The story of Spanish painting, by Charles H. Caffin

The story of Spanish painting
by Charles Henry Caffin
1910

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I THE STOEY OF THE NATION 3

n CHARACTERISTICS OP SPANISH PAINTING 25

in A PANORAMIC VIEW. PART I. To THE END OF THE

SIXTEENTH CENTURY 40

iv A PANORAMIC VIEW. PART II. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY 54

v DOMENICO THEOTOCOPULI (EL GRECO) ..... 66

vi VELASQUEZ 92

vii MAZO 121

viii CARRENO 131

ix RIBERA (Lo SPAGNOLETTO) . 136

x MURILLO . . * 148

/

XI CANO AND ZURBARAN . . . . 161

xn GOYA , .... 171

A POSTSCRIPT . . 191

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

S. JEEOME El Greco . . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

i School of Castile, [XV Ce

From a photograph by J. Laurent & Co., Madrid.

THE CATHOLIC KINGS AT PRAYER< ,. . '

IX V Century .... 18

TT (Spanish School,

S. URSULA , .< *L __

I XV Century .... 31

THE APPARITION OF THE VIRGIN

TO BERNARDINE MONKS . ? Pedro Berruguete . . 37

S. STEPHEN CONDUCTED TO MARTYRDOM Juan de Juanes . . . 44

From a photograph by J. Laurent & Co., Madrid.

DESCENT FROM THE CROSS . . . Pedro Campana . . 51

From a photograph by Anderson, Rome.

PRESENTATION OP JESUS IN THE

TEMPLE . Luis Morales . . . . 62

From a photograph by J. Laurent & Co., Madrid.

THE CRUCIFIXION . . El Greco ..... 70

SAN MAURICIO AND HIS THEBAN

LEGION El Greco ..... 75

THE FUNERAL OF COUNT ORGAZ . El Greco . . . . 76

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I-ACINQ PAOI

BAPTISM OF CHRIST El Greco . .... 81

VIRGIN AND SAINTS El Greco 85

PHILIP IV, OLD Velasquez .... 92

EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF PHILIP

IV Velasquez .... 96

AN ACTOR, CALLED "DON JUAN DE

AUSTRIA" Velasquez . . . .100

LAS HILANDERAS (THE WEAVERS ) Velasquez .... 109

LAS MENINAS (THE MAIDS OF

HONOR) Velasquez .... 114

DONA MARIANA DE AUSTRIA . . Velasquez . . . .119

Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo

DONA MARIANA DE AUSTRIA . .<

m -r. ( Juan Bautista Mar-

THE FOUNTAIN OF THE TRITONS .1 ., , , ,. ,_,

( tinez del Mazo . .127

CHARLES II ........ Carreno ..... 132

From a photograph by Anderson, Rome.

HERMIT SAINT ....... Ribera

MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES AND "]

FISHES ........ MurUlo . . , . . 150

MOSES STRIKING THE ROCK . . J

SS. JUSTA AND RUFINA .... Murillo . , . 165

on

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

APOTHEOSIS OF S. THOMAS

AQUINAS ........ Francisco de Zurbardn 163

From a photograph by Anderson, Rome*

MIRACLE OF S. HUGO Francisco de Zurbardn 166

From a photograph by Anderson, Rome.

CHARLES IV AND THE ROYAL

FAMILY Goya 171

MAIA, NUDE Goya .*.. 174

QUEEN MARIA LUISA ON HORSEBACK Goya ...... 183

THE FATES Goya . .... .184

SCENE OF MAY 3, 1808 .... Goya ...... 189

IN THE BALCONY ...... Goya ...... 190

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

CHAPTER I

THE STORY OF THE NATION

IN 1492 the Catholic Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, entered Granada in triumph. The last stronghold of Moorish dominion, undermined by the dissensions of Islam, fell before the united Christian kingdoms of Leon, Castile and Aragon. Spain became a united country and, in virtue of her protracted struggle of nearly eight hundred years against the infidel, stood forth as the acknowledged and self-conscious Champion of Catholicism. In the same year Columbus, under the patronage of the Catholic Sovereigns discovered the New World. This date, therefore, presents an epoch that completes the past and forms the starting point of a new era. Intimately associated with the subsequent national development and decline is the story of Spanish painting, but it owes most of its peculiar characteristics to the conditions that preceded the country's complete union.

It is always interesting and usually illuminating to

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picture the historical background out of which the arts of a country have been gradually evolved. But in the case of Spanish painting it is essential. For the art of Spain was, bone and spirit, a part of the Spanish character, shaped and inspired as the latter had been by the racial, historical and geographical conditions out of which it was moulded. Without taking all this into account one cannot understand, much less appreciate sympathetically, the consistently individual character of this school of painting.

In the first place one must realise the meaning of the fact that Spain is a mountainous country; not only separated from the rest of Europe, but divided against itself by precipitous barriers. They run in a general way from West to East: abrupt colossal walls of volcanic origin, with a grand sweep of bulk, jagged in sky-line and frequently piled with the chaotic debris of glacial moraines. These are the watersheds of rivers that refuse services to navigation; foaming to flood in the rainy season, shrinking in the drought to sluggish pools amid the rocky bed. They intersect tracts of country that vary from narrow valleys, where cultivation huddles in cherished pockets of soil, to broadly stretching vegas, tablelands and plains, from which by unremitting toil generous harvests may be obtained. Here the vistas are of magnificent extent, circling round one in far reaching sweeps of boldly undulating country, rimmed by nobly designed stretches of smoothly beveled foothills that form advance-posts of the ultimate barrier of the sierras.

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It is a little country, only three times the size of England, contracted within itself by natural restrictions, yet planned by nature on a big scale; one that affects the imagination, prompting even more than mountainous countries usually have done to independence, individualism and hardihood. It is a country that seems made for fighting; where a handful of resolute men could maintain themselves tenaciously against enormous odds. In the past they did it in actual warfare; to-day in the pacific fight which this hardy population perpetually keeps up against the extremes of climatic conditions. Though for the most part they still use the agricultural implements that Tubal Cain devised, they have inherited from the Roman and Moorish occupation a system of irrigation and of terracing that puts to shame the happy go lucky methods of farming in many countries which consider themselves superiorly enlightened. The necessary preoccupation with their immediate surroundings and the exclusion from outside influence, early made of this people a nation of individualists, realists and conservatives. So inbred did these qualities become that when the Spaniard mixed with the outer world, as he did particularly in his conquest of the Spanish Main and in his wars with Europe, it was but to become more fixed in his conservatism at home. When he borrowed from abroad, as in his art, it was but to shape and color the acquired impression to his own individualistic and realistic attitude toward life.

....

The earliest inhabitants of the Peninsula are known as

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Iberians; with whom about 500 B.C., a branch of the Celtic family became amalgamated. These Celtiberians remained in undisputed possession of the country, until they were drawn into the vortex that was stirred by the rivalry of Rome and Carthage. The latter had planted colonies along the south coast, and gradually extended her authority into the interior, dealing as was her wont in a spirit of suspicion and brutality with the natives. The Romans, hot on the trail of their traditional foe, at first suffered decisive reverses. Then it was that Scipio the Younger offered himself to the Senate and People of Rome as general of the war. His father and uncle had been slain in battle in Spain; he desired to avenge their deaths and to crush the enemies of Rome. Though only twenty-four years of age he had the genius of a military leader and of a statesman. While putting heart into the shattered ranks of the Roman veterans and leading them victoriously against the Carthaginians, he adopted towards the Spaniards a policy of confidence and conciliation which won them over to a loyal acceptance of the Roman rule. A similar policy was practised by Suetonius in later years, when Spain had become the battle ground of the rival factions with which Rome was torn. It was continued by Julius Csesar when he fought out his fight with Pompey on Spanish soil, and later by Augustus when, bavin; become ruler of the Roman world, he completed p "ifically the conquest of Spain.

Hencefori Spain was the most favored, loyal and prosperous province of the Empire. At first the Roman veterans, retiring from military service, married

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Spanish women and settled down as farmers, introducing gradually the order and scientific method for which the Romans are so justly celebrated. The settled conditions, fertility of the soil, and the beauty of the country in time attracted the wealth and culture of the Capital. Spain became, like "The Province" in the South of France, a field for capitalistic enterprise as well as a resort for those who leaned toward a life of refined leisure. She throve in the arts and sciences and became enriched with some of the finest evidences of the Roman genius for engineering. Her wheatfields fed the proletariat of the Capital and her sons reinforced the ranks of statesmen and men of letters. She became, in the finest sense of the word, more Roman than Italy herself. This period of splendid prosperity lasted for four hundred years, until it was submerged, like the rest of Roman civilization, by the flood of Gothic invasion.

The branch of the German family which overran Spain was that of the Visigoths, who maintained an ascendency and a line of kings for two hundred years. But, although the enervation caused by provincial luxury had rendered the Celtiberian-Roman an easy victim to the vigorous onslaught of the northern race, he was sufficiently tenacious of the original spirit of the mountaineer and of the acquired love of order to avoid the chaos and prostration that overtook the rest of the Empire, and reasserted his instinct for amalgamation. The blend, which ensued and became the Spanish race as it is known to later history, is characteristically represented in the language that was gradually evolved. For

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this, though overlaid with Northern forms, remains at root Roman. In this hybrid race the Spanish element proved itself to be the most pronounced and enduring. Its conservatism, a phase of the independence and exclusiveness that we have already noted, was conspicuously revealed in the great Arian Controversy which threatened the integrity of the Western Church. The Visigoths alone of all the Germanic family, renounced the "heresy." Reccared, their king, received in consequence the title of the first Catholic Sovereign of Spain. How resolutely subsequent sovereigns clung to this distinction and their subjects conformed to the political and religious obligations that it entailed is one of the most notable features of Spanish history. It seriously affected the national life, its attitude toward other nations and the development and character of Spanish art.

Meanwhile the mingling of blood could not save the Visigothic kingdom from the fate that attended all the Germanic governments which had been established on the ruins of the Empire. It proved no exception to the tendency to disintegrate and thus presented an easy prey to the onslaughts of united Islam.

In less than a hundred years after the death of Mohammed the Moslem faith had spread from Arabia through Syria and Asia Minor to Persia and India, while Westward it had overrun Egypt and penetrated along the northern shore of Africa to the Pillars of Hercules. Hence in 711 A.D. it crossed into Spain. While the leaders, under the generalship of Musa, viceroy of the Omayyad Caliphate of Damascus, were all Arabs, they

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had enlisted in their army the warlike tribes of Mauritania, the ancient kingdom now represented by Morocco and Algeria. Hence the name of Moors (Mauri) which distinguishes the invaders of Spain. Twenty years sufficed to make them masters of the Peninsula, the little northwestern country of Asturias alone retaining its independence. Twenty years later disintegration crept also into the ranks of the conquerors. Abd-erRahman established an independent caliphate in Cordova. His ambition was to raise it to a position in the Western world such as was held by Bagdad, Damascus and Delhi in the East; furthermore to make Cordova the Mecca of the faithful in the West. Thus was begun by this Caliph the Mesquita or chief Mosque, which under succeeding Caliphs was enlarged and beautified until it became a fitting monument of the ideals of Islam in its period of most splendid pride and noblest enlightenment. For nearly three hundred years Cordova was the center of an ordered government, which not only fostered the refinement of the arts and crafts in the cities and spread its network of highly organised agricultural labor throughout the country districts, but also a University of philosophy and science that made it the resort of scholars, not only Moslem but Christian. Cordova, in fact, played a conspicuously brilliant part in that phase of the Moslem ascendency which is apt to be overlooked; its share in perpetuating and advancing the Hellenic culture, which otherwise might have been lost in the Dark Ages succeeding the fall of the Roman Empire.

Meanwhile, the spirit of Christian Spain, though

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broken, was not crushed. Its stronghold was at first the little kingdom of Asturias. Alfonso I not only resisted conquest but wrested back from the Moor the provinces of Galicia and Cantabria. From the northwest fastnesses of the Peninsula commenced the steady pressure southward, which, while it met with many reverses, was never abandoned until the invader had been driven back to Africa. The story in brief is one of gradual consolidation of the Christian power, accompanied by a corresponding disintegration of the Moslem. Leon becomes united with the other provinces and Castile follows suit; while on the other hand the Caliphate of Cordova becomes broken up into several dynasties. Then, while a rival sect, the Almoravides, arrive from Africa and make war on their co-religionists, Alfonso IV of Castile assumes the title of Emperor and captures Toledo and Valencia. Later, the conquests of the Almoravides are wrested from them by other arrivals from Africa, the fanatical sect of the Almohades. Encouraged by this dissension, the Christian states for the first time send their representatives to a national assembly. The first Cortes meets at Burgos. Six years later the Christians suffer defeat, but recover themselves and inflict a heavy blow upon the Moors at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. It is followed by repeated hammering, extending over nearly forty years, until the Moorish power is beaten back and by the year 1251 is confined entirely to the kingdom of Granada.

Then, for the space of two hundred and forty years, there was a comparative lull. .Under the enlightened

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rule of the Nasride dynasty the province of Granada enjoyed a prosperity that invited friendly relations even with the Christians. The wealth derived from its mines, industries and agriculture exceeded that of the ancient Caliphate of Cordova. The period represented, in fact, the Golden Age of Moorish civilization in Spain, the flower and symbol of which remains to-day, though shorn of much of its magnificence, in the still exquisite palace of the Alhambra. So skilfully by treaty and otherwise did the rulers of Granada conciliate the Christians that their reign might have been continued indefinitely, but for two causes : internal dissensions and the fixed idea of Ferdinand and Isabella to fulfil their obligations as Catholic Kings. They lived for the purpose of expelling the infidel, and the rivalry between the two great Moorish tribes, the Zegri and the Abencerrages, gave them the opportunity. It had resulted in the throne being occupied by the youthful weakling, Boabdil. He fell into the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella at the battle of Lucena, and consented to remain neutral while they attacked the coast cities of Granada. Finally they appeared before Granada itself and Boabdil, after a frantic but futile effort to oppose them, was forced into a treaty of peace, by which the city was surrendered. Ten years later the last of the Moors had been expelled from Spain or compelled to be baptised.

Before proceeding with the story it is worth while to consider the effect which this long struggle of seven hundred and eighty years had had upon the Spanish character. In the first place it had fused the nation

pin

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into one; not by some sudden stroke of patriotic ardor but by a slow and painful process, in which the patriotism had been tested in the forge of adversity, stiffened and tempered on the anvil of endurance and proven by long experiences. Its qualities were trenchant, uncompromising, decisively complete. The Spaniard had become a hero to himself; sufficient in and for himself; realising his superiority and wrapping it about with a mantle of haughty exclusiveness. He had learned to rely upon himself and had justified his confidence by victory, hardly won and dearly bought; he was a Spaniard verbum sat. But he had been more than patriot; he had been a Paladin of the Faith; a Knight of the Cross; a Soldier of Christendom, Champion of the Holy Catholic Church. The consciousness of this had sustained him in adversity; quickened his strength in hours of vigil, inflamed him to the attack and crowned both victories and defeats with divine glory. An intense passion of spiritual ecstasy burned within him. He was at once a man of action, hard and practical, and a pietistic dreamer, a fanatic and visionary. How this mingling of qualities affected Spanish art, causing it, on the one hand, to be distinctively national and, on the other, a product of naturalistic method and highly pietistic motive will appear in the course of our story.

It was, perhaps, Spain's misfortune that her victories over the Moors were not succeeded by a period of settled conditions. For already she had entered upon a career of brilliant enterprise in the arts of peace.

123

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Under the patronage of Queen Isabella and of prelates, such as Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, whose power rivaled that of the Crown, great architectural works were inaugurated and sculptors and painters were drawn from Flanders and Germany to decorate them. Learning was still further encouraged by the founding of a new University at Alcala de Henares to supplement the famous foundation of Salamanca, and men of letters and artists were welcomed and honored at Court. Among them stand out the names of Pulgar, the first historian of Castile; Cota, the first Spanish dramatist and Rincon, the earliest of the native painters. The sixteenth century, in fact, opened with a brilliant dawn, full of promise for the new nation, if only it might have had leisure to consolidate and develop naturally its resources. But it was drawn almost immediately into the whirl of foreign conquests.

On the one hand it became involved in the affairs of the kingdom of Naples, which was conquered by the Spanish general, Gonsalvo de Cordova; on the other hand, by the bull of the Spanish Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, it was put in possession of all the conquests it might make in the New World. In both cases the immediate results may possibly be considered a boon, but they were followed by consequences disastrous to the nation and the Spanish character. The occupation of Naples brought the country in touch with Italian civilization, then approaching its zenith, but flung it into the vortex of European intrigue and warfare. Wealth began to flow in from the Americas, but at the

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expense of national demoralization. The conquest of inferior nations, inferiorly equipped with arms of offense and defense, may easily result in cruelty and the general sapping of the truly soldier spirit, while the lust of gold which soon began to inspire it converted these champions of the Faith into brutal buccaneers and plunderers. Further, it sapped the energies of the nation at home. For, why laboriously develop the resources of the country, when a stream of wealth was flowing into it from abroad? National progress, therefore, was checked and in time stifled; while the incoming wealth soon began to go out in prodigal expenditure over useless European wars. It became a mad gamble in which the spiritual qualities of the Spanish character were overwhelmed with the intoxication of power, while its exclusiveness and pride blinded the nation to the inevitable catastrophe.

A fact antecedent to all these causes of national deterioration was that even before the conquest of Granada the Catholic Sovereigns had established the Inquisition. With this devilish engine, operated in the name of God and the Catholic Faith, the Spaniard attempted to check the progress of Europe and effectively crushed his own. In time he expelled from the Peninsula the Jews, who in Spain had been among the foremost in learning and industrial energy; the Moors and finally the Morescoes, the progeny of the Christianised Moors and Spaniards, who had perpetuated the crafts in which the Moors had been so skilled. Enterprise was thus banished and Spain deliberately committed herself to the part of a reactionary against

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progress. In time England and Holland wrested from her her resources in the New World. She shrank within the limits of her own Peninsula, which had been already drained of initiation and productivity. In time, all that became left to her of her proud possessions was the dogmatic form of the Catholic religion. It had ceased to be spiritual inspiration and passed into a phase of sentimentalism, whence it dwindled to a mere formalism, existing amid irreligion and moral degradation.

In the last sentence we have anticipated the national prostration of the eighteenth century, following upon the exhaustion of the previous one. It remains to summarise the events which intervened. Ferdinand and Isabella were succeeded by their grandson, Charles I of Spain, better known as the Emperor Charles V of Germany. He was the son of their daughter, Joanna, who had been married to the Archduke Philip of Austria, son of Emperor Maximilian of Germany. Thus Charles brought Spain under the rule of the great Hapsburg family, which even to the present time has provided monarchs for Germany and Austria. Joanna died insane, and the taint of her disease clung to her descendants. Born in Ghent in 1500 and educated in Flanders, Charles I at the death of his father in 1506 inherited the Netherlands. On the death of Ferdinand in 1516 he became King of Spain, and in 1519 was elected Emperor of Germany, the defeated competitor being Francis I of France. The rivalry between these two led to a protracted war, fought out chiefly in

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Italy, on the possession of which each had fastened his ambition. Francis was made captive at the battle of Pavia in 1527 and forced into a treaty of peace; but the war was renewed two years later and Charles' troops under the renegade Frenchman, Constable of Bourbon, entered Rome and sacked it, taking the Pope prisoner. This, however, was but an incident in the political game, for Charles, as became a grandson of the Catholic Kings, was a staunch Defender of the Faith, and endeavored to impose it upon his Protestant subjects in Germany and the Netherlands. For the good of their souls he subjected them to the ravages of war and the horrors of the Inquisition, and for the filling of his military chest mulcted them by fines as well as taxation. Then at the age of fifty-five, exhausted in mind and body by his heroic exertions on behalf of Catholicism and his own ambitions, and by his various forms of self-indulgence, he handed over the Imperial Crown to his brother, Ferdinand, and the Kingdom of Spain and his "dear Netherlands" to his son, Philip. He himself, under the plea of caring for his soul's welfare, retired to the monastery of San Juste, whence he continued to meddle with affairs of State, meanwhile surfeiting his appetites and making a collection of clocks and watches. His bedroom commanded a view of the High Altar of the Church and was decorated with Titian's Gloria,, in which picture the artist has represented the ex-Emperor in a white robe, welcomed by the Virgin at the throne of God; while his hopeful son, Philip, is among the mortals who gaze up devoutly at the imperial apotheosis.

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Alas! for Philip; he had the doggedness but not the genius of his father. Meanwhile the times were changing, and he did not know it. Despotism, whether religious or political, no longer was to go unquestioned. What the Netherlands had endured from Charles they refused to submit to from his son. The more so that, while his father had chastised them with whips, he, in the person of the unspeakable Alva, chastised them with scorpions. The United Provinces revolted and the rest of Philip's life was spent in a vain effort to crush the Dutch patriots and the English who had more or less espoused their cause. Meanwhile the fleets of both countries were sweeping the Spaniards from the high seas. When Philip died in 1598, he left to his son, Philip III, the. legacy of a fruitless foreign war, a ruined commerce, and an impoverished treasury. As an enduring monument of himself he left the Escorial.

The decline of Spanish prestige and prosperity was accelerated by Philip III, an easy-going person, who even refused to take any active part in the selection of his own wife. He languidly continued the embellishment of the palaces which his father had built, and posed mildly as a patron of the arts. Under his feeble rule the power of the crown declined, while that of the nobility correspondingly increased; and to them probably more than to the king himself must be attributed the crime and economical blunder of the final expulsion of the Morescoes. An adventitious lustre is added to the reign of this king and his father by the genius of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, the dramatist, and the great artist, El Greco.

2 D7]

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Succeeding to the crown at the age of seventeen, Philip IV resigned the government to his favorite and prime-minister, the Count-Duke Olivares, whose idea of statesmanship was to keep his royal master as far as possible in ignorance of the impending ruin of the kingdom. To this end he renewed the war in Holland, which had been interrupted by a twelve years' truce, and, with no decisive result except the squandering of revenue, prolonged it until the final recognition of Dutch Independence in 1648. Over eighty years had been expended in endeavoring to set back the clock to the principles and methods of the Middle Ages and in the process the proud empire, inaugurated by the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, had been drained of its vitality. The colonial possessions began to fall one by one into the hands of foreigners and Spain herself was enfeebled and demoralised. Meanwhile Philip played the part of a Maecenas in what proved to be the Golden Age of Spanish literature and art.

Among the names which gave a lustre to the Court were the veteran Lope de Vega; Calderon, author among other dramas of the "Comedies of Cape and Sword"; Velez de Guevara, playwright and novelist, whose "El Diablo Cojuelo" was the original of Le Sage's "Le Diable Boiteux"; Luis de Gongora, the poet; Quevedo, the satirist; Bartolome Argensola, historian, and Antonio de Solis, poet, dramatist and author of "The History of the Conquest of Mexico." Philip himself posed, with considerable warrant, as a poet and musician, and even took part as an actor in the musical and dramatic entertainments which en-

THE CATHOLIC KINGS AT PRAYER

SCHOOL OF CASTILE XV CENTURY

THE PRADO

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livened the ennui of the Court in the palace of Buen Retiro. He was also, as an amateur, skilful in drawing and painting. This doubtless helped him to appreciate the merits of Velasquez, who to the world outside of Spain represents the subject of most significance in his life. Philip's companionship with the artist, five years his elder, which except for the brief intervals in which one or the other of them was traveling, lasted for thirty-seven years, indeed until Velasquez' death, is the one thing on which the student of history and of art cares to dwell. It has secured for Philip IV a recognition which his political importance would have denied him.

The increasing impotence of the Hapsburg family of Spanish king's reached its climax in Philip's son, Charles II. One has but to glance at the latter's portrait, painted by Juan Carreno, to realise the physical and mental degeneracy that the family type has undergone. The type, as one sees it in Titian's equestrian portrait of his great-great-grandfather, Charles I of Spain and V of Germany, is already abnormal. The grey eyes, for all their sternness and penetrating character, have a pathetic cast of melancholy; the under jaw protrudes like that of an ape. But the chin is massive, as indicative of force as of ferocity. In Philip II, as he appears in Titian's portrait in the Prado, the face has lengthened; the eyes have lost their piercing gaze, and while no less melancholy, have an expression of deliberate cruelty. The coarseness of the lower part of the face is displayed in the exaggerated sensuality of the out-turned lower lip, beneath which is a tapering

chin, that has a suggestion of blended weakness and petty doggedness. In the equestrian portrait of Philip III, which is supposed to have been painted by Bartolome Gonzales and effectively retouched by Velasquez, the monarch's head is carried a little back, a gesture which extenuates with probable intention the protrusion of the lower part. But the chin is feebly pointed, the under lip pendulous, while the eye suggests an empty vacuity, that is echoed in the mild fierceness of the upcurling moustache. It is a face vain, stupid and not a little commonplace. The last quality, at least, is absent, from the portraits of Philip IV. The face, especially when young, reflects the King's intrinsic refinement; but its length has become exaggerated, the protruding under-lip and jaw are puffed and fleshy, weakly sensual, while the eyes are apathetic. The expression of the whole is of a nature nearly worn out, that can only be stirred to occasional alertness by the stimulant of trivial excitements. Finally, in Carreno's portrait of Charles II, (p. 132) appears a total extinction of active faculties, soft sensuousness rather than sensuality, a settled look of apathy and the profound depression of a religious monomaniac.

Charles was scarcely four years old when the death of his father in 1665 made him king of a bankrupt country. It was the policy of the Queen Mother, whose regency was marked by political incompetence and personal amours, to keep her son as childish as possible. And, when he reached his majority at the age of fifteen and supplanted his mother's influence by that of Don Juan of Austria, the latter also schemed

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to keep his master in a condition of mental darkness and dependence. Thus Charles was the victim alike of racial degeneracy and of thwarted development. Complete incapacity to govern himself or others was the natural result. He shunned the affairs of state, mildly supported the arts as far as the beggared state of the treasury would permit, and sank into a religious mania that found satisfaction in attending auto-da-fes and prostrating himself in acts of personal penance. Dying childless in 1700, he brought the Hapsburg line to an inglorious conclusion; and the succession passed to a branch of the Bourbon family.

The Crown was offered by the Spanish people to Philip, grandson of Louis XIV. He was the nephew of the late king, being the son of Philip IVs daughter, Maria Theresa, and Louis XIV. When, however, this marriage was made Louis had expressly renounced all claims to the Spanish throne, both on his own behalf and that of his heirs; and the renunciation had been confirmed by the Cortes. Meanwhile, another sister of Charles II had been married to Leopold, Emperor of Germany. She also had renounced her claim to the Spanish Crown, but the understanding had not been ratified by the Cortes. This afforded a pretext for the Elector of Bavaria, who had married her daughter, to claim the succession in opposition to Philip. A third claimant had been the Emperor Leopold himself, who however, waived his rights in favor of his second son, the Archduke Charles. The dispute had been in progress during the late king's life, and Louis XIV had made a treaty with England and Holland, recognising

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the claims of the Elector of Bavaria. When, however, the crown was offered to Philip and accepted on his behalf by Louis XIV, England and Holland made a coalition with Austria and Germany to compel the recognition of the Archduke Charles. Hence the thirteen years' war of the Spanish succession, in which Marlborough gained a series of victories over the French and Bavarians, the Archduke ravaged the Peninsula, and the English and Dutch fleets preyed on Spanish commerce and captured Gibraltar. Finally, by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714 the succession of Philip V was ratified.

He had been brought up by Louis XIV to be undesirous and incapable of taking part in political affairs. While the country continued to be involved in disastrous foreign wars this roi faineant amused himself with building a summer palace and laying out gardens, both in the French style. He also imported the French portrait-painter, Van Loo. It must be added, however, that the stock of Spanish painters had been exhausted. Native art, indeed, for the time, was all but dead. It so remained through the thirteen years' reign of his son, Ferdinand VI, though he tried to galvanize it into official life by inaugurating the Academy of San Fernando. This king was succeeded by his brother Charles III, who had already distinguished himself by his wise rule of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His portrait by Goya, in the costume of a sportsman, shows him to be a man of awkward build and of homely, though kind and shrewd, face. He proved himself a generous patron of second-rate,

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artists, inviting the German painter, Raphael Mengs and the Venetian, Tiepolo, to his Court; built the present gallery of the Prado and issued an order forbidding the exportation of paintings by the great masters of Spain. He appears to have had some inkling of the genius of Goya, who, however, did not come into prominence until the succession of Charles IV.

Charles IV was an amiable imbecile and his Queen, Maria Luisa, the shameless subject of notorious scandal. One of her favorites, Manuel Godoy, advanced from the rank and file of a regiment of the Guards to the title of Duke of Alcudia, was entrusted with the duties of prime minister. After embroiling the country in successive wars with France and England, he finally attached himself to the cause of Napoleon and favored the latter's design to place his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. The French entered Spain in 1808 and compelled Charles to abdicate. But in the same year the Spaniards rose against the invaders, and the English came to their assistance. Then followed the Peninsular War, during which Wellington gradually expelled the French troops, but not until they had pillaged the cathedrals and churches and carried off a large number of the finest works of art. For Marshal Soult, with the predatory instincts of an unscrupulous dealer, sent his emissaries ahead of the army. Armed with the "Dictionary of Painters and Paintings" by Cean Bermudez, they identified and attached the most famous canvases, which the Marshal compelled their owners to part with at his own terms. On the conclusion of the war many of these were returned to Spain

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

under the terms of the treaty of peace, but a number of masterpieces had already passed through Soult's rapacious hands into the public and private galleries of Europe.

This treaty of peace, which restored the Throne to Charles' son, Ferdinand VII, is the end of the history of Spain so far as it concerns the growth and development and decline of her national art. She has had painters of repute since 1814; but not in sufficient numbers to constitute a school or even a noticeable artistic movement. Under weak and constantly changing governments, controlled by the Church and existing mainly for taxation, her arts, like her commerce and industries dwindled to an almost negligible condition, from which only recently there are indications of recovery;.

CHAPTER II

CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH PAINTING

SPANISH Painting, so far as it represents a school, is singularly limited in scope and rigidly circumscribed. This is due partly to the racial character, self -centered and conservative, out of which it grew: partly also, to the influences that immediately shaped its growth? For it developed under the patronage of the Crown and the Church. Nor were these, in theory or in practice, antagonistic to each other. The Church was the embodiment, the Crown the defender, of the Faith: the efforts of both being united to preserve the Faith against the inroads alike of Humanism and Protestantism. Hence the art of Spain, while it might be incidently concerned with portraiture, discovered its essential characteristics as the exponent of Bible story and Saintly lore and as an exhortation to faith and pious living. Its home was the sacred edifice, where it embellished walls, vaultings, and ceilings, or presided in the ceremonial altar-piece. Its language for the most part was that of the vernacular; the sacred imagery being translated into the idiom of common knowledge, its mysteries into expressions of common experience. It was in consequence a naturalistic art.

Had the artists of Spain painted for the general

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public or followed their own bent in the pursuit of beauty, they would doubtless have developed branches of genre and still life painting that might have emulated the work of the Holland artists; for they had a similar love of the intimate beauty of simple things around them. But since they had to reach the masses of the people through the intervention mostly of the Church, which not only commissioned the subject but prescribed its treatment, they achieved their self-expression through religious pictures which had the character of sacred genre. Yet this Spanish brand of genre is inferior to the secular genre of Holland or to the sacred genre of old Flemish religious paintings. It has a quality, perceptible in neither of the latter, of obviousness. Its motive is less surely an aesthetic delight in things of beauty ; more evidently influenced by the practical intention of rounding out the story.

I doubt if the student of Spanish painting, particularly if he visits Spain, can escape the feeling that it exhibits a certain oppressive obviousness. How is this to be accounted for? In the first place, surely, by the influence of the Church, ever more intent on making art a handmaid of its own purposes than on developing its own inherent beauties. And, if this was true under the conditions in Italy, where the Church itself was penetrated with Humanism, how much more is it to be expected under those which existed in Spain! But there is another reason, incident to the Spanish character. The latter, as has been suggested in the previous chapter, was the product of a long and heroic struggle on behalf of nationality and the Christian

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Faith. Among its conspicuous traits, in consequence, were self -consciousness and inflated egoism; traits that, if you consider it, are those of the actor; the necessary groundwork on which he builds his better qualities as an artist.

The Spaniards are a race of actors. The arts in which they have most naturally expressed themselves are those of the drama and the novel of character and action. And this trait similarly affects their painting. It is dramatic, concerned frequently with action, always with characterisation. Meanwhile, self -consciousness and egoism readily yield to the temptation of exaggeration. Spanish literature evaded this weakness because it was left to go its own way and the artistic conscience of the author was permitted to discover for itself a sense of true values. But in the painter's case the Church intervened and being, so to say, interested in the box-office receipts, compelled him to play to the gallery. It favored sensationalism and encouraged melodrama. The meekness of the martyr must be represented so that the dullest spectator would not miss the moral; the executioner's hatred of x virtue so portrayed that no one could fail to recognise him as a villain; love and devotion must be sentimentalised, and blood, pain and disease so vividly exhibited that the crudest sensibilities would be wrung. Imagination must not be counted upon and suggestion, the subtle road thereto, must be abandoned for the direct and detailed statement. Aim at the crude instincts and make the message obvious!

This Spanish tendency toward the related traits of

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exaggeration and obviousness is not confined to painting. It appears also in the architecture and sculpture. Foreign architects, for example, were employed in the erection of cathedrals in the Gothic style ; but the latter's noble logic of plan and elevation was disturbed by the innovations which Spanish taste, or lack of it, dictated. Conspicuous among these was the erection of a Coro in the center of the nave; an inclosure walled around, carried to a great height and profusely adorned with sculpturesque ornament. This monstrous choir effectually blocks the view of the high-altar from any spot except the narrow space which separates the two, and also interrupts what should be one of the sublime features of a Gothic cathedral, its endless variety of stately vistas. In every direction the perspective of pillars, arches and vaultings is barred by the tasteless magnificence of the Coro. For the latter, like the Capilla Mayor with its high-altar, is overloaded with excess of ornament. In one case it may be in the "plateresque" style, a network of intricate and minute embellishments that vies with the dainty exuberance of the workers in silver-plate. Elsewhere, it is wantonly "grotesque" or pompously "baroque" or characterised by that orgy of material extravagance, called "Churrigueresque" after the name of the sculptor who introduced it. In this, sculpture has been degraded to the most blatant naturalism ; Madonnas clothed like dolls in brocaded gowns ; the tragedy of Calvary or the glory of Heaven, presented with figures, background and accessories, painted, posed and set like a theatrical tableau. It is not for a moment suggested that there is no beauty and

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grandeur in Spanish architecture and sculpture. Yet to one whose taste is attuned to the imaginative spaciousness, sublimity and mystery of pure Gothic or to the inventive refinement of choice Renaissance design, the net impression of a Spanish cathedral is likely to be one of oppression and distaste. And more so, as one analyses the psychological cause of this extravagant display. It seems to be the Spanish instinct to close himself round with interest in what is nearest to him, so that he abandons breadth or height of vision imagination, in fact in favor of the immediately present, which he invests with all the fervor of his pent up nature. This leads inevitably to a materialistic point of view and to the baldly naturalistic method; in a word, to the obviousness which we have noted.

Spain, in fact, with its large admixture of Germanic blood, exhibits in its art the trait that affects other races akin to the Teutonic: the German itself, the English and American. She, no more than they, has much sense of beauty in the abstract. The idea that beauty for its own sake is desirable may penetrate the imagination of some artists in all these countries, but is a principle of art in none of them, and by the general public of all is not understood. The usual idea is that painting is primarily the representation of some person, place or thing, and is to be judged by what it represents. The idea that it should contribute to the beauty of life, and that beauty is one of the qualities most needful and desirable in life; that, indeed, properly considered, it should be the ideal of life, is even to-day only slowly dawning upon our comprehension. We

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

still make the ideal of our civilization material progress and the ideal of education the preparation to play a part in it. In a word, our ideal is materialistic; a contradiction of terms, confusing the high issues of life. For, if a man or a nation is to have an ideal it must be something above the necessary matter of life, correlating the spiritual sense to what it conceives of spirit in the universe. It was so that the Greek, learning of Egypt and the Orient, drawing inspiration, in fact, from the deep wells of human consciousness, established his ideal and interpreted it under the symbol of beauty.

For my own part, this difference between the older idea of art and our own, which was shared by Spain, is most illuminatively enforced by the contrast between two of the great architectural monuments of Spain: the Escorial and the Alhambra. Both are palaces, memorials of the greatest epoch in the history of each race; but one is a palace of the dead and of preparation for death, the other a lordly pleasure house, redolent of the joy of living; the Escorial is a monument of sternness; the Alhambra a miracle of beauty.

Yet for the student of humanity and of art in relation thereto what a poignant interest attaches to the Escorial! True, it is the self-expression of one man; but the imagination may not be astray in discovering in it some expression also of the race and its time. For Philip II was so loyal a son of the Church or, if you will, so morbid a victim of the Church's influence, and that influence was then so rooted in the conscience of the

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S. URSULA

SPANISH SCHOOL, XV CENTURY THE PRADO

CHARACTERISTICS

people, that he was in a large measure representative of them.

Philip was bound by the terms of his inheritance to create a mausoleum for the remains of his father, Charles V. He set about making it a burying place of sufficient dignity for his father, himself and succeeding Catholic Kings. To the mausoleum must be attached a church, and to the latter a monastery, to make perpetual provision for the saying of masses. His father had retired to a monastery after laying down the cares of government. Philip, while still handling the affairs of his vast dominion, would also lead the cloistered life. Meanwhile there were the mundane needs of a court to be considered and Philip himself tempered his asceticism with gallantry, so that a palace must be included. Hence ensued the idea of the Escorial, wherein life consorts with death and business and pleasure are pursued under the shadow of a judgment to come. Surely a monument to the strangest medley of motives that history can showl Morbid, magnificent 1

Architects were employed, but Philip constantly supervised the design. He planned his monument to last forever. Far from the possible vicissitudes of the capital, remote from the petty changes of daily life, he laid its foundations in the bed-rock of the mountains; and built their strength into its walls. With its back to the precipitous wall of the Guadarrama Sierra, it stands a colossal squared mass, facing the undulating vista of tableland. Its facades are severely simple,

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

bare of ornamental detail, proclaiming their monastic purpose; and similarly the interior, as originally planned, was characterised by the dignity of constructional simplicity. The church also, until Luca Giordano at a later period covered the vaultings with flaunting mural paintings, was a unique example of stern austerity ; its plan of a Greek cross being uninterrupted by a central coro and the only magnificence permitted being massed about the high-altar. A strange contrast, in fact, the imagination of Philip offered to the art instincts of his people. While they eschewed vistas and rejoiced in extravagance of detail, he was wedded to simplicity and sought a prospect of the widest vision. Yet in his personal life he shrank into narrowness. A private door communicated with a corner seat at the back of the coro, so that unobserved he could join the monks, as one of them, in their devotional routine. While he provided himself with a palace for ceremonial purposes, he actually lived in a tiny suite of meagre rooms, sleeping in a cubicle. Its window opened into the church, commanding a view of the high-altar, where the celebrant as he said mass stood directly above the tombs of the dead kings. This Pantheon of the dead, a low, octagonal chamber with flattened vaultings, lined with shelves on which repose sarcophagi, was originally of extreme simplicity. For the present bastard profusion of sombre ornamentation was added by Philips III and IV.

To-day as one wanders through this vast and silent edifice of the Escorial it can well seem as if that sanctuary of death, buried beneath the church, is the dead

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heart, connected by the arteries of its nearly one hundred miles of corridors with the huge organs and spreading limbs of a prodigious leviathan. One has left behind the exhilaration of the air of the Sierras the glorious spaciousness of the outside prospect, and as the artificial vastness closes in about one, the spirit becomes numbed and chill. It is a stupendous Golgotha, a colossal Place of Skulls. Yet we shall be lacking in imagination if we cannot realise that the dead heart once beat and that the ponderous body once enshrined a soul. It may have been a ma.d soul; certainly it was a proud one, of high exaltation, white to its core with the flame of an intense ideal. None the less was it something of a craven soul, evading the problems of this life, and fearing the life to come; closing its eyes to the light and wrapping itself in the darkness of superstition. It is the soul of one man that was thus enshrined; but in many respects it is revealed as the soul of the Spanish people.

Seen at noonday in summer, the Escorial stands, shadowless in the sunshine, at the foot of the bare Sierra, looking out over a vista of barren stubble, parched grass and dried up water-courses; an undulating sweep of pallid buff, interrupted sparsely by grey olive bushes; pitilessly inhospitable. But, in the slanting light of the afternoon, the Sierras near and far lose the bleakness of their pinkish buff beneath transparent tones of mauve and lavender, while the harsh nudity of the endless vega becomes clothed in tender veils of variously modulated greys. Even the inexorableness of the granite pile is assuaged, as the shadows creep 3 [33 3

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

about its base, the contours and surfaces of its facades melt into iridescent hues and the dome and towers rise up to meet the cooling sky with something of aerial suggestion. Slowly, as the light wanes the Escorial and its vast setting become to the imagination spiritualised; but the spirit that hovers over them and enters into yours is, if I mistake not, for all its beauty impregnated with sadness, which, as the darkness blots out distance and buries the monastery beneath the gloom of the Sierras, dies into a sense of awe.

And now let us revisit the Alhambra, which enshrines the soul of another race. No colossal formality here, or precision of foot-rule and compass from which the free spirit of the artist's imagination has been dogmatically barred! On the contrary, the palace of the Moorish kings grew cell to cell by accretion, expressive of an accumulating sense of the power and joy of life, alive with the breath of artistic imagination. It dominates its own hill, looking across, on the one hand, to the protecting barrier of higher hills, and on the other, over a smiling hospitable vega, a far reaching garden of luxuriant fertility. The hill itself is a paradise of refreshment. Its slopes are richly clothed with shade trees and semi-tropical vegetation, embowered in flowers, fragrant with the scents of living growths, musical with the song of birds, the tinkle of tiny runnels, and the plash of fountains and cascades. Set above this scene of ordered wildness, where the license of nature is united to the task of man, stands what is left of the palace of the Arab Sovereigns of Granada.

There is no need to describe its plan of gardens, f oun-

CHARACTERISTICS

tains, courts and corridors, halls of ceremony and suites of living rooms. It is the spirit of the whole that we may try to capture. Here, as in the Mosque of Cordova, the Arab's love of vistas is revealed ; but while the former spreads over a large space, the perspectives of the Alhambra are actually restricted. In their case even more than in the other is created an illusion of distance. The triumph is one not of material emphasis but of artistic suggestion. It was the human imagination, finding its free expression in art, that gave form and fabric to this Oriental dream of beauty. It is a visualised symphony, whose theme is life; the joy of life and beauty that irradiates the joy. And the inspiration is drawn from nature. To those who know the Alhambra it will not sound like freakishness of speech to say, that the imagination of the artist has ensnared a portion of the spirit of beauty which roams at large in the desert and sky and lurks in the silences of woods and gardens ; and, because he felt the phenomena of nature in relation to the supreme whole, has captured something of the infinity of the universal and enshrined it in his microcosm of beauty. Also more intimately he has fashioned his invention upon nature; studying her forms and methods and adapting them to the conventions of art. In the endless variety of decorative encrustration with which the wall-spaces, the soffits of the arches and the vaultings of the chambers are embroidered, the motives are drawn from the interlacing of boughs and vines, the rhythm of the brooklet meandering through luxuriant undergrowth of vines and flowers, from the facets of the crystal and the accumu-

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lated cells of bees. But they are not interpreted in a naturalistic vein. The Oriental imagination, at its best, rises above naturalistic representation; it accepts the fertilization of nature, but conventionalises the product to conform to the artist's idea of abstract beauty.

It may be that in the Alhambra he has carried this idealization too far and become too prodigal with its motives. The dainty fabric has little structural dignity ; architectonic substance being sacrificed to vistas and surface decoration, while the last may easily be judged too profuse. Yet the Arab, when he chose, was a builder and engineer, continuing the Roman tradition of solid and scientific construction. Even at the Alhambra this fact is attested by the foundations that are rooted in the rock and carried down its precipitous flank, and by the aqueducts which convey water from the neighboring hills to supply the fountains and baths, the sudorific chambers and the system of heating. He faced the necessities and facts of life as they arose, but in the pleasure-house of his soul surrendered himself to the abstract, wrapping himself in contemplation of the beautiful. So he encouraged his artists until their imagination reached its zenith of profuse invention in the so-called "Room of the Two Sisters."

Above a dado of iridescent glass mosaic the walls are overlaid with a rich lace work as of carved ivory, the interstices of which are colored red and blue. Their surfaces are interrupted by niches, framed with columns and arches of surpassing delicacy. From the four corners, at considerable height project pendentives, converting the square of the room into an octagon from

THE APPARITION OF THE VIRGIN TO BERNARDINE MONKS

THE PRADO

? PEDRO BERRUGUETE

CHARACTERISTICS

which springs the domed ceiling. The pendentives are groups of stalactite forms, and the vaulting above is composed of innumerable concave cells. Each differing slightly from the others, they cling together in pendent masses, here projecting like a bunch of swarming bees, there receding into the mystery of a fairy grotto; all the while mounting up the curve of the ceiling, which undulates like a vine yielding to the weight of its grapes; climbing higher and higher in endless frolic of invention until they draw together at the ceiling's peak. Enough gold still adheres to the myriad facets to suggest to the imagination the mysterious lustre of the ceiling, when it was lighted by a suspended lantern with its clusters of crystal lights. This gem of the Alhambra jewel, the heart of the Harem chambers, opens, as you remember, on one side into an alcove. Through the windows of this appear the tops of cypress trees, which rise from the boskage of pomegranates, roses and oleanders in a little garden court. On the other side, the "Court of the Lions," once shaded with orange trees, still soothes the ear with the plash of its central fountain and the drip of the tiny jets that spring like rods of silver from the marble pavement of the arcades. A spot, indeed of exquisite sensations ; where everything conspires to alternate moods of reverie and poignant stimulation; where the physical senses are rarified, exalted, till perception swims into a sea of subtleties that melts into a dreamy subconsciousness of infinity.

This you may say is a supreme achievement, tainted with weakness. Here the yearning after beauty for its own sake has created such a subtlety and luxuriance of

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beauty as to suggest that the motive was ornament for the sake of ornament ; sense-gratification for indulgence sake; exquisiteness at the cost of living energy. For, while the maze of decoration is ordered with most refined sensibility, it is none the less expressive of inordinate and almost tortured sensuousness. If you adopt this view it is to admit that the Alhambra was a product of the decadence of the Oriental idea ; and it is interesting to note how it bred a corresponding decadence in the artistic motives of the Christian conquerors. It was unquestionably from the Arabs that the Spaniard derived his taste for excess. But his racial instinct and his Catholic faith colored the result with a great difference. His sensuous and religious ecstasy found their expression not in abstract symbols but in concrete actualities. They prompted him to take delight in the actual representation of blood and torture and to render his conception of Heaven by means of sculptured figures reposing on marble clouds amid gilded spikes of glory. Gradually, in fact, he degraded his conception to the most obvious kind of perception. He expressed his spiritual ideas in terms of naturalism.

It may seem illogical to invite the reader to be interested in Spanish art and then discourage him by laying bare its weakness. But I believe that every one who visits Spain, where alone the inwardness of Spanish art can be reached, must feel at the outset more or less conscious of these limitations to his interest; that, in fact, he suffers a preliminary discouragement. If so, is it not better to admit it; to accustom oneself to the

CHARACTERISTICS

expectation of temporary disillusionment, in order that one may the sooner get over it and settle down to a just appreciation of the admirable qualities which actually exist in Spanish painting?

CHAPTER III

A PANORAMIC VIEW

Part I: To the End of the Sixteenth Century.

TO the student who is in pursuit of aesthetic enjoyment rather than critical research the art of Spain resolves itself into the works of a comparatively small number of painters. It is these who are represented in the galleries of Europe and America and form the chief attraction in the Prado and smaller museums of Spain, as well as in the cathedrals and churches ; at least in those cases, not too frequent, where there is sufficient light to see them. The spell exercised by these artists each in his different way, is so arresting that one may easily be indifferent to those of minor quality. On the other hand, our interest is increased if we glance over the whole field, the level of which is interrupted by conspicuous individuals, and thus view the latter in their respective times and places in the general story.

It must not be forgotten that the racial characteristics of Spain and her art, while they preserve a general national uniformity, were modified by the circumstances of different environments. Even before their union by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon presented a noted differ-

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A PANORAMIC VIEW

ence. The former included besides the province of Castile, the other divisions of territory in the northwest of the Peninsula; while Aragon embraced Catalonia and Valencia, the provinces bordering on the Mediterranean, and had extended her authority to the Balearic Isles, Sardinia and Sicily. The geographical distribution tells its own tale: Castile, with her bleak Sierras and wind-swept, sun-parched plains, a region of strenuousness ; Aragon, dipping her hot feet in the Mediterranean, her asperities assuaged by influences from over-sea. Eor, while Castile was early disposed to derive her foreign influences from the Netherlands and Germany, Aragon and especially Valencia drew theirs from Italy. Later, when the union of the entire country was achieved by the conquest of Andalusia and Granada, the climatic conditions of these two provinces and their proximity to the Mediterranean naturally drew them into close relations both with Valencia and Italy. It remains only to mention in the way of anticipation, that the seat of Government, being always in Castile and finally established in Madrid, became a nucleus to which the various influences from other parts of the country were attracted. Thus, while the Schools of Valencia and Andalusia preserved their local characteristics, the School of Castile, which later is more specifically known as the School of Madrid, became under the patronage of the Court more cosmopolitan.

The sources of painting in Spain, as in other countries, are to be looked for, first in illuminated manuscripts and secondly in the remains of mural decorations.

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THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

The earliest examples of the latter are to be found in the figures of saints which adorn the little church of El Cristo de la Luz in Toledo and in some scenes from the Passion on the vaulting of the chapel of St. Catherine in San Isidoro in Leon. These are attributed to the twelfth century. Later examples of the fourteenth century, exist in Seville, in San Lorenzo, San Ildef onso and the Capella de la Antigua in the Cathedral. The subject of each is the Virgin. In the cathedral, for example, she is represented against a gold diapered background, her robe also being adorned with arabesques of gold. In her right hand she holds a rose and with her left supports the Child, while two angels suspend a crown over her head. The figure of the Father Almighty, rather small in scale, appears above. The flesh is scarcely modeled, and in the case of the Virgin is very tenderly expressed; the draperies, on the other hand, suggesting in their flatness and breadth of treatment a sense of bigness. The influence is clearly Italian and seems to present a union of the feeling of Cirnabue and Fra Angelico.

It is with the beginning of the fifteenth century that one reaches sure ground. In_1428, during the reign of Juan II of CastileaJbhe great Flemish painter^ Jan. Van Eyck, while on a mission to Portugal visited Madrid. His coming_aroused in the Spaniards an interest in Flemish art, which resulted in the importation of paintmgs byTTemlinc, Rogei^yan^ ^_der__Weyden, Dierick Bouts, Mabuse ano^Patinir. The effect of their influence can be studied in the basement galleries of the Prado, where hang anonymous works by painters of

A PANORAMIC VIEW

the School of Castile during the fifteenth century. A very interesting series of scenes from the life of the Virgin (numbered 2178-2183) exhibits in the angular folds of the draperies and in the architecture a notable Gothic feeling, and have much of the freedom of composition and intensity of sentiment of Van der Weyden. On the other hand in No. 2184, The Catholic Kings with their Families at Prayer Before the Virgin reproduced on page 18, the influence of Memlinc and his period of Flemish art appears. One notes the charming glimpses of landscape, seen through the windows; the almost childlike sweetness of the faces and the truly Flemish love of beautiful detail. This is exhibited in the Virgin's crimson robe and the rosy-purple gown of the King, both of which are brocaded with designs in raised gold, and in the various accessories, particularly the church in the hand of S. Thomas Aquinas, the lily in that of S. Domingo de Guzman, and the richly decorated throne. On the back of this are curious little impish figures, that recall the weirdly whimsical inventions of Hieronymus Bosch, whose pictures, as later those of his imitator, Peeter Brueghel, were very popular in northern Spain. The figure, kneeling behind the King, is the Inquisitor-General, Tomas de Torquemada; the one behind the Queen represents S. Peter Martyr of Verona.

Ascribed to the end of the fifteenth century is the curiously interesting S. Ursula, reproduced on page 31. The picture forms one of a series of three, of which the first is The Coronation of the Virgin and the third The Temptation of S. Anthony. Escorted

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by the Pope and by bishops and cardinals, S. Ursula is seen at the head of the procession of eleven thousand virgins who are following her to Rome; but, if the legend is to be believed, will be slaughtered by the Huns near Cologne. With another example, reproduced on page 37, we reach at least the suggestion of a Spanish painter's name. The Apparition of the Virgin to a Community of Bernardine Monks During a Ceremony of Exorcism is ascribed, though with a query, to Pedro Berruguete. Carl Justi considers that this picture and its companions, illustrating Dominican legends, were by the Burgundian painter, Juan de Borgona, assisted by Berruguete and another painter named Santos Cruz. To the last is attributed the traces of Peruginesque influence that occur in all the series; in the present example, in the angels surrounding the Madonna. But the chief interest lies in the varied and individual characterization which the artist has given to the heads of the monks and laity. The latter seem of Flemish type, and, if Carl Justi's attribution is correct, may, together with the architectural perspective have been executed by Juan de Borgona. On the other hand, Berruguete was probably responsible for the monks, since they approximate to the Spanish type, as may be verified by comparing them with the character studies of this order of brotherhood by Zurbaran (see page 166).

The gradual emergence of the national type in the works of this period is again illustrated in the collection of splendid panels in the Hispanic Museum, New York. Examples 1 to 7 show the Netherlandish influence,

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S. STEPHEN CONDUCTED TO MARTYRDOM

THE PRADO

JUAN DE JUANES

A PANORAMIC VIEW

while numbers 8 and 9 represent the commencement of native feeling. Compare, for instance, the face of the woman who kneels on the left of the foreground in S. Gregory Saying Mass with those of the women in the high upright panel of the earlier series. The latter have a Flemish roundness of features and rather dull expression, whereas the face in the Gregory picture, narrows toward the chin and has something of the spiritual intensity which in the next century will be brought to its highest pitch of expression by El Greco. In fact, although Spain borrowed motives and methods from abroad, the inspiration remained her own and imprinted a native character on the product.

This is still apparent in the art of the sixteenth century when there poured into Spain a steady flow of Italian influence. Its general tendency was to produce a number of sn-najlerl "mannerists/' Spanish painters who experimented with and imitated the style of the Italian masters, particularly of ftp. Florentines, Da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo. It was a necessary stage through which Spanish art had to graduate in order to acquire facility in drawing, chiaroscuro and the principles of composition. But it is not a period on which the student who is interested in art as a living expression will care to dwell. He will look upon it as probationary and merely preparatory for the later liberty of national and individual expression. Yet he may glance over it and see how even here the yeast of the national genius is fermenting the mass of borrowed and affected manners.

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An example of this is afforded by the work of Juan de Juanes, one of the early names of prominence in the School of Valencia. The S. Stephen Conducted to Martyrdom, reproduced on page 44, is an illustration of his style. It forms one of a series, connected with the life of S. Stephen, which is now in the basement galleries of the Prado. It is not difficult to detect in these paintings the influence of Raphael. So noticeable is it, that Cean Bermudez, the chronicler of early Spanish art, assumes that Juanes must have been a pupil of the Florentine master. Subsequent research, however, has discovered that the Valencian painter was not born until 1523, three years after Raphael's death. However he may have acquired a knowledge of the latter's style, it is evident what it did for him and, through him, for the other painters of the Valencian school and the closely affiliated school of Andalusia. Comparing this picture with the earlier ones, reproduced in these pages, one observes in it a far more varied, facile and accurate skill in drawing, and that the composition, while it has lost the charm of naturalness, has gained in science. It is organise, as the French say, a carefully assembled structure of inter-related parts, locked together into an ensemble. On the other hand, to anticipate the sequence of our story, this artificial unity will have to be digested before its principles can be adjusted to the naturalistic presentation which is to be the peculiar quality of Spanish art. Meanwhile we can see the naturalistic tendency already forming. The fine head, immediately behind the Saint's, is that of a Spanish gentleman of the period. All the heads, in fact, are of

A PANORAMIC VIEW

local types, and the exaggeration of action in the figures and of emotion in the faces, is characteristic of a nation so dramatically disposed as the Spanish, while the excess of humility in the demeanour of the Saint is characteristic of the devotional attitude of this painter toward his art. For he, like many others among the Spanish artists, is said to have painted only sacred subjects and to have prepared his spirit for the task by partaking of the Sacrament.

Another picture which helps to throw a light upon this period of Italian imitation is the Descent from the Cross by Pedro Campana (page 51). This painter was born in Brussels in 1503. But, though of Flemish origin, he gained his knowledge of art in Rome, whence he passed to Spain, living in Seville for twentyfour years, until his death in 1580. Thus he was an important factor in the transitionary development of the School of Andalusia. Murillo particularly admired this picture, and at his own request was buried beneath it in the Church of Santa Cruz. When the latter was pulled down, the picture was removed to the Cathedral, where it now hangs in the Sacristy. Its indebtedness to Raphael is apparent in the group of figures at the foot of the Cross, while a Peruginesque influence is suggested in the draperies of the men upon the ladders and in the placing of their figures against the sky. But also evident is the artificiality of the whole. The gestures and expression of the women are affected; quite inadequate is the support which is being given to the Sacred Body, while the attitude of the latter is too obviously regulated with the double inten-

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

tion of securing certain lines in the composition and of introducing the suggestion of forgiveness of the Magdalen. In fact, the chief virtue of the picture seems to be its extremely handsome composition, which must be admitted to have great nobility as well as a fine organic simplicity. The picture, indeed, is an achievement of science; valuable for its enforcement of academic principles ; yet, even so, the work, not of a master, but a manneristic imitator.

It is with more interest than one turns to the work of another artist of this transition period, Luis de Morales. For although he experimented with various motives, his adoption of them seems to have been prompted by his search for the expression of a personally sincere religious fervor. Almost nothing is recorded of his life, beyond the few facts that he was a native of Badajoz, on the frontier of Portugal, and died there in 1586; that, except for a visit to Madrid at the invitation of Philip II he seems to have spent his life in the quiet retirement of his native city, and notwithstanding the estimation in which his pictures were held, reached an old age of poverty. For it is related that the king passing through Badajoz, sent for the artist. The latter, when as a young man he had been summoned to Court, appeared in so sumptuous an attire, that the King remonstrated with him, but was appeased by Morales' explanation that he donned it in honor of his Majesty. Now, however, he appeared in a condition of extreme destitution. To Philip's remark: "Morales, you are very old," the artist replied, "Yes, your Majesty, and

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very poor." The king on the spot awarded him a pension of two hundred ducats. "For your dinner," he said, to which Morales replied, "And for supper, Sire?" The King, so the story goes, accepted the jest and added another hundred ducats a year to the pension. This episode took place in 1581 and it is supposed that Morales at the time of his death, five years later, had reached the age of seventy -seven years.

Nothing is known as to the way in which Morales learned his art, but a comparative study of his various styles suggests that he may have had access to some work or copy of a work of Michelangelo, to some examples of the Milanese School of Leonardo da Vinci and to pictures of the contemporary Flemish and German Schools. The Michelangelesque influence, according to the official notice of this artist in the catalogue of the Prado Gallery, is discernible chiefly in works that are to be found in Badajoz and Lisbon. It would appear that they are distinguished by an exaggeration of manner. A similar trait appears in a Pietd which hangs in the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. The Virgin is seated at the foot of the Cross, supporting the dead body of Christ. The latter is in an attitude of being seated, the arms suspended and the head laid back on the shoulder, immediately below the head of the Virgin. The nude form is as hard as if it were carved in wood, and in contrast to its pallid whiteness are long streams of crimson blood, as glossy and stiff as ribands. In fact, combined with the naturalistic correctness of the drawing the figure has an exaggerated Gothic feeling, while another excess, this time

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

of refinement, appears in the microscopic precision with which the hair of the beard and head is represented. This delicacy, suggestive of the Milanese influence, reappears in the Virgin Caressing the Infant Jesus of the Prado Gallery and the variations of the same theme which may be seen in the Hispanic Museum, New York. Here, however, the meticulous rendering of the little golden chestnut curls which cluster on the heads of the Mother and Child is in accord with the loving, tender regard for refined sweetness of expression that characterises the whole treatment. The Prado also possesses an Ecce Homo; the figure, seen nearly to the waist, nude but for a crimson mantle which covers the shoulders and is fastened on the chest. One of the bound hands holds a reed and a crown of thorns surmounts the head, drops of blood showing on the forehead. The face, with its straight brows and deep-set eyes, long finely chiseled nose, and sensitive mouth, surrounded by a softly growing beard, the whole modeled sensitively with a Milanese subtlety of chiaroscuro, expresses an interesting blend of intellectuality and ecstasy. In this union one may easily discover an essentially Spanish feeling. However the methods may have been borrowed from elsewhere, the sentiment is Castilian of the sixteenth century, a mingling of highbred nature and spiritual introspection.

Another picture of the Prado, selected for reproduction on page 62, is The Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple. It is an important example, revealing a fuller capacity for ordered composition, in which there is a grandiose dignity, strangely inter-

50]

DESCENT FROM THE CROSS PEDRO CAMPANA

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL

A PANORAMIC VIEW

rupted by a littleness of feeling. The latter is particularly noticeable in the highly finished rendering of the child's body, disposed so affectedly amid the prim folds of the greyish white drapery. One may be conscious also of a certain exaggerated gesture of humility in the Virgin's figure; but, on the other hand, how firm in its assertion of liberty of action is the supple figure of the maiden who holds the basket of doves! How excellently imagined, moreover, are the spotting of the several heads, the upright lines of the candles and the broad bold spaces of the white tablecloth !

The reputation of Morales has been injured by the number of Ecce Homos and Magdalens, sentimentally mawkish, which, according to latest judgment, have been ascribed to him falsely. For, in an age of artistic copying, working for patrons who demanded an excessive display of pietistic ecstasy, he was distinguished by a considerable measure of individual temperament as well as of sincere religious feeling.

The signal example of an individual personality, is that of Domenico TheotocopulL popularly called El Greco from the fact that he was born in Crete. Since

M" y^

he will form the subject of another chapter, it is sufficient here to recall the fact that he reached Spain by way of Venice and Rome and settled in Toledo. His art bridges the last quarter of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth, and, notwithstanding his foreign training, was deeply imbued with the Spanish spirit of his day.

Meanwhile, during the latter part of the sixteenth

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

century a more direct infusion of Italian influence reached Spain through the artists whom Philip imported from Italy to decorate the Escorial. During the first twenty-five years of his reign he had continued the patronage of Titian, commenced by his father, Charles V. The latter, after he had sat to the great Venetian, loaded him with marks of favor, including an order of nobility, and vowed that no other artist was worthy to paint Csesar. Philip's pride equally demanded the services of the artist who was accounted the greatest of his day, and Titian was willing to give them. "Is not my aim in life," he wrote, "to refuse the services of other princes and to cling to that of your majesty?" The king's commissions were for religious subjects, but Titian, knowing the other side of his patron's nature, supplemented them with nudes and the so-called "poesies," or subjects of more or less erotic significance. Hence the collection of over forty Titian's which is one of the glories of the Prado Gallery.

Among the painters summoned from Italy by Philip II the best known are Frederico Zucchero, Pelegrino Tibaldi, Bartolomeo Carducho and Patricio Caxes. They were men of facile but inferior ability, whose work is of little interest in itself and has no part, except that of an interlude, in the development of native art. On the other hand a definite and distinguished role was played by the Flemish painter, Antony Mor or Moro. He had been portrait painter to Charles V in Flanders, and in 1552 came to Spain in the train of Cardinal Granvilla. During a prolonged stay at the

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Spanish Court he enriched his Flemish method by study of the portraits by Titian which the emperor had accumulated. Moro's teaching and influence started the Castile School of portrait painting. His best pupil was Alonso Sanchez Coello, (?-1590) whose portraits are vital records of personality, although somewhat trivialized by the elaboration of meticulous detail.

CHAPTER IV

A PANORAMIC VIEW

Part II: Seventeenth Century to the Present Day.

THE jeventeenth century was the golden age of Spanish art, as it was of the art of Holland; product in the one case of national decline, in the othefof 'national growth. While Spain was neglecting her national resources, losing her morale and wasting money and men on a vain effort to enslave the Dutch, the latter, in their fight for liberty, built up their national character and developed the resources of their country. Yet, under conditions so different, the genius of each people was liberated, threw off the shackles of foreign influence and discovered its own racial expression in painting. Each of the great schools had its protagonist: Valencia, Jose Ribera (1588-1656); Andalusia, Murillp (1618-1682); Castile, Yslasquez, (1599-1660). Meanwhile, as we have noted, the earlyjart^ of the century was occupied by the greatjirtist. El Greco.

As these will be discussed in separate chapters, it remains to note the most important of the lesser painters of the period under their respective schools.

In the School of Castile the vogue of portraiture at Court was perpetuated by Coello's pupil, Juan Panto j a

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de la Cruz (1551-1610) and by Bartolome Gonzales (1564-1627) . The former's portraits are hard and dry in treatment and shallow in expression, while the latter's, despite a tightness and triviality of detail, have a certain grandiose dignity of design. Witness the equestrian portraits of Philip III and his wife, Dona Margarita of Austria and that of Philip IVs first wife, Dona Isabel de Borbon. In the Prado catalogue these are still assigned to Velasquez, but latest criticism confines the latter's share in them to retouching of certain parts, particularly the horses, while giving the originals to Gonzales. It is further believed that the landscapes in the Philip III and Queen Margarita were worked over by Velasquez's pupil and son-in-law, Mazo. The handling of the figures is so different from that of the rest of the compositions, so evidently the reverse of Velasquez's broad and pregnant style, that it is strange the canvases should ever have been assigned in their entirety to him ; except for the reason that until recently it has been the custom, both in Madrid and elsewhere, to attribute to this master anything, however mediocre, which approached the appearance of his method.

We recall among the Italian painters invited to the Court of Philip II, Bartolomeo Carducho and Patricio Caxes. Each had a son who became a painter; Vicente Carducho (1585-1638) born in Italy, but educated and naturalised in Spain, and Eugenio Caxes (1577-1642), whose birthplace was Madrid. They were employed in decorating the palaces of the Prado and the Escorial. Their work is mannered, with much technical proficiency and little inspiration. It is, however, hand-

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some in design ; wherein lies its chief interest to the student of Spanish painting, since it helped to foster that skill in the filling of a space which was brought to such perfection by Velasquez. In this connection we may mention Fray Juan Bautista Mayno (1594-1690), a Dominican monk, who had been drawing master to Philip IV before his accession and was retained by him afterwards as an adviser in matters of art. There is an "allegory" by him in the entrance hall of the Prado, representing The Pacification of the States of Flanders which in qualities of painting is quite uninteresting, yet, regarded as a decoration, has considerable merit, reminding one of Puvis de Chavannes* flat patterns of full and empty spaces. Indeed, one may be disposed to feel that from the point of view of mural decoration it is even superior to Velasquez's Surrender of Breda, which by comparison is a historical picture. It is interesting to note that Mayno was a native of Toledo and in consequence familiar with the work of El Greco, who, we shall find, was a master of decorative space-filling.

In 1603, during the reign of Philip III, Rubens, on a mission from the Duke of Mantua, visited the Spanish Court. One of the Duke's intentions was that his emissary should copy some of the masterpieces of the Royal collection. Rubens' copy of Titian's Temptation of Adam and Eve now hangs in the Prado, not far from the original, and it is interesting to note how the young Flemish artist has corrected and improved the composition of the old Venetian. The orders given to Rubens included a provision that he should forward his

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A PANORAMIC VIEW

work by employing the assistance of some of the Spanish painters. He writes, saying that he will adhere to these instructions, but, he adds, "I do not approve of it, considering the short time we have at our disposal, and the incredible inadequacy and idleness of these painters and their manners, (from which may God preserve me from any resemblance!) so absolutely different to mine."

Such was Rubens impression of art in Madrid, preceding the appearance of Velasquez. In 1628 at the zenith of his fame, he paid another diplomatic visit. Philip IV was now king and appointed his favorite, Velasquez, escort to the Flemish artist. Of the latter's impression of the younger man unfortunately no records exist.

Velasquez maintained no regular studio for pupils, yet he naturally exercised an influence on many of the younger painters of the day, and actually gave instruction to some. Among the latter the best known are Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo and Juan Carreno, who will be considered later, and Juan de Pare j a. The last mentioned was a mulatto, born in Seville about 1608, who came to Madrid with Velasquez in the capacity of a servant and remained with him all his life. Being constantly employed in the studio, he was himself inspired to become an artist; but as no slave might practise the free art of painting he worked in secret, copying his master's works. At last by a stratagem he revealed his talent. Having painted a picture with special care, he placed it in his master's studio with its

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THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

face to the wall. The king, on his next visit, ordered the picture to be turned and enquired who had painted it. Whereupon Pare j a went down on his knees, and implored the royal protection. The king, turning to Velasquez, said "you will have no say in this matter and I warn you that he who possesses so much talent cannot remain a slave." At least such is the story, though it is considered more probable that Velasquez, whose generosity was marked, actually connived at the slave's education and procured his enfranchisement. But, although a free man, he continued to serve his beloved master, and after the latter's death in 1660 continued in the service of his son-in-law, Mazo, until his own death in 1670. He is represented in the Prado by the Vocation of S. Matthew. Christ, arrayed in the conventional draperies, is standing beside a table at which is seated Matthew, in Oriental clothes, surrounded by others in Spanish costume of the period. It is an ambitious and rather tedious picture.

Three painters of this period which call for brief notice are Antonio Pereda, Francisco Collantes and Jose Leonardo. Pereda (1599-1669) was born in Valladolid, but moved to Madrid to study art and remained there. In the Academy of San Fernando is an "allegory" by him, entitled The Dream of Life. It represents a young man of heavy, rather Dutch aspect, handsomely dressed, seated asleep before a table. The latter is strewn with a variety of objects jewels, flowers, coins, weapons, music, a mask, a book which contribute to the joy and fulness of life. Meanwhile, on

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A PANORAMIC VIEW

the book rests a skull, while an angel in the background, gazing at the youth, holds a scroll inscribed "^Bterne pungit, cito volat et occidet." The picture is blackened and murky, but the still-life is rendered with remarkable naturalness. Indeed, naturalistic veracity and a taste for ascetic or moral suggestion characterises Pereda's art. Note, for example, the S. Jerome of the Prado where the aged saint, stripped to the waist, sits in a spiritual vdaze, grasping a cross of rudely joined sticks, which lies upon a book. The latter contains an engraved illustration, represented with extraordinary vraisemblance, and the same quality is carried to a disgusting pitch in the rendering of the withered, flabby flesh. Even more revolting and commonplace in its excessive naturalism is an adjoining Ecce Homo blood that looks like blood, a rope unmistakably a rope, and a cross made out of a tree, the bark of which is realised with ridiculously ineffectual exactness. The two pictures have neither the vigor of handling nor the dignity of conception to be found in Ribera's corresponding subjects. They represent naturalism for the sake of naturalism; and anticipate the general decadence which settled down on the School of Castile toward the end of the seventeenth century.

Collantes (1599-1656), a pupil of Vincente Carducho, is represented in the Prado by a Vision of Ezekiel. In the foreground is confusion of opened tombs and risen bodies and skeletons; in the background the ruins of a stately classic city, and in the center, raised on an eminence, the prophet preaching to the

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

awakened dead. The scene both in composition and chiaroscuro is quite impressive. Collantes is also represented in the Louvre by The Burning Bush.

Jose Leonardo (1616-1656) is of chief interest to the student because of his large canvas in the Prado, in which he has represented the same subject that was immortalised by Velasquez The Surrender of Breda. Leonardo's composition is divided diagonally, the left foreground being occupied by the principal group, while the upper right triangle includes the background : a plain in which troops are deploying, and a distant view of the city. It is noticeable that the younger man, whose short life, clouded by mental trouble, scarcely permitted him to reach his own maturity, has, like Velasquez, made a decorative use of the lances. His conception, also, of the scene is one that probably commended itself to Spanish feeling, for he has represented the conquered Justin of Nassau submissively kneeling, as he presents the keys to his conqueror, who is on horseback. Another example by Leonardo in the Prado is the Taking of Acqui. It is, with the group reversed, similarly composed to the previous picture, of which it is a companion piece, both having been painted for the "Hall of the Kings" in the Palace of Buen Retire. Notable, again, is the device of lances, while the mounted figure of the Duke de Feria, as he leads the attack, bears an unmistakable general resemblance to the equestrian portrait of the Count Olivarez by Velasquez.

Among the Italian painters summoned to Madrid by Philip II, had been a native of Bologna, Antonio Rizi.

He had two sons, Juan and Francisco. Fray Juan Bizi, for he entered the Benedictine order and spent the latter part of his life in a monastery at Rome, was the pupil of Fray Juan Bautista Mayno. His portraits, bearing some resemblance to those of Velasquez, have been at times attributed to Mazo. Such was the case with the Portrait of Don Tiburcio de Redin in the Prado, which represents a man with curls falling to his shoulders, dressed in a handsome cavalier costume, standing beside a table. He rests one hand on it and with the other holds a large felt hat. It is a straightforward presentation of a virile personality, but painted with little verve. Far more interesting is a Saint Benedict Celebrating Mass,, in the Academy of San Fernando. With the sacred wafer in his hand, the saint bends his strong head, with its black hair and beard, over the white altar-cloth. Over his alb is a gold embroidered white chasuble, supported by a monk in black. These figures are seen against a grey-drab wall, meanwhile a third figure, an acolyte, is in white. It is thus a very handsome tonality of grey, white and black, which gives an air of grandiose distinction to the very naturalistic way in which the whole is painted. The brother, Francisco Rizi, was a pupil of Carducho, and enjoyed reputation as a painter in fresco, decorating among other sacred edifices the Cathedral of Toledo. He was also employed as a director of scenery and stage effects in the dramatic performances given in the Palace of Buen Retire. Apropos of these experiences, he executed a curious picture, now in the Prado, in which he has represented in an ensemble the successive

THE STORY OF SPANISH PAINTING

stages of an auto-de-fe. It commemorates one that actually took place in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid on June 30, 1680, lasting from eight in the morning until half -past nine at night. The function had afforded a spasm of zest to the wretched religious maniac, Charles II, who commanded the painting. It contains some three thousand figures, and, considering that Rizi was seventy-five years old when he executed it, is an achievement as surprising as unnecessary.

One of Francisco Rizi's pupils was Jose Antolinez (1639-1676) , a native of Seville. Something of southern sweetness of sentiment pervades his pictures as may be seen in The Assumption of the Munich Pinakothek, The Glorification of the Virgin in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam and the Ecstasy of the Magdalen, of the Prado. The last named represents the penitent floating in a seated posture, upborne by angels. Two others hold above her the jar of ointment, while an older angel plays the lute. The drapery is of ashy purple silk brocaded with mauve arabesques, a fine passage of color suggestive of the influence of Van Dyke, which at this period began to find its way into Spain. One may discover it again in the elegantly sentimental style of Mateo Cerezo, who was originally a pupil of Carreno. Examples that may be quoted are the Penitent Magdalen in the Gallery of the Hague, and the S. John the Baptist of the Cassel Gallery, both of them characterised by affectation. A more important example, because of its decorative composition, is the Assumption of the Virgin in the Prado. Down below, the faithful are peering into a sarcophagus, filled

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PRESENTATION OF JESUS IN THE TEMPLE

THE PRADO

LUIS MORALES

A PANORAMIC VIEW

with flowers, while overhead the Virgin and her supporting angels make an elegant mass of white and blue silk and fluttering wings. But the picture is fatally pretty, characteristic of the decline of devotional feeling and artistic taste.

This allusion to the decadence of the School of Castile which marks the end of the seventeenth century may be closecj by a reference to Claudio Coello (d. 1693) . The work which brought him greatest fame in his own day is the altar-piece of La Santa Forma at the south end of the sacristry of the Escorial. It represents a perspective view of the room in which you are standing as you look at the picture. Thus the great school of Spanish naturalism passes out in the meretricious glamour of a looking-glass picture.

SCHOOL OF VALENCIA, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

In the School of Valencia the connecting link between the period of mannerism, represented by Juan de Juanes, and the highest development of the naturalistic motive in the person of Ribera is supplied by Francisco Ribalta. He was born in Castellon de la Plana, between the years 1550 and 1560 and died in 1628. After studying with an unknown painter in Valencia, he spent three years in Italy, where he was particularly attracted by the works of Raphael, Sebastian del Piombo and the Caracci. Returning to Valencia, he executed a Last Supper for the high altar of the Church of Corpus Christi. The picture, which is still in the place for which it was painted, aroused so much en-

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thusiasm that he was kept employed in providing works for the churches, monasteries and hospitals in and around Valencia. Some of these are distinguished by grandiose compositions and figures of noble character. But in other works Ribalta's coloring is attenuated and his handling thin; while on other occasions he exhibits a mingling of Italian "idealism" with Spanish naturalism. Examples of his poor color and technique are Nos. 946 and 949 in the Prado, which, moreover, are disfigured by their sentimentality. His particular talent, however, appears at its best in an adjacent canvas, S. Francis d'Assisi. The monk, clad in a brown habit, is lying on a pallet covered with a blanket. His parched yellow face and strong, nervous hands are raised in ecstacy toward an angel, playing a lute, who floats above him in well-disposed draperies of dull green and rose. Contrasted with the grace of this figure is the severely naturalistic way in which the monk and the accessories, such as an iron lamp and missal, are represented. It is a picture both of charm and force and is characteristic of the kind of influence that Ribalta exerted over his pupil, Ribera.

SCHOOL OF ANDALUSIA OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

The transition period in the School of Andalusia is filled by two men. These were Juan de las Roelas, who painted in a broad and yet seductive manner with soft, warm chiaroscuro, and the eccentric Francisco Herrera, who adapted these qualities to a "furioso" style. For this reason he has been credited with the chief influence in developing the naturalistic methods

of the Andalusian School. But the credit is now assigned to Ribera, whose pictures, introduced into Seville, helped materially to shape the studies of a group of young artists which included Alonso Cano, Zurbaran, Murillo and Velasquez.

In the eighteenth century native painting declined to a condition that renders it negligible to the student. The names which occur are those of foreigners such as Luca Giordano, Tiepolo, and Raphael Mengs. Suddenly, however, toward the last quarter it sprang again to life in the genius of Goya. The latter died in 1826, and of the few names which break the monotony of Spanish painting during the nineteenth century it may be sufficient to mention those of Mariano Fortuny, Francisco Pradilla, Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida and Ignacio Zuloaga. These are to be considered later.

CHAPTER V

DOMENCO THEOTOCOPULI (EL GRECO )

DOMENCO THEOTOCOPULI was born in Crete; hence the nickname by which he was known: El Greco. He arrived in Spain by way of Venice and Rome; therefore in the catalogue of the Prado he is included among the Italian artists. It was either an excess of modesty on the part of the Spanish or a curious symptom of indifference thus to rob their own school of so great an artist. Nor has it the warrant of facts. Though El Greco had been a pupil of Titian and had drawn inspiration from Tintoretto, it is the fact of his art being so different from that of Italy, of his developing so unique a personality of his own, that is the distinguishing feature of his genius. Moreover, it was not until after his arrival in Spain and a sojourn of some time in Toledo that he discovered himself. It was the conditions, physical and spiritual, of his adopted country that brought to maturity the real El Greco. Spain drew forth his genius and in return he expressed the genius of the Spanish race in its spiritual aspects to a higher degree than any other artist of Spain. He was the seer, the diviner, who not only mirrored the external character of his times but also realised its soul.

The Church of his day seems to have prized his

genius: the king underrated it, while contemporaries and posterity recognising him as bizarre, inclined to the theory that he was mad. It has been left to the judgment of the present day, reaching back scarcely more than twenty years, to appraise El Greco at his real valuation. The reasons for both the earlier and the most recent estimations are plain.

Philip II, patron of Titian, was enamoured of Italian art and, as we recall, imported Italian artists to decorate his palaces. Being a man of small and dogmatic mind he could not extend appreciation to work so different as El Greco's, and set the fashion among laymen to ignore it. Later the whole trend of Spanish art in its emergence from Italianate imitation was toward naturalism. The seventeenth century was overshadowed by the genius of Velasquez. In the eighteenth century Spain followed the lead of other countries in the academic effort to revive the forms without the spirit of the Renaissance art, until she became suddenly aware of a native genius: Goya, the temperamental, objective, impressionist. The nineteenth century was occupied with the rediscovery of Velasquez. Its watchword became "truth"; truth of actual appearances, the seeing and rendering of objective facts as they really seem to be. Its artistic motive, in fact, notwithstanding that it included, as it could not help doing, the limitations and variations of the personal equation, was in essence photographic. It was concerned, like the camera, with what the eye can see. Not until the end of the century did this vogue of ob j ective naturalism abate. The inevitable reaction against this naturalistic view of art set in; quick-

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ened by the gradual realisation that photography was crowding the painter from their common field of sight. Artists, on the one hand, began to realise that there are internal as well as external facts, facts of the spirit as well as facts of matter; and, on the other, that the chief value of a picture is not in its making something look like life, but in extracting from the life represented its fullest amount of expression. Expression, among progressive modern artists, has taken precedence of mere representation. It is therefore, our own day that is giving special honor to El Greco and Goya; to Goya, the master of material expression, to El Greco who joined this, in so extraordinary a degree, to spiritual expression.

Having thus established the point of view from which El Greco should be studied, we will briefly consider the conditions under which his genius developed and then the qualities, technical and spiritual, which his works exhibit. We shall find that he broke away from the Venetian use of color, employing a sober range of hues, of extreme subtlety and a chiaroscuro all his own. That he was also a great master of composition, decorating every part of his large canvases with meaningful details, so that there are no spaces perfunctorily filled or devoid of interest. A great draughtsman also, who, although he altered for his own purpose the proportions of figures and at times dared to indulge in "bad drawing," realises the plastic qualities of form as few artists have done, and extracts from form, gesture and action a maximum of character and expression. Similarly, in his portraits we shall discover not only a vivid rendering of external per-

DOMENCO THEOTOCOPULI

sonality, but also a penetrating insight into the soul of the subject. Finally, in the presence of his work one should be conscious of a rare and elevated spirit, the artist's own, interpreting the spiritual genius of the Spain of his day.

Almost nothing is known of El Greco's life. No record of him exists until November 16, 1570, the date of a letter written by the Venetian miniature painter, Julio Clovio to Cardinal Nepote Farnese. It says "There is in Rome a young man from Candia, a disciple of Titian, who in my opinion is a painter of rare talent. Among other things he has painted a portrait of himself, which causes wonderment to all the painters of Rome. I should like him to be under the patronage of your Illustrious and Reverend Lordship, without any other contribution toward his livelihood than a room in the Farnese Palace for some little time, until he can find other accommodation." This letter establishes El Greco's birthplace, corroborating the artist's signature, as it appears on many canvases in Greek characters with the addition of "Cretan"; his experience under Titian in Venice ; his visit to Rome and the fact that in the year 1570 he was a young man. How long he stayed in Rome is uncertain, but the next date of certainty, 1577, appears after his signature upon a picture of The Assumption of the Virgin for the Church of San Domingo el Antigua in Toledo. The fact of El Greco being engaged on this work is corroborated by documents relating to the church, in which it is recorded that the artist was paid 1000 ducats for eight pictures to adorn

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the high and side altars. Thus it appears that at some date between the years 1570 and 1577 El Greco reached Spain and settled in Toledo. Here he seems to have lived continuously until his death, the record of which is still preserved. "On 7th April, 1614, died Domenico Greco. He left no will. He received the sacraments, was buried in Santo Domingo el Antigua; and gave candles." The position of El Greco's tomb in San Domingo is not known. The only other documents in existence relate to contracts for commissions and occasional disputes and lawsuits over the prices. They have been summarised and used as data for establishing the order in which his pictures were executed by Albert F. Calvert and E. Gasquoine Hartley in their critical and richly illustrated book, "El Greco, An Account of his Life and Works."

One document may be mentioned here, since it indicates El Greco's brief relations with the Court. It is a royal order, dated 1580, which states that a commission had been entrusted to Domenico Theotocopuli, Greek painter, residing in Toledo, but that "the work was not being carried on for want of money and fine colors." Therefore it is commanded, "That the said painter be supplied with money, also with the fine colors that he asks for, and, especially ultramarine, that the work may be executed with brevity as is suitable in my service."

Since El Greco had finished his commission for Santo Domingo and had also painted an altar piece, El Expolio, or Christ Despoiled of His Raiment on Calvary, for the Cathedral, it would seem as if his plea of no

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money and colors had been a pretence for avoiding, if possible, the execution of the Royal commission. The outcome of the affair is described by a Father Siguenza, writing in 1605. "There is here in the Salas Capitulares of the Escorial, a picture of San Maurico and His Soldiers by a Domenico Greco, who has come to Toledo and there made excellent things. The picture was designed for the proper altar of the Saint, but it did not satisfy His Majesty. It is not much, because it satisfies few; though they say that it has great art, and that its author has much knowledge and that excellent things can be seen from his hand."

El Greco had one son, George Manuel, who was appointed architect of the Cathedral. He also practised sculpture and painting, in the latter medium imitating his father's style so closely that some of the son's pictures have been attributed to him. The portrait of a beautiful girl, late the property of Sir John SterlingMaxwell and now in the National Gallery, London, has been called the artist's daughter; but later criticism assigns this painting either to Tintoretto or to El Greco's early Italian period when he was still a young man. The portrait of his son George, is identified in the San Martin of San Jose, and again as the youth who holds the map in the Vista of Toledo. It is also supposed to exist in the younger figure of the boy on the left of the composition of The Funeral of Count Orgaz. In the latter it has also been suggested that the face with the pointed beard, sixth from the right, represents El Greco himself; while tradition also attributes the title of 'Self Portrait of the Artist to the picture in the Seville

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Museum of a man of middle age, holding a brush and palette. These, however, are only surmises.

The mystery that surrounds the life of El Greco is perhaps a little lifted by the account of him which Guiseppe Martinez gives in his "Practical Letters on the Art of Painting." It is not the evidence of a contemporary, but of one who probably got his impressions from those who had known the artist or at least the opinion commonly held of him during his life.

"At that time there came from Italy a painter called Dominico Greco ; it is said that he was a pupil of Titian. He settled in the famous and ancient city of Toledo, introducing such an extravagant style that to this day nothing has been seen to equal it; attempting to discuss it would cause confusion in the soundest minds; his works being so dissimilar that they do not seem to be by the same hand. He came to this city with a high reputation, so much so that he gave it to be understood that there was nothing superior to his works. In truth he achieved some works which are worthy of estimation and which can be put among those of famous painters. His nature was extravagant like his painting. It is not known with certainty what he did with his works, as he used to say no price was high enough for them, and so he gave them in pledge to their owners who willingly advanced him what he asked for. He earned many ducats, but spent them in too great pomp and display in his house, to the extent of keeping paid musicians to entertain him at meal times. His works were many, but the only wealth he left were two hundred unfinished paintings; he reached an advanced age, always enjoying

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great fame. He was a famous architect and very eloquent in his speeches. He had few disciples, as none cared to follow his capricious and extravagant style, which was only suitable for himself."

We get a glimpse here of a strangely individual personality, reserved and proud, conscious of his destiny, working it out in a haughty exclusiveness ; wrapt up in high thoughts and cultivating in the retirement of private life a rare refinement. In Toledo, then the citadel of the Catholic Faith, so dominated by the dignitaries of the Church that Philip II, who brooked no rivalry of power, was forced to transfer his Court thence to Madrid, El Greco preserved the integrity of his artistic faith and, by separating himself from outside influences, maintained the independent sovereignty of his own ideals.

,,

El Greco left a View of Toledo; a portrait, one would rather call it, of a city's appearance and her soul; a highly interpretative vision of the impression of Toledo's soul upon the spiritual imagination of the artist. The view is from the hill beneath which the present railroad station lies, and looks across the broken ground to the ravine of the Tagus. In the middle distance toward the left it is spanned by the wide arch and its narrower sister of the Alcantara bridge. Thence the line of the city walls, interrupted by their Moorish towers, mount the citadel hill to the group of buildings that crown the summit. The Alcazar and the north tower of the cathedral stand conspicuously against a sky, tumultuous with emotion and lit with large aspir-

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ing clouds. These, like the Architecture, catch the sharpest light, which elsewhere is distributed in masses of lower tone; a union of quiet illumination and of flashing sword-like brands of light, characteristic of so many of the artist's compositions, so suggestive of passionate inspiration.

How different from Venice of his youth, this rockrooted fortress city of the artist's adoption! No less proudly aloof, but sternly and strenuously exalted; straitened within tortuous limits ; an apex once of Moorish power and luxury, now of Catholic dominion and sumptuous ecclesiastical ceremony; its dignitaries men of high and commanding personality, its Cathedral famous throughout Spain as Toledo the Rich! The chivalric fervor bred upon countless battlefields, glowed here in an intense heat of religious mysticism. Her hidalgos, "sons of somebody," were among the proudest of their class, self-contained, austere, yet fired with religious ecstasy. Toledo was at that time the soul of Catholicism and of the high-bred Chivalry of Castile.

El Greco, with the penetration of the alien observer, caught its spirit. It inflamed his own romantic ardor and religious devoutness; at the same time giving fibre and force to his imagination. Yet his whole art, as it developed under these conditions, was built up on observed facts. The type of his figures, both in portraiture and altar-pieces, was drawn from the humanity about him, the lean, long-limbed bodies, with high narrow heads; a type that still survives. You see it even in Madrid, still more readily in Toledo. Here too in the passing throng you may detect one of those wistful,

SAN MAURICIO AND HIS THEBAN LEGION

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flower-like faces, pure as the chalice of a lily, that El Greco learned to give to his Madonnas, while among the children you will find the strangely sexless, coldly passionate faces of his angels.

He exaggerated the type, just as his contemporary, Cervantes did; the latter to make it ridiculous, El Greco in sympathy with its high enthusiasm. But each from his own standpoint captured the real soul of the Spanish race more effectively than any other writer or artist of Spain. The humor of Cervantes made him intensely popular, the seriousness of El Greco has had to wait until to-day for recognition. His exaggeration, sometimes even approaching distortion, is for the purpose of decorative effect or for enforcing character or emotion, or is more frequently employed with the two purposes combined.

A fine example of characterization is the portrait, here called S. Jerome (Frontispiece). There are replicas of this picture in the National Gallery and the Prado, where it is called S. Paul. But the title is of small account. The picture is clearly the portrait of some dignitary of the Church or at least of the type of ecclesiastics of the day. The stubby hair and the long beard are approaching white, the face is greyed over, and silvery lights relieve the rose colored mantle. The head, in proportion to the body is small but of extra length and narrowness, and the hands are extremely elongated. But by these exaggerations what expression of character is obtained! The head is at once that of a soldier, a scholar and an ascetic. The eyes have a cold, piercing directness; the long nose is

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indicative of relentless purpose and the mouth of iron rigidity and cruelty. One hand lies on the book with a gesture of refinement, almost of tenderness, while the thumb of the other is turned down with a decision that brooks no reasoning or opposition. In fine, the type is a strange mixture of intellectuality and bigotry ; of elevation and narrowness, of gentleness and remorselessness. It might be that of an inquisitor, who condemns with no more hesitation than a surgeon, compelled by his diagnosis to use the knife.

Or for an example of distortion, employed with emotional effect, turn to The Crucifixion of the Louvre (p. 70). The body of the Christ is beautiful in its languor of repose ; no pain or horror mars the serenity. The tragedy of the event is depicted in the amazing impression of the sky ; a murky blackish green veil, rent like the veil of the Temple, with scars of white. The Saviour rests from his labors. It is the universal tragedy of sin which will crucify him afresh, that is depicted. For my own part, I know of no other suggestion of the Divine Tragedy so spiritually moving as this one. El Greco painted this subject several times. Another fine example is The Crucifixion of the Prado, where the figures of the donor and an ecclesiastic are replaced by the three Maries and S. John, figures expressive of anguish and adoration, while angels of spiritual loveliness receive in their hands with transports of adoring ecstasy the blood from the sacred wounds. It is at once a paean and a dirge, superb in its decorative elaboration. But in the picture of the Louvre, the decorative scheme is sublimely elemental; its very simplicity

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augments the poignancy of the appeal. But our original consideration was the distortion introduced. The natural appearance of the sky is distorted; the color false, there is no suggestion of actual light or atmosphere. There was, in fact, no thought of representing the sky naturally; it has been used as a symbol of expression. And it was so that El Greco chose at times to use form.

If the student peers through the spectacles of an academic pedagogue, criticising this or that because it does not conform to his canons of proportion or notions of correct drawing, he will never discover the real El Greco. If he is looking solely or chiefly for naturalistic representation, such as will pass muster in the schools, let him turn away at once. Otherwise he will be only seeking for trouble. It is with the eye of the imagination, seeking for spiritual impressions or for character of expression and expression of character, that El Greco must be studied. On the other hand, it must not be supposed that El Greco was indifferent to the facts of form. No artist better understood and valued form or rendered it with more reliance on its plastic qualities. It was, however, not the plasticity merely of its shape that attracted him<-but its plasticity of expression. He made expression visible in its external appearances. He used form as an instrument of interpretation ; hence, for the furtherance of expression he dared to exaggerate or even to distort it.

It is not amiss to compare El Greco to some great composer whose medium is his orchestra. The latter is made up of units, but there is no established propor-

an

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tion of the relation which they bear to each other and to the whole. It is a flexible instrument in which the composer makes his own adjustments. If for the interpretation of his theme he exaggerates the wind instruments or chooses to introduce new devices for attaining an effect, he is judged solely by the harmonious result. For music being a completely abstract art, the verdict depends upon the structure, scope and quality of its expression. The art of painting is less abstract, being limited by the sense appreciation of the eye and the need of attaching the expression to some visible object; but, as far as possible with the liberty of the musical composer, El Greco composed his symphonies of form and color.

This liberty of composition was only gradually evolved. His earlier work, executed during his first years in Toledo, exhibit traces of his Venetian training. The Assumption of the Virgin, which is now owned by the Art Institute of Chicago, is in its treatment of the forms and composition still Titianesque ; but already the influence of the new environment upon El Greco's individuality is apparent. He has caught as yet little if any of the mystic fervor, but the types, particularly of the apostles, are local ; the draperies are handled broadly and plastically, and the color is no longer of Venetian sumptuousness. The process of dematerialization has begun, which will be carried on until in the great works of the artist's maturity the Venetian richness of pigment, full of mundane splendor, has entir