Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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