumstance that those disciples who worked in the atelier of Herrera, unable to get much guidance from the master, soon betook themselves to the house of Pacheco, who, intelligent and comprehensive, did not attempt to misdirect the temperament and the inclinations of his young pupils, but set them to the task of faithfully interpreting nature.

Zurbarán and Velázquez, the most notable by far of all their contemporaries, protested against the conventionalisms of scholasticism. They did not seek to embellish the rude form, which the living model frequently presents to the eyes of the artist in search of a higher ideal, but to copy it as they beheld it, as it was presented to them, without distortion or falsity, was the purpose which they maintained faithfully all their lives. Pacheco appreciated the talent and outlook of these young men, he protected it as much as he could, and above all cultivated those qualities which seemed to him the most striking. Velázquez said to him: “I hold to the principle that nature ought to be the chief master and swear neither to draw nor to paint anything which is not before me”; and Pacheco, encouraged by the tendency towards a frankly naturalistic style which his disciple showed, and observing the qualities which he evinced, made Velázquez his son-in-law before he had arrived at the age of nineteen.

Among such tendencies the art of Zurbarán and Velázquez was evolved. The works of their youth were almost alike. They are sufficiently distinguished later because, while the first hardly ever left the neighbourhood of Seville, expanding but little, Velázquez, as is known, developed a whole pictorial technique.

Zurbarán was born in 1598. He was therefore a year older than Velázquez. By birth he did not belong to Seville, but to the province of Estremadura. But this notwithstanding, he grew up among the artistic influences of Andalusia, for the young painter arrived in Seville at the age of sixteen years, so that he is regarded as one of the greatest figures of the Sevillean School. For twenty-five years the artist was famous for his figures of virgins and saints, realistic in character, powerful, well drawn, vigorous and conceived without exaggeration, full of life and individu {14} ality. We mention as a work great in conception the Apotheosis of Saint Thomas , housed in the Museum of Seville. It is characteristic of Zurbarán the refractory, who refused to be inspired either by foreign or national influences. This lent him individuality and rendered his productions a series of continuous links between which but little difference can be remarked. He is famous, moreover, for his religious paintings, his monastic visions. These figures of monks in white sheets, which arouse admiration and appear to be carved, such is the relief of their draped folds, are characteristic and full of grandeur, feeling and austerity, and ought to be regarded in the light of actual documents of the monastic life of the Spain of the seventeenth century.

The distinctive feature of the technique of Zurbarán is the luminosity rendered by means of strong contrasts of light and shade. High lights without crudity and shadows without blackness are noticeable, as in the works of Ribera. The grey tones are never heavy, and their quality, harmonious in its blending, diminishes the hardness of the lines of profile, suppressing all rigidity. Zurbarán is, moreover, a painter easily understood, who rarely has recourse to a symbolism more or less appropriate for the expression of thought, and his ideal aspirations always present, in all that refers to form, a manifest passion for reality.

This master was well represented at the Royal Academy. Perhaps there was nothing of great distinction, but the nine works from his brush, all of one kind, were in general very typical and individual, comprising images, saints and figures realistic in character ( Plate VIII. ).

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We have alluded to the manner of Velázquez’s appearance in Seville and the influences under which he commenced his apprenticeship. A multitude of studies seriously executed, some in black chalk, some in colour, were his first essays. While still a youth he painted a number of those works which still astonish by their reality, by their masterly drawing—a quality with which he was naturally endowed—by their sculptural relief, and by their sobriety. Two works may serve as typical of these, both well-known in England, where they now are, The Old Woman Frying Eggs in Sir Herbert Cook’s collection, and the Water-Carrier of Seville , the property of the Duke of Wellington, which we quote as an example of the style and resolution which the artist bestowed during these years upon works of a popular character, and which, to judge from its subject and models, was then a novelty in a school of painting which had produced scarcely anything except portraits and paintings of a religious kind. Other works of a naturalistic tendency, vulgarly called bodegones , or “eating-house” sketches, and some of a religious character, complete the production of those first years of Velázquez, which was so limited in his {15} later years, that he must be described as a painter whose output was relatively small.

When the artist was twenty-four years of age, his father-in-law, Pacheco, a man of influence, advised him to leave Seville, and himself introduced him to the Court of Philip IV, in whose service Velázquez remained for the rest of his life. He was immediately granted a position and salary at the Court, and his first portraits of the Sovereign and members of the Royal Family aroused surprise and admiration. These, and his first subject compositions painted in Madrid, especially that known as Los Borrachos (“The Topers”), in their high excellence show the culmination of all the qualities found in the works painted in Seville during his first years of apprenticeship. Never has the Spanish picaresque spirit, which forms such a brilliant page in the literature of those times, been given a more genuine representation than is to be observed in the canvas just mentioned. If Velázquez had died after painting Los Borrachos , this work alone would have sufficed to have given him supremacy and the title of leader of a school previously indefinite and lacking a fixed and individual point of view.

A little later, at the command of his King, Velázquez went for the first time to Italy. The influence which Italian art exercised upon him has been the subject of discussion. It is not possible in an essay such as this to try to elucidate this point, but it appears manifest that if Italian art was naturally absorbed by his talent, it did not greatly affect his native qualities; and to judge from his subsequent work, it would seem that he showed a constant and single-minded solicitude to achieve an interpretation always actively faithful to nature.

The picture Las Lanzas (“The Lances”); the equestrian portraits of kings, princes and others, in which these personages appear dressed in hunting costume; those of the buffoons of the Court; the Scenes of the Chase in the mountains of El Pardo; and some others of a different type, such as the Christ on the Cross , in the Prado Museum, make up the tale of his output after his brief stay in Italy, and compose what critics have called the second style of Velázquez, more ample and grand than that of his youth, and, as time advances, enriching all the works which come from his brush with those definite grey harmonies which are occasionally almost silvery in tone, so characteristic and so unmistakable.

The painter was for a second time in Italy in the period of his maturity. He then painted the portrait of Pope Innocent X , and executed a bust of Juán de Pareja , which was on view in the exhibition at Burlington House. Returning soon afterwards to Spain, he there addressed himself to the accomplishment of his greater works, which truly reveal a superior art, somewhat enigmatical in its very simplicity, a sublime style which at {16} first sight does not seem to require much comprehension and the view-point of which has given to the Spanish School of all times, as well as to other schools, rich legacies, excellent examples and notable fruits. There belongs to this epoch of his artistry the portraits of kings and princes, the second series of the court dwarfs, even more rich and astonishing than those of the period of his middle years, some religious pictures, mythological works and, lastly, the two great works Las Hilanderas (“The Spinners”) and Las Meninas (“The Maids of Honour”) ( Plates X. and Plates XI. .), supreme monuments of a school, models of synthetic art, of astonishing simplicity in their composition, of delicate harmony, eloquent of the study of values, masterpieces, in short, of sublime painting, which, of an apparent modesty, are, notwithstanding, magical works, spontaneous creations, which shew neither exertion, weakness, nor weariness, and which seem to us the result of an art serene and calm, contrary to the influences of great idealistic conceptions, but which, essentially objective, reproduce the natural with a truth which is unsurpassed.

In the exhibition at Burlington House Velázquez was not adequately represented. But there were reasons for this. The undoubted pictures from his brush which are privately owned in England, and to some of which we have already alluded, are well-known and have figured in recent exhibitions of Spanish art, so that it was not deemed necessary to expose them again; while of those in Spain, the greater part is housed in the Prado Museum (and could not of course be sent to England), and those belonging to private persons are very scarce.

The examples from English collections were the magnificent portrait of Juán de Pareja, the Painter , from Longford Castle; the bust of A Spanish Gentleman , the property of the Duke of Wellington; Calabacillas , the Buffoon ( Plate IX. ) which has recently passed into Sir Herbert Cook’s collection; The Kitchen Maid , in Sir Otto Beit’s collection—all representative of a period of the artist—as well as the portrait of Don Baltasar Carlos, Infante of Spain , which His Majesty the King of England lent from Buckingham Palace.

Of this last special mention must be made. In our judgment it is an undoubted Velázquez and, moreover, a most beautiful example. Every part of the armour, of the legs, of the body, and, above all, the adjustment of the figure and the design are typical of Velázquez. How has it come to be regarded in England as a work of Mazo, where the master is so justly esteemed and where, owing, doubtless to enthusiasm for Velázquez, nearly all the pictures of Mazo are attributed to Velázquez? Or is it that some have arrived at false conclusions concerning Mazo and Velázquez, and when they are confronted by an original and undoubted Velázquez, are dubious of it because it does not appear sufficiently typi {17} cal of Mazo? It has not, to the best of our belief, elsewhere been observed that the head of this portrait is somewhat faint and flat.

From Spain there were sent The Hand of an Ecclesiastic , lent by His Majesty the King of Spain, a fragment, without doubt, from a portrait of which the remainder was lost in the burning of the Alcazar of Madrid. The special interest of the said fragment is that the hand holds a paper on which is the signature of Velázquez, assuredly, one of the three authentic signatures of this artist which remain to us, the others being found on the portrait of Philip IV , in the National Gallery, London, and that of Pope Innocent X , in the Doria Gallery at Rome. Concerning the portrait of Pulido Pareja in the National Gallery, London, we have already written at some length on another occasion, with the intention of proving that this portrait is by Mazo, and that the signature is consequently apocryphal. The Portrait of the Artist , from the Fine Art Museum, Valencia, is a beautiful example, if somewhat damaged and blackened, and the other three works shown have been more frequently exhibited and studied than those which are of undoubted authenticity. Among others of outstanding interest is the Head of a Cleric , the property of the Count of Fuenclara, which, although its attribution is not unquestioned, is remembered above all as a beautiful piece of work.

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We must now commence the rather complex study of those paintings which compose the Madrid School. We say complex, because, composed as it was of painters who came from one or the other part of the Peninsula, it does not possess a precise and regional character, but is the resultant of the work of many artists whose names we must not forget, as, for example, Carducho, Caxes and Nardi, of Italian origin, who, or perhaps their fathers, were brought to Spain as decorative painters. It seems natural that they should have had imitators or disciples, as it was precisely in the country of their adoption that artists of this genre were awanting. But, on the contrary, they were absorbed by the environment, and produced and achieved a sober and realistic style, forgetful of the circumstances of their apprenticeship, and, we may say, hispanicised.

Velázquez was the chief representative of the Madrid school, its creator, and, more, its prototype, marking the apogee of Spanish painting. His aim was always to simplify, a purpose which is clearly obvious from the methods he employed from his youth to his last work, constantly simplifying his technique and, consequently, his palette. To the study of his palette alone we have dedicated a work of a purely technical character (of which The Studio of November 1920 printed an extract) which space does not permit us to reproduce here, but which we take occasion to refer to since the simplification of the palette of this artist, the creator of {18} a school, must be regarded as of exceptional importance, as characteristic of almost all later Spanish artistic achievement, endowing it with great individuality and distinguishing it from all other schools. This circumstance is worthy of recognition by all who wish to arrive at the true significance of Spanish painting, so far as its outward manifestations are concerned.

Before dealing with the continuators of Velázquez, we must briefly refer to painting in Andalusia, where Murillo appears as a great force in Seville, years after Velázquez had been so in Madrid. Murillo, at first a disciple of his kinsman Castillo, was soon afterwards a follower of Pedro Moya. The painter passed during his youth through a whole gamut of influences, that of Van Dyck especially, alternating at times with that of Ribera. At twenty-four he was in Madrid, where Velázquez worked and taught, though only for a short time. When he returned to Seville he did not forget the lessons of Velázquez, and from this period date those popular figures, full of character, which began to bring him fame. Later, Murillo altered his methods, and for the rest of his life employed a style suave and soft as the Andalusian accent, graceful and suggestive. His religious works, his Virgins , and, above all, his Conceptions were soon famous, and, an incessant worker, he left a multitude of paintings which bear a personal and unmistakable stamp, and reveal an adequate technique, ample in treatment, in a tonality of varying greys, warm and glowing and without exaggeration.

But in truth the art of Murillo is of less interest than formerly, owing to present-day preferences, which seek spirituality in art, a force and even a restlessness which we do not find in the work of this artist. But his fame in his own day was very great, and for a long time he was considered as the foremost of Spanish painters. What gave him such a great reputation? The illustrious Spanish critic, Señor Cossío, has asked the same question regarding the causes underlying a style so direct and simple. Murillo’s subject-matter, says Señor Cossío, in the background as in the thing portrayed, represents always the soft and agreeable side of life. In the sphere of spontaneous creation, in that which does not require profundity, nor reflection, Murillo always exerts an irresistible attraction. His Conceptions are beautiful but superficial. There is in them no more skilful groundwork, dramatic impulse, nor exaltation than appears at first sight. To comprehend and enjoy them it is not necessary to think, their contemplation leaves the beholder tranquil, they do not possess the power to distract, they have no warmth, nor that distinction which makes a work unique, and as they hold just that degree of cultured mediocrity which in thought and feeling is the patrimony of the majority of people, they are able to please accordingly. If there be added to this a pious {19} and poetic sentiment and the celestial and suave expression of his figures, it is easy to understand the great, indisputable and just popularity which Murillo has enjoyed. Velázquez thought profoundly, but with ideality; Murillo has not idealism, nor is he profound. Both are realists, and if one represents the masculine feeling in Spanish painting, the other shows at its highest the feminine tendency.

At the Royal Academy seven pictures of Murillo, some of real importance, were shown. Amongst these religious subjects predominated, San Leandro and San Buenaventura , from the Museum of Seville, and The Triumph of the Holy Eucharist , lent by Lord Faringdon. Among the portraits were that of the artist, the property of Earl Spencer; Gabriel Esteban Murillo , sent by the Duke of Alba and Berwick; and Don Diego Félix de Esquivel y Aldama , from a private collection in Madrid.

In alluding to the Sevillean school, we must mention a contemporary of Murillo, though somewhat his junior, of singular talent. His name is little known outside of Spain, and this is doubtless the reason why so few of his pictures have left the country. We believe it a mistake to allude to him, as is sometimes done, as one of those Spanish painters whose work is no longer of interest, such is his expression, his distinctive note, his creative boldness and individuality. We refer to Valdes Leal. His harsh outlook, his frequent inaccuracies, his thought, profound and almost always obscure, and above all, his subjects, at times macabre and bizarre, at times graceful, provide reasons for his unpopularity, no less than the still scanty knowledge we possess regarding this singular man, the circumstances of whose work and life are presented to us almost in a legendary manner, as in the case of his friend and patron, Don Juán de Mañara, who has been incarnated in the popular imagination as the Don Juán of tradition.

In Granada, Alonso Cano, as great a sculptor as painter, maintained, with other artists of lesser note and standing, a flourishing school which had links with that of Seville.

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We turn again to Madrid, to the Court where Velázquez, as we have indicated, stamped such character on painting and informed it with such excellence that artists flocked from all parts of the Peninsula to the capital. This resulted in the flourishing period of art—ending with the seventeenth century—fruitful and various, which is associated with the School of Madrid. It is not precisely the school of Velázquez, although equivocally so called. Velázquez had disciples who followed him, imitating and copying him, as his servant Pareja, the mulatto, did. But this notwithstanding, other painters of talent worked during these years {20} in the capital, helping to form the school, even if they did not follow him in any decided manner. Nevertheless, he is its greatest figure, for he it was who gained the title of a school for the work of his contemporaries, and for the generation which followed him. The impulse which he gave by his technique and the composition of his palette, simple and sober, are characteristic of all this period. His son-in-law, Mazo, followed him blindly, and, working in his studio, was constantly impressed by the productions of his master, making use of the same methods—the same canvas, colours, brushes, and, giving rein to an extraordinarily imitative talent, he tried to make, and occasionally produced, actual facsimiles of his master’s works. The study of this curious problem of painting, of the distinctive note, the inclination of the time, as shown in the art of father-in-law and son-in-law, has been the subject of several works from our pen. We have not insisted on the point in these, nor have we space to do so in this brief synthesis; but we flatter ourselves that several paintings, especially those which belong to museums, have come to be more correctly attributed to Mazo rather than to Velázquez, and that those who are interested in these problems have come to distinguish the external aspect of the work of the one from that of the other, substantial and inimitable. We must remark, however, that Mazo had, besides the mere qualities of an imitator, a talent of his own of singular excellence, that of a landscape painter, which represented a relative novelty in the art of Spain at that period.

After Velázquez the most important painter of the School of Madrid is, beyond dispute, Carreño. Though his religious canvases are numerous, Carreño was, above all, a portrait painter. The relative influence of the work of Van Dyck, which extended as far as Seville, also reached Madrid, and Carreño came under it at times and discreetly made use of it. We say discreetly, for he had lost his national qualities. He borrowed from Velázquez the basic colours of his palette, but sought to enrich them with certain warm, golden tones, and he was enamoured of russets and, above all, of carmines, generally those which approximate to the colouring of the Flemings, but which appear cloying beside the works of Van Dyck. The portraits by Carreño were represented at the exhibition by that of A Young Lady ( Plate XXII. ), belonging to the Duke of Medinaceli, which might almost be described as a black-and-white from its colouring and the evident purpose of the artist to preserve this tonality throughout the work; that of The Queen of Spain, Doña Mariana de Austria , the property of Don Ramón de la Sota, a most beautiful example, from which, without doubt, have been taken the many repetitions which are known of it besides other variants; and that of The Marchioness of Santa Cruz , which is of great importance and very characteristic. Of religious {21} pictures it is necessary to mention The Apparition of the Virgin to Saint Bernard , sent from Bilbao by Don Antonio Plasencia.

The two brothers Rizi, Juan and Francisco, were of Italian origin; both were decorative painters and worked in the style of Carducho and Caxes. Juan, the elder, was a monk, and was one of the prototypes of the School of Madrid, following Velázquez in his work, soberly and simply. Francisco seems at times to display the qualities of his Italian origin, and though sufficiently Spanish, gave to his creations a certain quality which may have influenced the Spanish decorative painters of the time. It is a curious problem of influence. In any case this artist, who achieved fame in his time, is an interesting study to-day, and it would seem that the critic must scrutinize the beginnings of the question before he tries to explain its results. Pereda, Collantes and Leonardo are also notable, if lacking the character of their school, which clearly shows them to be among the disciples of Carreño, among whom, perhaps, the most notable were Cerezo and Cabezalero, who unfortunately died young. Cerezo seems to be the most striking figure of those years, and his brilliant colour and fine style initiated a tendency which made for the enrichment of the Spanish palette, the sobriety of which we admire in the masters, but which degenerates into a certain poverty at times in the hands of their disciples. With Cerezo we should mention Antolínez, who also died before he reached artistic maturity.

We now reach that era of painting which flourished at the Court of Spain during the remainder of the seventeenth century. A long list of names of artists could be made, all estimable and some remarkable, who exhibited the proverbial vigour and picturesque temperament of the race, which, skilfully directed, and having received a noble and traditional tendency, commenced its onward progress without faltering. We mention, however, only Claudio Coello, who seems to close this period. A disciple of Rizi, whose decorative tendency he followed, he was more an artist in a general sense than a portrait painter, and above all he produced many religious subjects. By his work The Sacred Form , which is kept in the Escurial, he seems to be sealed to the School of Madrid. This picture is obviously a result of the atmosphere and the taste of the period in its fidelity to character and its happy solution of problems of perspective and effects of light.

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For Spain the eighteenth century was a period of misfortune. The reasons for this are simple and evident. Grace and good taste—in the best sense of the term—lightness, came to be the characteristics of this century, and these qualities were displayed in a perfect manner in French art. And it was precisely these attributes which Spanish artists most {22} lacked, and still lack. They are robust, strong and sincere, but without gracefulness, facility of expression or volatility. A propos of this, it must be recalled that Spanish artistic expression appears to have been more or less influenced in its development by foreign tendencies which were allowed to work freely and with absolute spontaneity. The eighteenth century was a period in which the most powerful external influences, especially the French, the least adaptable to the Spanish temperament, had full play. These external influences were wholly ordained by the rule of the House of Bourbon, and incarnated in the first of its monarchs, Philip V, nephew of Louis XIV, who, doubtless meaning well, seemed to think it possible to transplant Versailles, with its marvellous spirit and exquisite culture, to the Castilian cities, which were still dominated by the sobriety and asceticism of the mystics of past centuries.

As regards painting, these influences commenced with the arrival at the Court of Lucas Jordán, who represented the influence of the great Italian decorative artists. Afterwards came Tiépolo, who left many marvellous works, quite inimitable by Spanish artists. The Bourbons introduced Van Loo, Ranc, Houasse and other French representatives of the art of the time; and lastly came Mengs, bringing with him a spirit wholly distinct from that of the French, a style erudite and academic which was not sufficiently powerful to create an artistic output of any importance in Spain, but which possessed much destructive power, although that was limited as regards time to about a century, during which period the national production was weak, despite the number of artists, of whom those most worthy to be mentioned are Maella, the Bayeus and Paret.

Such was the condition of Spanish painting when, without precedent, reason or motive, appeared in the province of Aragon, a region which years afterwards came to typify the resistance to foreign invasion, a figure of great significance in Spanish art, and worthy of comparison with the greatest masters of the preceding centuries—Francisco de Goya.

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The long life of Goya coincides with an epoch which divides two ages. The critic is somewhat at a loss how to place his work and personality, to conclude whether he is the last of the old masters or the first of the moderns. His greatness is so obvious, his performance so vast and its gradual evolution so manifest, that we may be justified in holding that the first portion of his effort belongs to the old order of things, while the second must be associated with the origins of modern painting. In his advance, in the manner and development of it, it is noticeable—as we have already said in certain of our works which deal with Goya—that he substituted for the picturesque, agreeable and suggestive note of his younger days, another more intense and more embracive. It would {23} seem that the French invasion of the Peninsula, the horrors of which he experienced and depicted, influenced him profoundly in the alteration of his style. There is a Goya of the eighteenth century and a Goya of the nineteenth. But this is not entirely due to variation in technique, to mere artistic development, it is more justly to be traced to a change in creative outlook, in character, in view-point, which underwent a rude and violent transformation. Compare the subjects of his tapestries or of his festive canvases, joyful and gallant, facile in conception and at times almost trivial, with the tragic and macabre scenes of his old age, and with the drawings of this period and the compositions known as “The Disasters of War.”

His spirit was fortified and nourished by the warmth of his imagination, and assisted by an adequate technique, marvellously suited to the expression of his ideas, he produced the colossal art of his later years. If his performance is studied with reference to the vicissitudes and the adventures of which it is eloquent, the influence upon his works of the times in which they were created is obvious. The changes in his life, the transference from those gay and tranquil years to others full of the horrors of blood and fire, of shame and banishment, tended, without doubt, to discipline his spirit and excite his intelligence. His natural bias to the fantastic and his tendency to adapt the world to his visions seized upon the propitious occasion in a time of invasion and war to exalt itself, or, as he himself expressed it, “the dream of reason produces prodigies.”

An artist and creator more as regards expression than form, especially in the second phase of his work, unequal in achievement and at times inaccurate, he sacrificed much to divest himself of these faults. He deliberately set himself to discipline his ideas and develop that degree of boldness with which he longed to infuse them. But he was not quite able to subject himself to reality, and, as he was forgetful and indolent, that which naturally dominated him began to show itself in quite other productions of consummate mastery. This art, imaginative in expression and idea, is more striking as regards its individual and original qualities, than for any degree of discipline which it shows.

To follow Goya throughout the vicissitudes of his long life is not a matter of difficulty. The man to whom modern Spanish art owes its being was born in the little village of Fuendetodos and lived whilst a child at Saragossa. He came to Madrid at an early age, and before his thirtieth year went to Rome with the object of perfecting himself in his art. But he failed to obtain much direction at the academies in Parma, and having but little enthusiasm for the Italian masters of that time, returned to Spain, settling at Madrid. Until this time the artist had not evinced any exceptional gifts. Goya was not precocious. The first works to assist his repu {24} tation were a series of cartoons for tapestries to be woven at the Royal Factory. They were destined for the walls of the royal palaces of Aranjuez, the Escurial and the Prado, which Carlos IV desired to renovate according to the fashion of the time. These works, which brought fame to Goya, showed two distinctive qualities. One of them evinces the originality of his subjects, in which appear gallants, blacksmiths, beggars, labourers, popular types in short, who for the first time appeared in the decoration of Spanish palaces and castles, which, until then, had known only religious paintings, military scenes, the portraits of the Royal Family and stately hidalgos. Goya, in this sense, democratized art. The other note to be observed in his work is a certain distinction of craftsmanship, the alertness which it reveals, which is, perhaps, due to the lightness of his colouring. On canvases prepared with tones of a light red hue, which he retained as the basis of his picture, he sketched his figures and backgrounds with light brushes and velatures, retaining, where possible, the tone of the ground. This light touch, rendered necessary by the extensive character of the design and the rapidity with which it had to be executed, gave to the artist a freedom and quickness in all he drew, and from it his later works, much more important than these early essays though they were, profited not a little.

Already during these earlier years he had commenced to paint portraits which did much to enhance his reputation, and shortly afterwards he entered the royal service as first painter to the Court, where he addressed himself to the execution of that vast collection of works of all kinds which arouse such interest to-day. The list is interminable and embraces the portraits of Carlos IV and of the Queen Maria Louisa, those of the members of the Royal Family, of all the aristocracy, of the Albas, Osunas, Benaventes, Montellanos, Pignatellis, Fernán-Núñezs, the greatest wits and intellectuals of the day, especially those of Jovellanos, Moratin, and Meléndez Valdés, three men who profoundly influenced the thought of Goya in a progressive and almost revolutionary manner, in spite of his connection with the Court and the aristocracy. He also painted many portraits of popular persons, both men and women, among whom may be mentioned La Tirana, the bookseller of the Calle de Carretas, and that most mysterious and adventurous of femmes galantes of whom, now clothed, now nude, the artist has bequeathed to us those souvenirs which hang on the walls of the Prado Museum. In these the artist has for all time fixed and immortalized the finest physical type of Spanish womanhood, in which an occasional lack of perfect proportion is compensated for by elegance, grace, and unexaggerated curve and figure, without doubt one of the most exquisite feminine types which has been produced by any race. Besides these, the artist produced many lesser canvases {25} containing tiny figures full of wonderful grace and gallantry, and having rural backgrounds, frequently of the banks of the Manzanares, and others of larger proportions and scope, among the most excellent of which is that of the family of Carlos IV, treasured in the Prado Museum as one of its most precious jewels. Along with The Burial of the Count of Orgaz ( Plate V. ) and Las Meninas ( Plate X. ), this picture may be regarded as the most complete and astonishing which Spanish art has given us. It is not a “picture” in the ordinary sense of the word, but an absolute solution of the problem of how colour harmonies are to be attained, and a most striking essay in impressionism, in which an infinity of bold and varied shades and colours blend in a magnificent symphony.

Goya, triumphant and rejoicing in a life ample and satisfying, received on all sides the flatteries of the great, and, caressed by reigning beauties, lived in the tranquil pursuit of his art, which, though intense, was yet graceful and gallant, and, as we have said, still adhered to the manner of the eighteenth century, when a profound shock agitated the national life—the war with Napoleon and the French invasion. The first painter to the Court of Carlos IV, a fugitive, deaf, and already old, life, as he then experienced it, might have seemed to him a happy dream with a terrible awakening. His possessions, his pictures, and his models were dispersed and maltreated; the Court seemed to have finished its career, for his royal master was banished by force, many of the nobility were condemned to death, and Countesses, Duchesses and Maids of Honour vanished like the easy and enjoyable existence he had known. Above all, Saragossa, that heroic city, beleaguered on every side, was closed to him; a depleted army defended the strategical points of the Peninsula, and the people—the people whom Goya loved and who had so often served him as models for his damsels, his bull-fighters, his wenches, his little children—were wandering over the length and breadth of Spain, only to be shot as guerillas and stone-throwers by the soldiers of Napoleon. It was at this moment that the true development of the artist began. The painter, like his race, was not to be conquered. The old Goya remained, strong in the creation of a lofty art. The last twenty years of his life were full indeed, and represented its most vigorous phase, the most energetic in the whole course of his achievement. Scenes of war and disaster occupied almost the whole of this important period, full of a profound pessimism, which still does not lack a certain graceful style, and displays unceasingly some of the saddest thoughts which man has ever known. These works of Goya are not of any party, are not political nor sectarian. They are simply human. For his greatness is all-embracive and his might enduring. Typical of his work in this last respect are The Fusiliers , of 1808, and his lesser efforts, those scenes of brigandage, madness, plague {26} and famine which occur so frequently in his paintings during the years which followed the war.

We do not mean to make any hard and fast assertion that Goya would not have developed in intensity of feeling if he had not personally experienced and suffered the horrors of the invasion, but merely to indicate that it was this which brought about the revulsion within him and powerfully exalted him. His last years in Madrid, and afterwards in Bordeaux, where he died, were always characterized by the note of pessimism, and at times, of horror, as is shown in the paintings which once decorated his house and are now preserved in the Prado Museum. Not a few portraits of these years also show that the artist gained in intensity and in individual style. It is precisely these works, so advanced for their time and so progressive, that provided inspiration to painters like Manet, who achieved such progress in the nineteenth century, and who were enamoured of the visions of Goya, of his technique and his methods, naturalistic, perhaps, but always replete with observation and individual expression.

We must not forget to mention that Goya produced a decorative masterpiece of extraordinary distinction and supreme originality—the mural painting of the Chapel of St. Antonio of Florida, in Madrid. Nor is it less fitting to record his fecundity in the art of etching, in which, as in his painting, it is easy to observe the development of their author from a style gallant and spirited to an interpretation of deep intensity, such as is to be witnessed in the collection of “The Caprices” and “The Follies,” if these are compared with the so-called “Proverbs” and especially with “The Disasters of War.”

The pictures representing Goya at Burlington House were composed of some twenty works. Among those which belonged to his first period were the portraits of the Marchioness of Lazan, the Duchess of Alba, lent by the Duke of Alba, “La Tirana,” from the Academy of St. Fernando, the Countess of Haro, belonging to the Duchess of San Carlos, four of the smaller paintings of rural scenes, the property of the Duke of Montellano, and An Amorous Parley (“Coloquio Galante”), the property of the Marquis de la Romana, the prototype of the Spanish feeling for gallantry in the eighteenth century. As representative of the second phase, of that which holds a note intense and pessimistic, may be taken A Pest House , lent by the Marquis de la Romana, and those truly dramatic scenes, the property of the Marquis of Villagonzalo.

Of portraits of the artist by himself two were exhibited, one small in size painted in his youth ( Plate XXVI. ), in which the full figure is shown, and the other a head, done in 1815, which gives us a good idea of the expression and temperament of this extraordinary man. {27}

The influence of the art of Goya was not immediate. A contemporary of his is to be remembered in Esteve, who assisted him and copied from him. Later, an artist of considerable talent, Leonardo Alenza, who died very young and had no time to develop his art, was happily inspired by him. With regard to Lucas, a well-known painter whose production was very large, and who flourished many years later, and is now known to have followed Goya, he can scarcely be considered as one of his continuators, but rather as an imitator—by no means the same thing. For he imitated Goya, as, on other occasions, he imitated Velázquez and other artists. Lucas is much more praiseworthy when he follows his own instincts and does original work. His picture The Auto de Fé , the property of M. Labat, which was shown at the London exhibition in the room dedicated to artists of the nineteenth century, is one of the best that we know of from his brush.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If the eighteenth century was for Spanish painting an epoch of external influences, the nineteenth century, especially its second half, must be characterized as one which sought for foreign direction. During this period the greater number of painters of talent sought for inspiration from foreign masters. This was a grave mistake, not because in Spain there were artists of much ability or even good instructors, but because this exodus of Spanish painters was a sign that they had lost faith and confidence in themselves and were strangers to that native force which in the end triumphs in painting as in everything else. First Paris, then Rome, the two most important centres of the art of this period, were undoubtedly centres of a lamentable distortion of Spanish art.

The organizing committee did not wish the London exhibition to be lacking in examples of this period of prolific production, to which they dedicated a room in which were shown examples of the painters of the nineteenth century. We mention some of the many artists of talent of the Spain of those days, and indicate their individual characteristics; but we are unable to allude to their general outlook and the characterization of their schools, which we do not think existed among them to any great extent.

The most famous painter who succeeded Goya was Vincente López, better known for his portraits than for his other canvases, a skilful artist with a perfect knowledge of technique, conscientious, fecund, minute in detail, who has left us the reflection of a whole generation.

Classicism arrived in Spain with all the lustre of the triumphs of Louis David, under whose direction José de Madrazo placed himself, the first of those artists of this type to maintain a position of dignity throughout three artistic generations. He held an important place among contem {28} porary painters at a difficult time during which, in consequence of the political disorder which reigned, the commissions usually given by the churches and religious communities ceased, private persons acquired few paintings, and the academies decreased in the number of their students. It was a time in which art offered but little wherewithal to its votaries.

But this period of paralysis was of short duration. The pictorial temperament, which inalienably belongs to Spain, and the appearance of romanticism, with a tendency conformable to the spirit of Spain, and which had for a long time given a brilliant impulse to her men of letters, revived painting, which forgot its period of exhaustion. The frigid classicism, ill-suited to the national genius, now passed away. José de Madrazo was succeeded in prestige and surpassed in ability by his son Federico de Madrazo. By his portraits he has bequeathed to us faithful renderings of all the personages of his day, which compete with those of the greater foreign portrait painters among his contemporaries.

Studying at first under classical influences, but regarded as romantics in their later development, were remarkable portrait painters like Esquivel and Gutiérrez de la Vega, and a landscape painter of especial interest, Pérez Villamil, who may in a manner be compared to the great English landscape painter Turner, though he had no opportunities for coming in contact with him or any knowledge of his work. Both men, each in his own environment, breathed the same atmosphere; and, although reared in lands remote from one another, thought in a like manner because they both reflected the period in which they lived. Becquer and others adequately maintained the descriptive note which now entered into the making of popular subjects.

Such was the condition of painting in Spain when there appeared the fruitful and extraordinarily popular genre of historical painting. In its origin it was not Spanish but was introduced from other countries, especially from France; but its Spanish affinities are manifest in its examples, most of which are canvases of great size, imposing, dramatic, and, in general, effective.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In this period culture, which in Spain had formerly been the preserve of a limited class, now spread itself more widely, and in the sphere of art was greatly fostered by exhibitions of painting, open to all and sundry, without distinction of social status. Pictures and sculpture, which in other times had been dedicated solely to art and to religious piety, the possessions of kings and grandees, now came into public view, were alluded to in publications of all kinds, and the people, enthusiastic and critical, were brought face to face with their native art. Many artists, perceiving this, hoped to gain popular applause, and consequently {29} worked upon their subjects as seemed most agreeable to the masses. The historical picture in such circumstances seemed to offer the greatest possibilities for achieving a popular reputation.

Gisbert painted the popular heroes of the past and was regarded as the representative of those revolutionary tendencies in art which were to triumph several years later. Alisal, Mercade, Palmaroli, Luis Alvarez, careful and excellent artists, painted both historical and genre pictures. From this group arose a most remarkable figure who died whilst still very young, but who has left us a most striking example of his workmanship. This was Eduardo Rosales, the painter of The Death of Isabel the Catholic . Rosales represented the Spanish tradition in painting. Averse to foreign influences, he studied and found in the great masters the sources of his art, and his works, both in Spain and beyond it, excited the greatest interest in his time. The picture above mentioned, sober and simple in style, though it must be classed as genre painting, has still many admirable and enduring qualities. The pity is that this group of artists did not follow him; for, flattered by the public acclamation, they entered upon the second period of historical painting, less effective than the first and always conventional, which lasted many years, indeed almost to the present time. For an atmosphere inimical to the traditions of Spanish painting arose, in which this type of historical composition flourished at a time when it had been condemned and forgotten in other countries, where it was forced to give place to those tendencies in which modern painting had its origin.

Rigurosamente, a contemporary of Rosales, was another exceptional artist of unusual gifts, likewise Mariano Fortuny, who unfortunately died in his youth. Fortuny, though he may appear quite otherwise to-day, was in his own time considered a progressive innovator. When he visited Madrid for the first time, drawn thither by youthful enthusiasm, he did so with no other idea than that of copying from Velázquez. But seeing in the Prado Museum the works of Goya, which were totally new to him, he received a revelation. He copied from Goya, and later, going to Africa, he painted many studies and pictures replete with light. Light as a pictorial factor, as an element in a picture, the study of light, the reflection of it in his own works—that is the progressive element which we find in Fortuny. The rapid success of his first works, their triumph in Paris and Rome, was due to an agreeable style, gracious in touch, suggestive, which appealed to collectors and dealers. At the same time we do not believe this to have been altogether his ideal, since a few years before his death, which took place in his thirty-seventh year, we see him betaking himself to the shores of Italy, where he made new studies of light and air. Was it reserved to Fortuny to be one of those of whom it will be said that {30} he assisted the development of the study of atmosphere and light? We firmly believe this to be so, but the work of the critic has nothing to do with prophecy, and we must deal only with that which Fortuny has left us, which is indeed sufficient. It must not be forgotten in judging his work to-day that its defects, or what seem to be its defects, were those of his time and were not personal, and that what is personal to him was his good taste, his mastery, and a series of innovations and bold essays in colour obvious to those who study his works. Fortuny was not a Spanish painter in the sense that he did not preserve the traditions of our School. He certainly took the elements of his palette from Goya, but his traits of manner show no sign of the typical qualities of Spanish painting.

It is fitting to allude here to artists of different types and talents in some of the cities of Spain, and others living abroad, who laboured during the last years of the nineteenth century—the Madrazos, Raimundo and Ricardo, sons of Don Federico de Madrazo, who studied under the direction of Fortuny; Plasencia, Domínguez and Ferrán, who distinguished themselves in work of a decorative character in the Church of Saint Francisca the Great in Madrid; Pradilla and Villegas, who have obtained the greatest triumphs during a long career; the brothers Mélida, Enrique and Arturo, the first working in Paris for many years, and the second a famous decorative artist; Egusquiza, painter and engraver; Moreno Carbonero, who, more a historical and portrait painter, found a popularity for his pictures inspired by episodes in literature, especially those of Quixote, in which he has coincided with Jiménez Aranda. We may also mention a group of artists, all of Valencia, a city which in times past, as in the present, enjoyed notable artistic prosperity: Sala, Muñoz Degrain, Pinazo Camarlench, José Benlliure and many others. Nearly all of them were represented at the Exhibition at Burlington House in the Salon set apart for the painters of this epoch.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In the second half of the nineteenth century the study of nature in the form of landscape arose as a creed, the artist coming face to face with the scene which he desired to transfer to his canvas. It has been said “what the landscape is, so is he who praises it.” Until then the landscape had been nothing but a background for a composition or figure, and those who called themselves landscape painters, when they undertook to paint a scene used it as a peg on which to hang poetical ideas, embellishing it, but never treating it as a true rendering of nature. Now the artist came to the country, felt the influence of nature, and faithfully copied it. The object of his work was to be as natural as possible, without embellishing or poetizing his subject, but to portray it, as one might say. This was a new idea to the painters of the time. {31}

Pérez Villamil, a follower of romanticism in painting, also practised landscape art in Spain until it underwent the change mentioned above through the arrival of a Belgian, Charles de Haes, who succeeded Pérez Villamil as professor of landscape at the School of Painting. Haes broke with tradition. He would have no conventionalisms, no studied compositions, nor preconceptions. He took his pupils to the country and there told them to copy Nature herself, leaving them without any further inspiration than that with which God had endowed them. To-day the studies of this master and of his disciples, generally executed in strong contrasts of light, seeking, doubtless, the effectiveness thus produced, appear to us, although they have a sense of luminosity, poor in colour, obscure and hard. But what progress is represented in them in comparison with all former art! And it is clear that they express the tendency which, modern in that time, everywhere governed the advance of art.

Shortly afterwards a Spanish landscape painter, not a disciple of Haes, Martín Rico, a companion of Fortuny, but who, having lived longer than he and reached a more mature age, advanced a further step in the art of landscape painting. If the chief aim of this painter had not been the rapid translation of his gifts into money, and had he not striven to please the public, he might have achieved lasting fame.

Casimiro Saiz, Muñoz Degrain—whom we have mentioned already as a painter of the figure—Urgell, Gomar and others devoted themselves to landscape; but the most salient examples of Spanish landscape painting are to be found in the work of three artists who developed with the rapid evolution of their time—Beruete, Regoyos and Rusiñol. Of these three sincere and individual painters, Beruete, in his youth a disciple of Haes, and later of Rico, evinced a very decided modern tendency. He devoted the years of his maturity to the making of a large number of pictures of Spanish cities, especially of Castile, paintings truthful and sincere in character, and revealing a very personal outlook. Regoyos was influenced by impressionism, to which he was strongly attracted, and in the North of Spain he inspired many by his numerous works. Rusiñol is, perhaps, more a poet than a painter. He still lives and works. He used to find in the gloomy and deserted gardens of Spain subjects for his pictures. One of the most remarkable figures in Catalonia to-day, both as a litterateur and painter, he has also sought inspiration in the scenes and countryside of this, his native province.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Spanish painting was completely modernized during the last years of the nineteenth century. Three great international events took place during that period—the three exhibitions in Paris of the years 1878, 1889 and 1900. At these Spanish painting was fully represented. At the first was {32} shown a varied collection of the works of Fortuny—one of the most famous artists of his time—who had died shortly before. In the second we experienced a rebuff, for a number of historical paintings of enormous proportions, full of the inspiration of the past, were not admitted, nor, indeed, were some of these worthy to hang in the exhibition. But in the years between 1889 and 1900 the development of Spanish painting was most marked, and in the last of the exhibitions alluded to the Spanish salons revealed a high level of excellence and a significant modernity. Moreover, there emerged the personality of a young painter, hitherto unknown, who by unanimous consent was regarded as well-nigh qualifying for the highest honours. This was a man whose name shortly afterwards became famous throughout the world—Joaquín Sorolla, one of those personalities who from time to time arise in Spain quite unexpectedly.

Sorolla, who was of humble origin, was born in Valencia, and in his youth was naturally influenced by the paintings of the old masters in his native city. He went to Madrid, later to Italy, and finally to Paris, where his work of a wholly realistic character was admired, for actuality was to this painter as the breath of life. A French advocate of naturalism has said “one rule alone guides the art of painting, the law of values, the manner in which the light plays upon an object, in which the light distributes colour over it; the light, and only the light is that which fixes the position of each object; it is the life of every scene reproduced in painting.” This statement Sorolla seems to have taken greatly to heart, even while he was still under the influence of old traditions and standards of thought.

Possessing a temperament of much forcefulness, and of great productive exuberance, enthusiastic about the scenery of the Mediterranean, and especially enamoured of the richness of colour of his native soil, the ruddy earth planted with orange-trees, the blue sea and the dazzling sky, Sorolla, oblivious of what he had done before, felt a powerful impulse to paint that which was rich in colour, so greatly was he moved by the eastern spirit. The coasts of Valencia, the lives of the fishermen, those children of the sea, the bullocks drawing the boats, the scenes beneath the cliffs and other analogous subjects, painted in full sunlight—the sunlight of July and August for preference—these are the subjects on which Sorolla laboured for several years, producing canvas after canvas, now famous both in Europe and America.

We do not say that this outlook is ideal, but the study of light and atmosphere was a contribution to the history of modern art, and was among the elements which will be handed down to posterity as the original note of the painters of the last years of the nineteenth century. Of these Sorolla {33} was one of the most forceful, and we lay stress upon his work, as in our judgment its importance demands especial notice. We have not alluded to his great talent as a portrait painter, nor to the decorative works which he has dedicated to the Hispanic Society of America in New York, and which, although they are completed, are not yet installed in place. Some few years after the appearance of Sorolla, there arose almost simultaneously two Spanish painters of other tendencies, equally noteworthy, and whose names are universally known—Zuloaga and Anglada. Zuloaga must be regarded in a very different manner from Sorolla. In no sense does he go to nature merely to copy it in the manner in which it presents itself to our vision, but he seeks, both in nature and humanity, for types, for characteristic figures of a representative and realistic kind. His work has developed with robustness and force, and attracts the attention of the modern critic eager for characteristic and singular qualities. To his reception in the universal world of art it is not necessary to allude here. The reviews and periodicals of all countries have commented with praise upon the achievements of this master, who is still busily at work, constantly engaged in the representation of popular types in the characteristic costume of many regions, especially his own people, the Basques, and the Castilians, for whom he appears to have a special predilection.

Those landscapes which he takes for the backgrounds of his pictures also seem to be inspired by that love of character which animates all his productions. In his latest phase, too, he has executed numerous portraits of people of different social categories. In technique it is noticeable that Zuloaga strives to preserve those tonalities which characterize the Spanish School; and the study he has made of the works of Velázquez and Goya is manifested in the lively reminiscences of these masterpieces displayed at times in his pictures, which exhibit, nevertheless, a relative modernity.

Anglada is, in our view, completely distinct from Sorolla and Zuloaga. Enamoured of the charm of colour, his work has no connection with schools or traditions. Aloof from every influence, he aspires to nothing so much as rich colour-schemes and harmonies, and seeks inspiration in night-bound gardens, brightly illuminated, in subjects which reflect electric light, and in figures which appear all the more distinct as the background is often the sea beneath the radiance of the Mediterranean light. These unusual sources of inspiration appear strange at first sight; but it is noticeable that they manifest on the part of the painter always the same idea of seeking for rich colouring. We must regard Anglada as one of the most remarkable and most original of modern painters. It is a great pity that he was not represented at Burlington House. His absence, like that of Sert, the great decorative painter, Beltran, Miguel {34} Nieto and others, was accounted for by the fact that the pictures were received too late to be included in the Exhibition.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The salons set apart for modern painting at the London Exhibition seem to us to have been disposed and arranged with care. There were shown in the first of these rooms works by Sorolla, his disciple Benedito, one of the most esteemed portrait painters in Madrid, Zaragoza, Moisés, Carlos Vázquez, and some landscapes by Rusiñol. The second room was in complete harmony with the first, and in it we observed the works of artists, some of whom are still young, but nevertheless masters of strong propensity and perfect equilibrium; the great composition by Gonzalo Bilbao, The Cigar-makers ( Plate XXXVII. ); the striking portraits of Chicharro and Sotomayor; the unmistakably Spanish canvases of Mezquita and Rodriguez Acosta; and the picturesque and suggestive note of the Valencian figures by Pinazo Martinez.

The neighbouring room was dedicated to those who may be called painters of character, for such was the exclusive note of all the works shown there. It would not be easy to say who occupied the place of honour here, Zuloaga, Romero de Torres, an artist of Cordova, who has tried to create a type of female beauty famous throughout Spain, the brothers Zubiaurre, peculiarly Basque in feeling, and now well known everywhere, Salaverria, Ortiz Echagüe, Arrúe, Juan Luis y Arteta, a delicate and emotional painter who has found on the Basque shores subjects for pictures unusually simple, in which is displayed a delicacy of technical expression together with the significance of an idea, inspired, like his subjects, by a simple poetry.

Following these, in still other rooms, were hung works similar in type, but bolder, perhaps, such as those of Solana, whose three canvases, painted in low tones, were of great interest and excited much remark in the exhibition; Vázquez Díaz, so various in his subjects, but always individual; Maeztu, the consistent exponent of a colossal and decorative style; Castelucho, Urgell, Guezala; and Astruc y Sancha, who combines caricature of consummate mastery with the painting of landscapes of manifest originality.

In another room were exhibited smaller landscapes. These included examples of Rusiñol, Beruete, Regoyos, Meifren, Forns, Raurich, Colom, Grosso and Mir. Among the work of other young painters of promise but as yet little known, we must mention the seascapes of Verdugo Landi and Nogue.

The next salon, known as the Lecture Room, formed a kind of overflow for the last, and contained pictures by Hermoso, Garnelo, Simonet, Morera, Marin Bagües, Canals, Cardona, Villegas Brieva, Oroz, Mad {35} razo-Ochoa, Covarsi, Bermejo, and many other artists, a list of whom would be much too extensive for inclusion here.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We do not think that the assertion that Spanish painting has been a powerful factor in the history and development of universal art will be regarded by anyone as a discovery, nor will such a statement appear as a result of patriotic enthusiasm. Spanish painting to-day follows its brilliant traditions; and although we believe this present period to be one of gestation, it occasionally reveals qualities of splendour and greatness. It is indubitably lacking in marked and decided outlook, but it is, nevertheless, universally respected and suffers, at the most, merely from the exigencies of the time. Moreover, not a few critics of distinction in the Peninsula, who concern themselves with the study of particular movements, see in it a tendency to the formation of regional groups. The central one naturally has its focus in Madrid, and radiates thence over the whole of Spain; but a large output is always forthcoming from the cities of Seville and Valencia, which appear, by the light of tradition, as the most brilliant centres of pictorial art. There are, moreover, two other regions which have produced rich and flourishing art—Catalonia and the Basque provinces, with their two capital cities, Barcelona and Bilbao.

Catalan art is no new thing in Spanish tradition, and is in a measure descended from that which was formerly the art of the Kingdom of Aragon before the national union. The Catalans have confined it entirely to their territory, have cultivated it with enthusiasm, and have created a Catalan school of Spanish Art. It is a great pity that they have not tried to preserve a more national spirit and have frequently sought inspiration from foreign sources, especially from France. But, this notwithstanding, Catalan achievement is indeed most worthy of praise.

The artistic production of the Basque provinces is forcible and original. The Basques, with a scanty pictorial tradition, have shrewdly sought for inspiration in the Spanish sphere without distinction of locality, and have produced an art of undoubted interest.

But apart from this there exists at the present time a movement of worldwide character, which seems to have a literary origin and which may, perhaps, be called, for want of a better name, the new spirit. Though still in a chaotic state, this movement, varied in its aspects, may in all lands be identified by an underlying intention to revolutionize everything, creating a new æsthetic code and turning its back on the past and on all tradition.

It is not our intention to deal with this movement or to discuss its importance. Spain does not appear to be the country best fitted to lead it. Its history seems to show that while it is ready of acceptance, it is not to be {36} hurried in its advance; nor is it eager to seize upon radical ideas. But this notwithstanding, it has painters who understand and cultivate art of this kind, and it must not be forgotten that one of the outstanding figures in the ultramodern movement is the Spaniard Picasso, who has shown once more that in all phases of artistic effort the Spanish temperament significantly reveals itself.

A. de Beruete y Moret .
( Translated by Lewis Spence )

PLATE I

PLATE I

YAÑEZ DE LA ALMEDINA

( Collection of the Marquis de Casa-Arquedin, Madrid )

“ANTA CATALINA” (“SAINT CATHERINE”)

PLATE II

PLATE II

PANTOJA DE LA CRUZ

( Collection of H.M. The King of Spain )

“PHILIP II”

PLATE III

PLATE III

EL GRECO

( Collection of H.M. The King of Spain )

“LA GLORIA DE FELIPE II”
(“THE ‘GLORY’ OF PHILIP II”)

PLATE IV

PLATE IV

EL GRECO

( Provincial Museum, Toledo )

“SAN PABLO” (“SAINT PAUL”)

PLATE V

PLATE V

EL GRECO

Photo: Moreno, Madrid

( Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo )

“EL ENTIERRO DEL CONDE DE ORGAZ” (DETAIL.)
(“THE BURIAL OF COUNT OF ORGAZ”)

PLATE VI

PLATE VI

EL GRECO

( Prado Museum, Madrid )

“RETRATO DE UN CABALLERO”
(“PORTRAIT OF A NOBLEMAN”)

PLATE VII

PLATE VII

FRANCISCO DE RIBALTA

( Fine Art Museum, Valencia )

“SAN PEDRO”
(“SAINT PETER”)

PLATE VIII

PLATE VIII

ZURBARAN

( Provincial Museum, Seville )

“EL BEATO DOMINICO ENRIQUE SUZON”
(“THE DOMINICAN, HENRY SUZON”)

PLATE IX

PLATE IX

VELAZQUEZ

( Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart. )

“CALABACILLAS EL BUFON”
(“CALABACILLAS, THE BUFFOON”)

PLATE X

PLATE X

VELAZQUEZ

Photo: Anderson

“LAS MENINAS” (THE MAIDS OF HONOUR)

PLATE XI

PLATE XI

VELAZQUEZ

( Prado Museum , Madrid )

“LAS MENINAS” (DETAIL)
(“THE MAIDS OF HONOUR”)

PLATE XII

PLATE XII

VELAZQUEZ

( National Gallery, London. By permission of Messrs. Thos. Agnew & Sons )

“VENUS Y CUPIDO” (“VENUS AND CUPID”)

PLATE XIII

PLATE XIII

VELAZQUEZ

Photo: Mansell

( National Gallery, London )

“PHILIP IV”

PLATE XIV

PLATE XIV

VELAZQUEZ

“INFANTE BALTASAR CARLOS”

PLATE XV

PLATE XV

VELAZQUEZ

Photo: Anderson

( Prado Museum, Madrid )

“INFANTE BALTASAR CARLOS” (DETAIL)

PLATE XVI

PLATE XVI

VELAZQUEZ

Photo: Mansell

( Wallace Collection, London )

“LA DAMA DEL ABANICO”
(“THE LADY WITH A FAN”)

PLATE XVII

PLATE XVII

FRAY JUAN RIZI

( Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart. )

“UN CABALLERO JOVEN”
(“A YOUNG CAVALIER”)

PLATE XVIII

PLATE XVIII

MURILLO

Photo: Anderson

Photo: Anderson

( La Caridad, Seville )

“MOISES TOCANDO LA ROCA”
(“MOSES STRIKING THE ROCK”)

PLATE XIX

PLATE XIX

MURILLO

Photo: Anderson

( La Caridad, Seville )

“EL MILAGRO DE LOS PANES Y LOS PECES”
(“THE MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES AND FISHES”)

PLATE XX

PLATE XX

MURILLO

Photo: Anderson

( Provincial Museum, Seville )

“SAN FELIX DE CANTALISI Y EL NIÑO JESUS”
(“ST. FELIX OF CANTALISI AND THE INFANT CHRIST”)

PLATE XXI

PLATE XXI

MURILLO

Photo: Mansell

( Wallace Collection, London )

“LA CARIDAD DE SANTO TOMAS DE VILLANUEVA”
(“THE CHARITY OF ST. THOMAS OF VILLANUEVA”)

PLATE XXII

PLATE XXII

CARREÑO DE MIRANDA

( Collection of the Duke of Medinaceli, Madrid )

“RETRATO DE UNA DAMA”
(“PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY”)

PLATE XXIII

PLATE XXIII

CLAUDIO COELLO

( Collection of Don Aureliano de Beruete y Moret, Madrid )

“DON JUAN DE ALARCON”

PLATE XXIV

PLATE XXIV

GOYA

( Collection of the Duke of Montellano, Madrid )

“EL COLUMPIO”
(“THE SWING”)

PLATE XXV

PLATE XXV

GOYA

( Collection of the Duke of Montellano, Madrid )

“LA CUCAÑA” (“THE GREASY POLE”)

PLATE XXVI

PLATE XXVI

GOYA

( Collection of the Count of Villagonzalo, Madrid )

“AUTORRETRATO”
(“PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER”)

PLATE XXVII

PLATE XXVII

GOYA

( Fernan-Nuñez Collection, Madrid )

“CONDE DE FERNAN-NUÑEZ” (DETAIL)

PLATE XXVIII

PLATE XXVIII

GOYA

( Prado Museum, Madrid )

“INFANTE DON CARLOS MARIA ISIDRO”

PLATE XXIX

PLATE XXIX

GOYA

( Private Collection, Madrid )

“LA CONDESA DE CHINCHOU” (DETAIL)

PLATE XXX

PLATE XXX

GOYA

( Collection of the Count of Villagonzalo, Madrid )

“EL DUQUE DE SAN CARLOS”

PLATE XXXI

PLATE XXXI

EDUARDO ROSALES

“MUJER SALIENDO DEL BAÑO”
(“WOMAN LEAVING THE BATH”)

PLATE XXXII

PLATE XXXII

MARIANO FORTUNY

( Collection of Capt. Samuels )

“EL PATIO DE LA ALBERCA EN LA ALHAMBRA”
(“THE ALBERCA COURT IN THE ALHAMBRA”)

PLATE XXXIII

PLATE XXXIII

JOAQUIN SOROLLA

“SALIENDO DEL BAÑO”
(“AFTER BATHING”)

PLATE XXXIV

PLATE XXXIV

IGNACIO ZULOAGA

“LA SEÑORITA SOUTY”

PLATE XXXV

PLATE XXXV

E. MARTINEZ VAZQUEZ

“UNA ALDEA DE LA SIERRA DE GREDOS (AVILA)”
(“A VILLAGE IN THE SIERRA DE GREDOS (AVILA)”)

PLATE XXXVI

PLATE XXXVI

LUIS MASRIERA

“SOMBRAS REFLEJADAS” (“REFLECTED SHADOWS”)

PLATE XXXVII

PLATE XXXVII

GONZALO BILBAO

“LAS CIGARRERAS” (“THE CIGAR-MAKERS”)

PLATE XXXVIII

PLATE XXXVIII

RAMON DE ZUBIAURRE

“RETRATO DE MI ESPOSA”
(“PORTRAIT OF MY WIFE”)

PLATE XXXIX

PLATE XXXIX

JOSÉ PINAZO

“CREPUSCULO”
(“TWILIGHT”)

PLATE XL

PLATE XL

A. ORTIZ ECHAGÜE

“SUPERSTICION”
(“SUPERSTITION”)

PLATE XLI

PLATE XLI

J. GUTIERREZ SOLANA

“CARNAVAL EN LA ALDEA”
(“THE VILLAGE CARNIVAL”)

PLATE XLII

PLATE XLII

JOSE BENLLIURE GIL

“HACIENDO BOLILLOS”
(“LACE-MAKING”)

PLATE XLIII

PLATE XLIII

C. CASTELUCHO

“NIÑOS GITANOS EN LA PLAYA” (“GIPSY CHILDREN ON THE BEACH”)

PLATE XLIV

PLATE XLIV

JUAN CARDONA

“ALTAR DE MAYO”
(“MAY ALTAR”)

PLATE XLV

PLATE XLV

F. ALVAREZ DE SOTOMAYOR

“PAISANAS GALLEGAS”
(“GALICIAN PEASANT-WOMEN”)

PLATE XLVI

PLATE XLVI

CARLOS VAZQUEZ

“UNA DOLOROSA”
(“OUR LADY OF SORROWS”)

PLATE XLVII

PLATE XLVII

JOSÉ Ma LOPEZ MEZQUITA

“PILARCITA”

PLATE XLVIII

PLATE XLVIII

FRANCISCO SANCHA

“UN PUEBLO ANDALUZ” (“AN ANDALUSIAN VILLAGE”)

{127}

PLATE XLIX

PLATE XLIX

JOSÉ DE MARTI GARCES

“INTERIOR”

PLATE L

PLATE L

NICOLAS RAURICH

“TERRUÑOS”
(“ROUGH GROUND”)

PLATE LI

PLATE LI

JOSÉ R. ZARAGOZA

“VIEJOS BRETONES”
(“OLD BRETONS”)

PLATE LII

PLATE LII

CONDE DE AGUIAR

“RETRATO DE UN TORERO”
(“PORTRAIT OF A BULLFIGHTER”)