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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
Spanish painting was completely modernized during the last years of the
nineteenth century. Three great international events took place during
that period--the three exhibitions in Paris of the years 1878, 1889 and
1900. At these Spanish painting was fully represented. At the first was
shown a varied collection of the works of Fortuny--one of the most
famous artists of his time--who had died shortly before. In the second
we experienced a rebuff, for a number of historical paintings of
enormous proportions, full of the inspiration of the past, were not
admitted, nor, indeed, were some of these worthy to hang in the
exhibition. But in the years between 1889 and 1900 the development of
Spanish painting was most marked, and in the last of the exhibitions
alluded to the Spanish salons revealed a high level of excellence and a
significant modernity. Moreover, there emerged the personality of a
young painter, hitherto unknown, who by unanimous consent was regarded
as well-nigh qualifying for the highest honours. This was a man whose
name shortly afterwards became famous throughout the world--Joaquín
Sorolla, one of those personalities who from time to time arise in Spain
quite unexpectedly.
Sorolla, who was of humble origin, was born in Valencia, and in his
youth was naturally influenced by the paintings of the old masters in
his native city. He went to Madrid, later to Italy, and finally to
Paris, where his work of a wholly realistic character was admired, for
actuality was to this painter as the breath of life. A French advocate
of naturalism has said “one rule alone guides the art of painting, the
law of values, the manner in which the light plays upon an object, in
which the light distributes colour over it; the light, and only the
light is that which fixes the position of each object; it is the life of
every scene reproduced in painting.” This statement Sorolla seems to
have taken greatly to heart, even while he was still under the influence
of old traditions and standards of thought.
Possessing a temperament of much forcefulness, and of great productive
exuberance, enthusiastic about the scenery of the Mediterranean, and
especially enamoured of the richness of colour of his native soil, the
ruddy earth planted with orange-trees, the blue sea and the dazzling
sky, Sorolla, oblivious of what he had done before, felt a powerful
impulse to paint that which was rich in colour, so greatly was he moved
by the eastern spirit. The coasts of Valencia, the lives of the
fishermen, those children of the sea, the bullocks drawing the boats,
the scenes beneath the cliffs and other analogous subjects, painted in
full sunlight--the sunlight of July and August for preference--these are
the subjects on which Sorolla laboured for several years, producing
canvas after canvas, now famous both in Europe and America.