Valley of Aranjuez.--The island garden.--The palace.--Strange
medley of pictures.--Oratories of the King and the
Queen.--Destruction of a grand apartment painted in fresco by
Mengs.--Boundless freedom of conduct in the present
reign.--Decoration of the Duchess of Ossuna’s house.--Apathy
pervading the whole Iberian peninsula.
Tuesday, December 1st, 1795.
It was on a clear bright morning (scarce any frost) that we left a
wretched place called Villatoba, falling into ruins like almost all the
towns and villages I have seen in Spain. The sky was so transparent, so
pearly, and the sunbeams so fresh and reviving, that the country
appeared pleasant in spite of its flatness and aridity. Every tree has
been cut down, and all chance of their being replaced precluded by the
wandering flocks of sheep, goats and swine, which rout, and grout, and
nibble uncontrolled and unmolested.
At length, after a tedious drive through vast tracts of desolate
country, scarce a house, scarce a shrub, scarce a human being to meet
with, we descended a rapid declivity, and I once more found myself in
the valley of Aranjuez. The avenues of poplar and plane have shot up to
a striking elevation since I saw them last. The planes on the banks of
the Tagus incline most respectfully towards its waters; they are
vigorously luxuriant, although planted only seven years ago, as the
gardener informed me.
Charles the Fifth’s elms in the island-garden close to the palace are
decaying apace. I visited the nine venerable stumps close to a hideous
brick-ruin; the largest measures forty or fifty feet in girth; the roots
are picturesquely fantastic. The fountains, like the shades in which
they are embowered, are rapidly going to decay: the bronze Venus, at the
fountain which takes its name from Don John of Austria, has lost her
arm.
Notwithstanding the dreariness of the season with all its accompaniment
of dry leaves and faded herbage, this historic garden had still charms;
the air was mild, and the sunbeams played on the Tagus, and many a bird
flitted from spray to spray. Several long alleys of the loftiest elms,
their huge rough trunks mantled with ivy, and their grotesque roots
advancing and receding like grotto-work into the walk, struck me as
singularly pleasing.
The palace has not been long completed; the additions made by Charles
the Third agree not ill with the original edifice. It is a comfortable,
though not a magnificent abode; walls thick, windows cheerfully glazed
in two panels, neat low chimney-pieces in many of the apartments; few
traces of the days of the Philips; scarce any furniture that bespeak an
ancient family. A flimsy modern style, half Italian, half French,
prevails. Even the pictures are, in point of subjects, preservation,
originality, and masters, as strangely jumbled together as in the
dominions of an auctioneer. This may be accounted for by their being
collected indiscriminately by the present King, whilst prince of
Asturias. Amongst innumerable trash, I noticed a Crucifixion by Mengs;
not overburthened with expression, but finely coloured; the back-ground
and sky most gloomily portentous, and producing a grand effect of light
and shade. The interior of a gothic church, by Peter Neef, so fine, so
clear, so silvery in point of tint, as to reconcile me, (for the moment,
at least,) to this harsh, stiff master; the figures exquisite, the
preservation perfect; no varnish, no retouches.
A set of twelve small cabinet pictures, touched with admirable spirit by
Teniers, the subjects taken from the Gierusalemme Liberata, treated as
familiarly as if the boozy painter had been still copying his
pot-companions. Armida’s palace is a little round summer-house; she
herself, habited like a burgher’s frouw in her holiday garments, holds a
Nuremberg-shaped looking-glass up to the broad vulgar face of a boorish
Rinaldo. The fair Naiads, comfortably fat, and most invitingly smirkish,
are naked to be sure, but a pile of furbelowed garments and farthingales
is ostentatiously displayed on the bank of the water; close by a small
table covered with a neat white tablecloth, and garnished with silver
tankards, cold pie, and salvers of custard and jellies. All these vulgar
accessories are finished with scrupulous delicacy.
Several oratories open into the royal apartments. One set apart for the
Queen is adorned with a very costly, and at the same time beautiful
altar, rich, simple, and majestic; not an ornament is lavished in vain.
Two Corinthian columns of a most beautiful purple and white marble,
sustain a pediment, as highly polished and as richly mottled as any
agate I ever beheld; the capitals are bronze splendidly gilt, so is the
foliage of the consoles supporting the slab which forms the altar. The
design, the materials, the workmanship, are all Spanish, and do the
nation credit.
The king’s oratory is much larger, and not ill-designed; the proportion
is good, about twenty-six by twenty-two, and twenty-four high, besides a
solemn recess for the altar. The walls entirely covered with
fresco-painting; saints, prophets, clouds, and angels, in grand
confusion. The sides of the arch, and all the frame of the altar-piece,
are profusely and solidly gilt. A plinth of jasper, and a skirting about
three feet high, of a light-grey marble, streaked with black, not unlike
the capricious ramifications on mocho-stones, and polished as a mirror,
is continued round the room, so that nothing meets the eye but the rich
gleam of gold, painting, and marble, all blended together in one
glowing tint. The pavement, too, of different Spanish marbles, is a
_chef-d’œuvre_ of workmanship. I particularly admired the soft
ivory-hue of the white marble, but my conductor allowed it little merit
when compared with that of Italy: I think him mistaken in this remark,
and heartily wish him so in many others.
This conductor, an old snuffling domestic of the late king, was rather
forward in making his remarks upon times present. A sort of Piedmontese
in my train, I believe the master of the fonda where I lodge, pointing
to a _manege_ now building, asked for whom it was designed, the King or
the Duke d’Alcudia? “For both, no doubt,” was the answer; “what serves
one serves the other.” In the royal tribune, I was informed, with a
woful shrug, that the King, thank God! continued to be exact and fervent
in his devotions; never missing mass a single day, and frequently
spending considerable time in mental prayer; but that the Queen was
scandalously remiss, and seldom appeared in the chapels, except when
some slender remains of etiquette render her presence indispensable.
The chapel, repaired after designs of Sabbatini, an old Italian
architect, much in favour with Charles the Third, has merit, and is
remarkable for the just distribution of light, which produces a solemn
religious effect. The three altars are noble, and their paintings good.
One in particular, on the right, dedicated to St. Anthony, immediately
attracted my attention by the effulgence of glory amidst which the
infant Jesus is descending to caress the kneeling saint, whose attitude,
and youthful, enthusiastic countenance, have great expression. The
colouring is warm and harmonious; Maella is the painter.
I inquired after a remarkable room in this palace, called in the plan
_Salon de los Funciones_, and vulgarly _el Coliseo_. The ceiling was
painted by Mengs, and esteemed one of his capital works: here Ferdinand
and Barbara, the most musical of sovereigns, used to melt in ecstasies
at the soft warblings of Farinelli and Egiziello--but, alas! the scene
of their amusements, like themselves and their warblers, is no more.
Not later than last summer, this grand theatrical apartment was divided
into a suite of shabby, bandboxical rooms for the accommodation of the
Infant of Parma. No mercy was shown to the beautiful roof. In some
places, legs and folds of drapery are still visible; but the workmen are
hammering and plastering at a great rate, and in a few days whitewash
will cover all.
Coming out of the palace, and observing how deserted and melancholy the
walks, garden, and avenues appeared, I was told, that in a few weeks a
total change would take place, for the court was expected on the 6th of
January, to remain six months, and that every pleasure followed in its
train. Shoals of gamblers, and ladies of easy virtue of all ranks, ages,
and descriptions. Every barrier which Charles the Third, of chaste and
pious memory, attempted to oppose to the wanton inclinations of his
subjects, has been broken down in the present reign; boundless freedom
of conduct prevails, and the most disgusting debauchery riots in these
lovely groves, which deserve to be set apart for elegant and rural
pleasures.
In my walks I passed a huge edifice lately built for the favourite
Alcudia. Common report accuses it of being more magnificently furnished
than the royal residence; but as I did not enter it, I shall content
myself with noting down, that it boasts nineteen windows in front, and a
plain Tuscan portal with handsome granite pillars. Adjoining is a house
belonging to the Duchess of Ossuna, full of workmen, painters, and
stuccadors: a goggle-eyed Milanese, most fiercely conceited, is daubing
the walls with all his might and main. He is an architect too, at least
I have his word for it, and claims the merit, a great one as he
believes, of having designed a sort of ball-room, with many a festoon
and Bohemian glass-chandelier and coarse arabesque. The floor is
bricked, upon which thick mats or carpets are spread when dancing is
going forward.
I was in hopes this tiresome custom of thumping mats and rugs with the
feet, to the brisk airs of boleros and fandangos, was exploded. No music
is more inspiring than the Spanish; what a pity they refuse themselves
the joy of rising a foot or two into the air at every step, by the help
of elastic boards.
Next to this sort of a ball-room is a sort of an oval boudoir, and then
a sort of an octagon; all bad sorts of their kind. This confounded
painter is covering the oval with landscapes, not half so harmonious or
spirited as those which figure on Birmingham snuff-boxes or tea-boards.
He has a terrible partiality to blues and greens of the crudest tints.
Such colours affect my eyes as disagreeably as certain sounds my teeth,
when set on edge. I pity the Duchess of Ossuna, whose liberal desire of
encouraging the arts deserves better artists. In music she has been more
fortunate: Boccharini directed her band when I was last at Madrid; and I
remember with what transport she heard and applauded the Galli, to whom
she sent one morning a present of the most expensive trinkets,
carelessly heaped up upon a magnificent salver of massive silver, two or
three feet in diameter.
The day closed as I was wandering about the Duchess’s mansion, surprised
at the slovenly neglect of the furniture, not an article of which has
been moved out of the reach of dust, scaffoldings, the exhalations of
paint, and the still more pestilential exhalation of garlick-eating
workmen. Universal apathy and indifference to everything seems to
pervade the whole Iberian peninsula. If not caring what you eat or what
you drink is a virtue, so far the evangelical precept is obeyed. So it
is in Portugal, and so it is in Spain, and so it looks likely to be
world without end: to which, let the rest of Europe say amen; for were
these countries to open their long-closed eyes, cast off their trammels,
and rouse themselves to industry, they would soon surpass their
neighbours in wealth and population.