Part 4
To follow Goya throughout the vicissitudes of his long life is not a matter of difficulty. The man to whom modern Spanish art owes its being was born in the little village of Fuendetodos and lived whilst a child at Saragossa. He came to Madrid at an early age, and before his thirtieth year went to Rome with the object of perfecting himself in his art. But he failed to obtain much direction at the academies in Parma, and having but little enthusiasm for the Italian masters of that time, returned to Spain, settling at Madrid. Until this time the artist had not evinced any exceptional gifts. Goya was not precocious. The first works to assist his reputation were a series of cartoons for tapestries to be woven at the Royal Factory. They were destined for the walls of the royal palaces of Aranjuez, the Escurial and the Prado, which Carlos IV desired to renovate according to the fashion of the time. These works, which brought fame to Goya, showed two distinctive qualities. One of them evinces the originality of his subjects, in which appear gallants, blacksmiths, beggars, labourers, popular types in short, who for the first time appeared in the decoration of Spanish palaces and castles, which, until then, had known only religious paintings, military scenes, the portraits of the Royal Family and stately hidalgos. Goya, in this sense, democratized art. The other note to be observed in his work is a certain distinction of craftsmanship, the alertness which it reveals, which is, perhaps, due to the lightness of his colouring. On canvases prepared with tones of a light red hue, which he retained as the basis of his picture, he sketched his figures and backgrounds with light brushes and velatures, retaining, where possible, the tone of the ground. This light touch, rendered necessary by the extensive character of the design and the rapidity with which it had to be executed, gave to the artist a freedom and quickness in all he drew, and from it his later works, much more important than these early essays though they were, profited not a little.
Already during these earlier years he had commenced to paint portraits which did much to enhance his reputation, and shortly afterwards he entered the royal service as first painter to the Court, where he addressed himself to the execution of that vast collection of works of all kinds which arouse such interest to-day. The list is interminable and embraces the portraits of Carlos IV and of the Queen Maria Louisa, those of the members of the Royal Family, of all the aristocracy, of the Albas, Osunas, Benaventes, Montellanos, Pignatellis, Fernán-Núñezs, the greatest wits and intellectuals of the day, especially those of Jovellanos, Moratin, and Meléndez Valdés, three men who profoundly influenced the thought of Goya in a progressive and almost revolutionary manner, in spite of his connection with the Court and the aristocracy. He also painted many portraits of popular persons, both men and women, among whom may be mentioned La Tirana, the bookseller of the Calle de Carretas, and that most mysterious and adventurous of _femmes galantes_ of whom, now clothed, now nude, the artist has bequeathed to us those souvenirs which hang on the walls of the Prado Museum. In these the artist has for all time fixed and immortalized the finest physical type of Spanish womanhood, in which an occasional lack of perfect proportion is compensated for by elegance, grace, and unexaggerated curve and figure, without doubt one of the most exquisite feminine types which has been produced by any race. Besides these, the artist produced many lesser canvases containing tiny figures full of wonderful grace and gallantry, and having rural backgrounds, frequently of the banks of the Manzanares, and others of larger proportions and scope, among the most excellent of which is that of the family of Carlos IV, treasured in the Prado Museum as one of its most precious jewels. Along with _The Burial of the Count of Orgaz_ (Plate V.) and _Las Meninas_ (Plate X.), this picture may be regarded as the most complete and astonishing which Spanish art has given us. It is not a “picture” in the ordinary sense of the word, but an absolute solution of the problem of how colour harmonies are to be attained, and a most striking essay in impressionism, in which an infinity of bold and varied shades and colours blend in a magnificent symphony.
Goya, triumphant and rejoicing in a life ample and satisfying, received on all sides the flatteries of the great, and, caressed by reigning beauties, lived in the tranquil pursuit of his art, which, though intense, was yet graceful and gallant, and, as we have said, still adhered to the manner of the eighteenth century, when a profound shock agitated the national life--the war with Napoleon and the French invasion. The first painter to the Court of Carlos IV, a fugitive, deaf, and already old, life, as he then experienced it, might have seemed to him a happy dream with a terrible awakening. His possessions, his pictures, and his models were dispersed and maltreated; the Court seemed to have finished its career, for his royal master was banished by force, many of the nobility were condemned to death, and Countesses, Duchesses and Maids of Honour vanished like the easy and enjoyable existence he had known. Above all, Saragossa, that heroic city, beleaguered on every side, was closed to him; a depleted army defended the strategical points of the Peninsula, and the people--the people whom Goya loved and who had so often served him as models for his damsels, his bull-fighters, his wenches, his little children--were wandering over the length and breadth of Spain, only to be shot as guerillas and stone-throwers by the soldiers of Napoleon. It was at this moment that the true development of the artist began. The painter, like his race, was not to be conquered. The old Goya remained, strong in the creation of a lofty art. The last twenty years of his life were full indeed, and represented its most vigorous phase, the most energetic in the whole course of his achievement. Scenes of war and disaster occupied almost the whole of this important period, full of a profound pessimism, which still does not lack a certain graceful style, and displays unceasingly some of the saddest thoughts which man has ever known. These works of Goya are not of any party, are not political nor sectarian. They are simply human. For his greatness is all-embracive and his might enduring. Typical of his work in this last respect are _The Fusiliers_, of 1808, and his lesser efforts, those scenes of brigandage, madness, plague and famine which occur so frequently in his paintings during the years which followed the war.
We do not mean to make any hard and fast assertion that Goya would not have developed in intensity of feeling if he had not personally experienced and suffered the horrors of the invasion, but merely to indicate that it was this which brought about the revulsion within him and powerfully exalted him. His last years in Madrid, and afterwards in Bordeaux, where he died, were always characterized by the note of pessimism, and at times, of horror, as is shown in the paintings which once decorated his house and are now preserved in the Prado Museum. Not a few portraits of these years also show that the artist gained in intensity and in individual style. It is precisely these works, so advanced for their time and so progressive, that provided inspiration to painters like Manet, who achieved such progress in the nineteenth century, and who were enamoured of the visions of Goya, of his technique and his methods, naturalistic, perhaps, but always replete with observation and individual expression.
We must not forget to mention that Goya produced a decorative masterpiece of extraordinary distinction and supreme originality--the mural painting of the Chapel of St. Antonio of Florida, in Madrid. Nor is it less fitting to record his fecundity in the art of etching, in which, as in his painting, it is easy to observe the development of their author from a style gallant and spirited to an interpretation of deep intensity, such as is to be witnessed in the collection of “The Caprices” and “The Follies,” if these are compared with the so-called “Proverbs” and especially with “The Disasters of War.”
The pictures representing Goya at Burlington House were composed of some twenty works. Among those which belonged to his first period were the portraits of the Marchioness of Lazan, the Duchess of Alba, lent by the Duke of Alba, “La Tirana,” from the Academy of St. Fernando, the Countess of Haro, belonging to the Duchess of San Carlos, four of the smaller paintings of rural scenes, the property of the Duke of Montellano, and _An Amorous Parley_ (“Coloquio Galante”), the property of the Marquis de la Romana, the prototype of the Spanish feeling for gallantry in the eighteenth century. As representative of the second phase, of that which holds a note intense and pessimistic, may be taken _A Pest House_, lent by the Marquis de la Romana, and those truly dramatic scenes, the property of the Marquis of Villagonzalo.
Of portraits of the artist by himself two were exhibited, one small in size painted in his youth (Plate XXVI.), in which the full figure is shown, and the other a head, done in 1815, which gives us a good idea of the expression and temperament of this extraordinary man.
The influence of the art of Goya was not immediate. A contemporary of his is to be remembered in Esteve, who assisted him and copied from him. Later, an artist of considerable talent, Leonardo Alenza, who died very young and had no time to develop his art, was happily inspired by him. With regard to Lucas, a well-known painter whose production was very large, and who flourished many years later, and is now known to have followed Goya, he can scarcely be considered as one of his continuators, but rather as an imitator--by no means the same thing. For he imitated Goya, as, on other occasions, he imitated Velázquez and other artists. Lucas is much more praiseworthy when he follows his own instincts and does original work. His picture _The Auto de Fé_, the property of M. Labat, which was shown at the London exhibition in the room dedicated to artists of the nineteenth century, is one of the best that we know of from his brush.
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If the eighteenth century was for Spanish painting an epoch of external influences, the nineteenth century, especially its second half, must be characterized as one which sought for foreign direction. During this period the greater number of painters of talent sought for inspiration from foreign masters. This was a grave mistake, not because in Spain there were artists of much ability or even good instructors, but because this exodus of Spanish painters was a sign that they had lost faith and confidence in themselves and were strangers to that native force which in the end triumphs in painting as in everything else. First Paris, then Rome, the two most important centres of the art of this period, were undoubtedly centres of a lamentable distortion of Spanish art.
The organizing committee did not wish the London exhibition to be lacking in examples of this period of prolific production, to which they dedicated a room in which were shown examples of the painters of the nineteenth century. We mention some of the many artists of talent of the Spain of those days, and indicate their individual characteristics; but we are unable to allude to their general outlook and the characterization of their schools, which we do not think existed among them to any great extent.
The most famous painter who succeeded Goya was Vincente López, better known for his portraits than for his other canvases, a skilful artist with a perfect knowledge of technique, conscientious, fecund, minute in detail, who has left us the reflection of a whole generation.
Classicism arrived in Spain with all the lustre of the triumphs of Louis David, under whose direction José de Madrazo placed himself, the first of those artists of this type to maintain a position of dignity throughout three artistic generations. He held an important place among contemporary painters at a difficult time during which, in consequence of the political disorder which reigned, the commissions usually given by the churches and religious communities ceased, private persons acquired few paintings, and the academies decreased in the number of their students. It was a time in which art offered but little wherewithal to its votaries.
But this period of paralysis was of short duration. The pictorial temperament, which inalienably belongs to Spain, and the appearance of romanticism, with a tendency conformable to the spirit of Spain, and which had for a long time given a brilliant impulse to her men of letters, revived painting, which forgot its period of exhaustion. The frigid classicism, ill-suited to the national genius, now passed away. José de Madrazo was succeeded in prestige and surpassed in ability by his son Federico de Madrazo. By his portraits he has bequeathed to us faithful renderings of all the personages of his day, which compete with those of the greater foreign portrait painters among his contemporaries.
Studying at first under classical influences, but regarded as romantics in their later development, were remarkable portrait painters like Esquivel and Gutiérrez de la Vega, and a landscape painter of especial interest, Pérez Villamil, who may in a manner be compared to the great English landscape painter Turner, though he had no opportunities for coming in contact with him or any knowledge of his work. Both men, each in his own environment, breathed the same atmosphere; and, although reared in lands remote from one another, thought in a like manner because they both reflected the period in which they lived. Becquer and others adequately maintained the descriptive note which now entered into the making of popular subjects.
Such was the condition of painting in Spain when there appeared the fruitful and extraordinarily popular _genre_ of historical painting. In its origin it was not Spanish but was introduced from other countries, especially from France; but its Spanish affinities are manifest in its examples, most of which are canvases of great size, imposing, dramatic, and, in general, effective.
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In this period culture, which in Spain had formerly been the preserve of a limited class, now spread itself more widely, and in the sphere of art was greatly fostered by exhibitions of painting, open to all and sundry, without distinction of social status. Pictures and sculpture, which in other times had been dedicated solely to art and to religious piety, the possessions of kings and grandees, now came into public view, were alluded to in publications of all kinds, and the people, enthusiastic and critical, were brought face to face with their native art. Many artists, perceiving this, hoped to gain popular applause, and consequently worked upon their subjects as seemed most agreeable to the masses. The historical picture in such circumstances seemed to offer the greatest possibilities for achieving a popular reputation.
Gisbert painted the popular heroes of the past and was regarded as the representative of those revolutionary tendencies in art which were to triumph several years later. Alisal, Mercade, Palmaroli, Luis Alvarez, careful and excellent artists, painted both historical and _genre_ pictures. From this group arose a most remarkable figure who died whilst still very young, but who has left us a most striking example of his workmanship. This was Eduardo Rosales, the painter of _The Death of Isabel the Catholic_. Rosales represented the Spanish tradition in painting. Averse to foreign influences, he studied and found in the great masters the sources of his art, and his works, both in Spain and beyond it, excited the greatest interest in his time. The picture above mentioned, sober and simple in style, though it must be classed as _genre_ painting, has still many admirable and enduring qualities. The pity is that this group of artists did not follow him; for, flattered by the public acclamation, they entered upon the second period of historical painting, less effective than the first and always conventional, which lasted many years, indeed almost to the present time. For an atmosphere inimical to the traditions of Spanish painting arose, in which this type of historical composition flourished at a time when it had been condemned and forgotten in other countries, where it was forced to give place to those tendencies in which modern painting had its origin.
Rigurosamente, a contemporary of Rosales, was another exceptional artist of unusual gifts, likewise Mariano Fortuny, who unfortunately died in his youth. Fortuny, though he may appear quite otherwise to-day, was in his own time considered a progressive innovator. When he visited Madrid for the first time, drawn thither by youthful enthusiasm, he did so with no other idea than that of copying from Velázquez. But seeing in the Prado Museum the works of Goya, which were totally new to him, he received a revelation. He copied from Goya, and later, going to Africa, he painted many studies and pictures replete with light. Light as a pictorial factor, as an element in a picture, the study of light, the reflection of it in his own works--that is the progressive element which we find in Fortuny. The rapid success of his first works, their triumph in Paris and Rome, was due to an agreeable style, gracious in touch, suggestive, which appealed to collectors and dealers. At the same time we do not believe this to have been altogether his ideal, since a few years before his death, which took place in his thirty-seventh year, we see him betaking himself to the shores of Italy, where he made new studies of light and air. Was it reserved to Fortuny to be one of those of whom it will be said that he assisted the development of the study of atmosphere and light? We firmly believe this to be so, but the work of the critic has nothing to do with prophecy, and we must deal only with that which Fortuny has left us, which is indeed sufficient. It must not be forgotten in judging his work to-day that its defects, or what seem to be its defects, were those of his time and were not personal, and that what is personal to him was his good taste, his mastery, and a series of innovations and bold essays in colour obvious to those who study his works. Fortuny was not a Spanish painter in the sense that he did not preserve the traditions of our School. He certainly took the elements of his palette from Goya, but his traits of manner show no sign of the typical qualities of Spanish painting.
It is fitting to allude here to artists of different types and talents in some of the cities of Spain, and others living abroad, who laboured during the last years of the nineteenth century--the Madrazos, Raimundo and Ricardo, sons of Don Federico de Madrazo, who studied under the direction of Fortuny; Plasencia, Domínguez and Ferrán, who distinguished themselves in work of a decorative character in the Church of Saint Francisca the Great in Madrid; Pradilla and Villegas, who have obtained the greatest triumphs during a long career; the brothers Mélida, Enrique and Arturo, the first working in Paris for many years, and the second a famous decorative artist; Egusquiza, painter and engraver; Moreno Carbonero, who, more a historical and portrait painter, found a popularity for his pictures inspired by episodes in literature, especially those of Quixote, in which he has coincided with Jiménez Aranda. We may also mention a group of artists, all of Valencia, a city which in times past, as in the present, enjoyed notable artistic prosperity: Sala, Muñoz Degrain, Pinazo Camarlench, José Benlliure and many others. Nearly all of them were represented at the Exhibition at Burlington House in the Salon set apart for the painters of this epoch.
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In the second half of the nineteenth century the study of nature in the form of landscape arose as a creed, the artist coming face to face with the scene which he desired to transfer to his canvas. It has been said “what the landscape is, so is he who praises it.” Until then the landscape had been nothing but a background for a composition or figure, and those who called themselves landscape painters, when they undertook to paint a scene used it as a peg on which to hang poetical ideas, embellishing it, but never treating it as a true rendering of nature. Now the artist came to the country, felt the influence of nature, and faithfully copied it. The object of his work was to be as natural as possible, without embellishing or poetizing his subject, but to portray it, as one might say. This was a new idea to the painters of the time.
Pérez Villamil, a follower of romanticism in painting, also practised landscape art in Spain until it underwent the change mentioned above through the arrival of a Belgian, Charles de Haes, who succeeded Pérez Villamil as professor of landscape at the School of Painting. Haes broke with tradition. He would have no conventionalisms, no studied compositions, nor preconceptions. He took his pupils to the country and there told them to copy Nature herself, leaving them without any further inspiration than that with which God had endowed them. To-day the studies of this master and of his disciples, generally executed in strong contrasts of light, seeking, doubtless, the effectiveness thus produced, appear to us, although they have a sense of luminosity, poor in colour, obscure and hard. But what progress is represented in them in comparison with all former art! And it is clear that they express the tendency which, modern in that time, everywhere governed the advance of art.
Shortly afterwards a Spanish landscape painter, not a disciple of Haes, Martín Rico, a companion of Fortuny, but who, having lived longer than he and reached a more mature age, advanced a further step in the art of landscape painting. If the chief aim of this painter had not been the rapid translation of his gifts into money, and had he not striven to please the public, he might have achieved lasting fame.
Casimiro Saiz, Muñoz Degrain--whom we have mentioned already as a painter of the figure--Urgell, Gomar and others devoted themselves to landscape; but the most salient examples of Spanish landscape painting are to be found in the work of three artists who developed with the rapid evolution of their time--Beruete, Regoyos and Rusiñol. Of these three sincere and individual painters, Beruete, in his youth a disciple of Haes, and later of Rico, evinced a very decided modern tendency. He devoted the years of his maturity to the making of a large number of pictures of Spanish cities, especially of Castile, paintings truthful and sincere in character, and revealing a very personal outlook. Regoyos was influenced by impressionism, to which he was strongly attracted, and in the North of Spain he inspired many by his numerous works. Rusiñol is, perhaps, more a poet than a painter. He still lives and works. He used to find in the gloomy and deserted gardens of Spain subjects for his pictures. One of the most remarkable figures in Catalonia to-day, both as a litterateur and painter, he has also sought inspiration in the scenes and countryside of this, his native province.
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