control of Spanish lands, so that no cathedral had been built there,
and when Velasquez came upon the scene the time of great cathedral
building was past. It had ceased to be the fashion. Although there had
been such painters as Beneguette, Morales, Navarrette, and Ribera, all
Spanish and of considerable genius, they had been too badly
handicapped to make painting a great art in Spain. When Madrid became
the capital of Spain, it had no unusual buildings, unless it was an
old fortress of the Moors, the Alcazar, Caesar's house, but the nation
was buying paintings from Italy, and it began to beautify Madrid,
which had the advantage of the former Moorish luxury and art, very
beautiful, though not pictorial.
In Madrid, then, there seemed to be great opportunity for a fine
artist like Velasquez, and his master urged him to go there and try
his fortune. So he set out on mule-back, attended by his slave, but
unless he could get the ear of the king, it was useless for him to
seek advancement in Madrid. Without the king as patron at that time,
an artist could not accomplish much. After trying again and again,
Velasquez had to return to his old master, without having seen the
king; but after a time a picture of his was seen by Philip IV., and he
was so much pleased with it that he summoned the artist. Through his
minister, Olivares, he offered him $113.40 in gold (fifty ducats) to
pay his return expenses. The next year he gave him $680.40 to move his
family to Madrid.
At last the artist had found a place in the rich city, and he went to
live at the court where the warmest friendship grew between him and
the king. The latter was an author and something of a painter, so that
they loved the same things. This friendship lasted all their lives,
and they were together most of the time, the king always being found,
in Velasquez's studio in the palace when his duties did not call him
elsewhere. During the many many years--nearly thirty-seven--that
Velasquez lived with Philip IV. he employed himself in painting the
scenes at court. Thus he became the pictorial historian of the Spanish
capital. He was a man of good disposition, kindly and generous in
conduct and in feeling, so that he was always in the midst of friends
and well-wishers.
Philip IV. was indeed a noble companion, but he was not a gay one,
being known as the king who never laughed--or at least whose laughter
was so rare, the few times he did laugh became historic. One would
expect this serious and depressing atmosphere to have had an effect
upon a painter's art; but it chanced that Rubens visited Spain, and
there, Velasquez being the one famous artist, it was natural they
should become interested in each other. Rubens told Velasquez of the
wonders of Italian painting, till the Spaniard could think of nothing
else, and finally he begged Philip to let him journey to Italy that he
might see some of those wonders for himself. The request made the king
unhappy at first, but at last he gave his consent and Velasquez set
out for Italy. The king gave him money and letters of introduction,
and he went in company with the Marquis of Spinola.
After Velasquez had stayed eighteen months in Italy, Philip began to
long for his friend and sent for him to return. He came back full of
the stories of brilliant Italy, and charmed the king completely.
There is as absurd a story of Velasquez's perfection in painting as
that of Raphael's, whose portrait of the pope, left upon the terrace
to dry, imposed upon passers by. It is said of Velasquez's work that
when he had painted an admiral whom the king had ordered to sea, and
left it exposed in his studio, the king, entering, thought it was the
admiral himself, and angrily inquired why he had not put to sea
according to orders. On the face of them these stories are false, but
they serve to suggest the perfection of these artists' paintings.
Philip, being a melancholy man, had his court full of jesters, poor
misshapen creatures--dwarfs and hunchbacks--who were supposed to
appear "funny," and Velasquez, as court painter, painted those whom he
continually saw about him, who formed the court family. Thus we have
pictures of strange groups--dwarfs, little princesses, dressed
precisely as the elders were dressed, favourite dogs, and Velasquez
himself at his easel.
In 1618, while still with his master, Pacheco, he had married the
master's daughter, a big, portly woman. Before he left Seville he bad
two daughters.
These were all the children he had, although he painted a picture of
"Velasquez's Family" which includes a great number of people. The
figures in that painting are the children of his daughter, not his
own; and this may account for one biographer's statement that the
artist had "seven children." He was devoted to and happy in his family
of children and grandchildren.
He did not grow rich, but received regularly during his life in
Madrid, twenty gold ducats ($45.36) a month to live upon, and besides
this his medical attendance, lodging, and additional payment for every
picture. The one which brought him this good fortune was an equestrian
portrait of Philip; first uncovered on the steps of San
Felipe. Everywhere the people were delighted with it, poets sung of
it, and the king declared no other should ever paint his
portrait. This picture has long since disappeared.
In 1627 Velasquez won the prize for a picture representing the
expulsion of the Moors from Spain and was rewarded by "being appointed
gentleman usher. To this was shortly afterward added a daily allowance
of twelve reals--the same amount which was allowed to court
barbers--and ninety gold ducats ($204.12) a year for dress, which was
also paid to the dwarfs, buffoons, and players about the king's
person--truly a curious estimate of talent at the court of Spain."
The record of Philip IV. with unpleasing, even degenerate characters,
about him, is brightened by the thought of his loyalty to his court
painter and life-long friend. When the king's favourites fell, those
who had been the friends of Velasquez, the artist loyally remained
their friend in adversity as he had been while they were
powerful. This constancy, even to the royal enemies, was never
resented by Philip. He honoured the faithfulness of his artist, even
as he himself was faithful in this friendship. Philip's court was such
that there was little to paint that was ennobling, and so Velasquez
lacked the inspiration of such surroundings as the Italian painters
had.
Philip IV. was hail-fellow-well-met with his stablemen, his huntsmen,
his cooks, and yet he seems to have had no sense of humour, was long
faced and forbidding to look at, and despite his strange habits
considered himself the most mighty and haughty man in the world. He
felt himself free to behave as he chose, because he was Philip of
Spain; and he chose to do a great many absurd and outrageous
things. In all Philip's portraits, painted by Velasquez, he wears a
stiff white linen collar of his own invention, and he was so proud of
this that he celebrated it by a festival. He went in procession to
church to thank God for the wonderful blessing of the _Golilla_--the
name of his collar. This unsightly thing became the fashion, and all
portraits of men of that time were painted with it. "In regard to the
wonderful structure of Philip's moustaches it is said, that, to
preserve their form they were encased during the night in perfumed
leather covers called _bigoteras_." Such absurdities in a king, who
had the responsibilities of a nation upon him, seem incredible.
Velasquez made in all three journeys to Italy, and the last one was on
a mission for the king, which was much to the latter's credit. Philip
had determined to have a fine art gallery in Madrid, for Spain had by
this time many pictures, but no statuary; so he commissioned his
painter to buy whatever he thought well of and _could_ buy, in
Italy. Hence the artist set off again with his slave--the same one
with whom he had journeyed to Madrid so long before. His name was
Pareja, and his master had already made an excellent artist of him.
They went to Genoa, thence to the great art-centres of Italy, were
received everywhere with honour, and the artist bought wisely.
Velasquez did not care for Raphael's paintings as much as for
Titian's, and he said so to Salvator Rosa, an honoured painter in
Italy.
While in Rome Velasquez painted the pope, also his own slave, Pareja.
When he returned to Spain he took with him three hundred statues, but
a large number of them were nude, and the Spanish court, not over
particular about most things, was very particular about naked statues,
so that after Philip's death, they nearly all disappeared. After his
return, and after the queen had died and Philip had married again,
Velasquez was made quartermaster-general, no easy post but not without
honour, though it interfered with his picture painting a good deal. He
had to look after the comfort of all the court, and to see that the
apartments it occupied, at home or when it visited, were suitable.
"Even the powerful king of Spain could not make his favourite a belted
knight without a commission to inquire into the purity of his lineage
on both sides of the house. Fortunately, the pedigree could bear
scrutiny, as for generations the family was found free from all taint
of heresy, from all trace of Jewish or Moorish blood, and from
contamination from trade or commerce. The difficulty connected with
the fact that he was a painter was got over by his being painter to
the king and by the declaration that he did not sell his pictures."
The red Cross of Santiago conferred upon him by Philip, made Velasquez
a knight and freed him also from the rulings of the Inquisition, which
directed so largely what artists could and could not do. Thus it is
that we come to have certain great pictures from Velasquez's brush
which could not otherwise have been painted.
This action of the king, setting free the artist, made two schools of
art, of which the court painter represented one; and Murillo the
other, under the command of the Church. Although not so rich perhaps
as Raphael, Velasquez lived and died in plenty, while Murillo, the
artist of the Church of Rome, was a poverty-stricken man.
Finally, while in the midst of honours, and fulfilling his official
duty to the court of Spain, Velasquez contracted the disease which
killed him. The Infanta, Maria Theresa, was to wed Louis XIV., and the
ceremony was to take place on a swampy little island called the Island
of Pheasants. There he went to decorate a pavilion and other places of
display. He became ill with a fever and died soon after he returned to
Madrid.
He made his wife, his old master Pacheco's daughter, his executor, and
was buried in the church of San Juan, in the vault of Fuensalida; but
within a week his devoted wife was dead, and in eight days' time she
was buried beside him.
He left his affairs--accounts between him and the court--badly
entangled, and it was many years before they were straightened
out. His many deeds of kindness lived after him. He made of his slave
a good artist and a devoted friend, and by his efforts the slave
became a freedman. The story of his kindly help to Murillo when that
exquisite painter came, unknown and friendless to Madrid, has already
been told.
The Church where Velasquez was buried was destroyed by the French in
1811, and all trace of the resting place of the great Spanish artist
is forever lost to us.
He is called not only "painter to the king," but "king of painters."
PLATE--EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF DON BALTHASAR CARLOS.
Philip of Spain had long prayed for a son and when at last one was
granted him his pride in his young heir was unbounded. The little Don
Carlos was not unworthy, for he was a cheerful, hearty boy, trained to
horsemanship, from his fourth year, for his father was a noted rider
and had the best instructors for his son. The prince was a brave
hunter too and we are told that he shot a wild boar when he was but
nine years of age. In this portrait which is in the Museo del Prado he
is six years old, and it was neither the first nor the last that
Velasquez made of him. It was one of the court painter's chief duties
to see that the heir to the throne was placed upon canvas at every
stage of his career, and he painted him from two years of age till his
lamented death at sixteen.
The young prince wears in this picture a green velvet jacket with
white sleeves and his scarf is crimson embroidered with gold. The
lively pony is a light chestnut and the foreshortening of its body
must be noticed. The steady grave eyes of the lad are gazing far ahead
as they would naturally be if he were riding rapidly, but his princely
dignity is shown in his firm seat in the saddle and his manner of
holding his marshal's batôn.
The great art of the painter is also shown in the way he subordinates
the landscape to the figure. He will not allow even a tree to come
near the young horseman, but brings his young activity into vivid
contrast with the calm peacefulness of the distant view.
With the death of Don Carlos the downfall of his father's dynasty was
assured, though for a time his little sister, the Infanta Maria
Theresa, was upheld as the heiress. She married Louis XIV. and had a
weary time of it in France. Velasquez painted her picture too, in the
grown up dress of the children of that day. It is in the Vienna
Gallery. Among his best known pictures are "The Surrender of Breda,"
"Alessandro del Borro," and "Philip IV."
XLII
PAUL VERONESE (PAOLO CAGLIARI)
(Pronounced Vay-ro-nay'zay and pah'o-lah cal-ee-ah'ree)
_Venetian School_
1528-1588
_Pupil of Titian_
"One has never done well enough, when one can do better; one never
knows enough when he can learn more!"
This was the motto of Paul Veronese. This artist was born in
Verona--whence he took his name--and spent much of his life with the
monks in the monastery of St. Sebastian.
His father was a sculptor, and taught his son. Veronese himself was a
lovable fellow, had a kind feeling for all, and in return received the
good will of most people. When he first went to Venice to study he
took letters of introduction to the monks of St. Sebastian, and
finally went to live with them, for his uncle was prior of the
monastery, and it was upon its walls that he did his first work in
Venice. His subject was the story of Esther, which he illustrated
completely.
He became known in time as "the most magnificent of magnificent
painters." He loved the gaieties of Venice; the lords and ladies; the
exquisite colouring; the feasting and laughter, and everything he
painted, showed this taste. When he chose great religious subjects he
dressed all his figures in elegant Venetian costumes, in the midst of
elegant Venetian scenes. His Virgins, or other Biblical people, were
not Jews of Palestine, but Venetians of Venice, but so beautiful were
they and so inspiring, that nobody cared to criticise them on that
score. He loved to paint festival scenes such as, "The Marriage at
Cana," "Banquet in Levi's House," or "Feast in the House of Simon." He
painted nothing as it could possibly have been, but everything as he
would have liked it to be.
Into the "Wedding Feast at Cana," where Jesus was said to have turned
the water into wine, he introduced a great host of his friends, people
then living. Titian is there, and several reigning kings and queens,
including Francis I. of France and his bride, for whom the picture was
made. This treatment of the Bible story startles the mind, but
delights the eye.
It was said that his "red recurred like a joyful trumpet blast among
the silver gray harmonies of his paintings."
Muther, one who has written brilliantly about him, tells us that
"Veronese seems to have come into the world to prove that the painter
need have neither head nor heart, but only a hand, a brush, and a pot
of paint in order to clothe all the walls of the world with oil
paintings" and that "if he paints Mary, she is not the handmaid of the
Lord or even the Queen of Heaven, but a woman of the world, listening
with approving smile to the homage of a cavalier. In light red silk
morning dress, she receives the Angel of the Annunciation and hears
without surprise--for she has already heard it--what he has to say;
and at the Entombment she only weeps in order to keep up appearances."
Such criticism raises a smile, but it is quite just, and what is more,
the Veronese pictures are so beautiful that one is not likely to
quarrel with the painter for having more good feeling than
understanding. His joyous temperament came near to doing him harm, for
he was summoned before the Inquisition for the manner in which he had
painted "The Last Supper."
After the Esther pictures in St. Sebastian, the artist painted there
the "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian," and there is a tradition that he did
his work while hiding in the monastery because of some mischief of
which he had been guilty.
At that time he was not much more than twenty-six or eight, while the
great painter Tintoretto was forty-five, yet his work in St. Sebastian
made him as famous as the older artist.
There is very little known of the private affairs of Veronese. He
signed a contract for painting the "Marriage at Cana," for the
refectory of the monastery of St. Giorgio Maggiore, in June 1562, and
that picture, stupendous as it is, was finished eighteen months
later. He received $777.60 for it, as well as his living while he was
at work upon it, and a tun of wine. One picture he is supposed to have
left behind him at a house where he had been entertained, as an
acknowledgment of the courtesy shown him.
Paul had a brother, Benedetto, ten years younger than himself, and it
is said that he greatly helped Paul in his work, by designing the
architectural backgrounds of his pictures. If that is so, Benedetto
must have been an artist of much genius, for those backgrounds in the
paintings are very fine.
Veronese married, and had two sons; the younger being named
Carletto. He was also the favourite, and an excellent artist, who did
some fine painting, but he died while he was still young. Gabriele the
elder son, also painted, but he was mainly a man of affairs, and
attended to business rather than to art.
Veronese was a loving father and brother, and beyond doubt a happy
man. After his death both his sons and his brother worked upon his
unfinished paintings, completing them for him. He was buried in the
Church of St. Sebastian.
PLATE--THE MARRIAGE AT CANA
This painting is most characteristic of Veronese's methods. He has no
regard for the truth in presenting the picture story. At the marriage
at Cana everybody must have been very simply dressed, and there could
have been no beautiful architecture, such as we see in the picture. In
the painting we find courtier-like men and women dressed in beautiful
silks. Some of the costumes appear to be a little Russian in
character, the others Venetian; and Jesus Himself wears the loose
every-day robe of the pastoral people to whom he belonged. We think of
luxury and rich food and a splendid house when we look at this
painting, when as a matter of fact nothing of this sort could have
belonged to the scene which Veronese chose to represent. Perhaps no
painter was more lacking in imagination than was Veronese in painting
this particular picture. He chose to place historical or legendary
characters, in the midst of a scene which could not have existed
co-incidently with the event.
Among his other pictures are "Europa and the Bull," "Venice
Enthroned," and the "Presentation of the Family of Darius to
Alexander."
XLIII
LEONARDO DA VINCI
(Pronounced Lay-o-nar'do dah Veen'chee)
_Florentine School_
1451-1519
_Pupil of Verrocchio_
Leonardo da Vinci was the natural son of a notary, Ser Pier, and he
was born at the Castello of Vinci, near Empoli. From the very hour
that he was apprenticed to his master, Verrocchio, he proved that he
was the superior of his master in art. Da Vinci was one of the most
remarkable men who ever lived, because he not only did an
extraordinary number of things, but he did all of them well.
He was an engineer, made bridges, fortifications, and plans which to
this day are brilliant achievements.
He was a sculptor, and as such did beautiful work.
He was a naturalist, and as such was of use to the world.
He was an author and left behind him books written backward, of which
he said that only he who was willing to devote enough study to them to
read them in that form, was able to profit by what he had written.
Finally, and most wonderfully, he was a painter.
He had absolute faith in himself. Before he constructed his bridge he
said that he could build the best one in the world, and a king took
him at his word and was not disappointed by the result.
He stated that he could paint the finest picture in the world--but let
us read what he himself said of it, in so sure and superbly confident
a way that it robbed his statement of anything like foolish
vanity. Such as he could afford to speak frankly of his greatness,
without appearing absurd. He wrote:
"In time of peace, I believe I can equal anyone in architecture, in
constructing public and private buildings, and in conducting water
from one place to another. I can execute sculpture, whether in marble,
bronze, or terra cotta, and in painting I can do as much as any other
man, be he who he may. Further, I could engage to execute the bronze
horse in eternal memory of your father and the illustrious house of
Sforza." He was writing to Ludovico Sforza whose house then ruled at
Milan. "If any of the above-mentioned things should appear to you
impossible or impracticable, I am ready to make trial of them in your
park, or in any other place that may please your excellency, to whom I
commend myself in proud humility."
Leonardo's experiments with oils and the mixing of his pigments has
nearly lost to us his most remarkable pictures. His first fourteen
years of work as an artist were spent in Milan, where he was employed
to paint by the Duke of Milan, and never again was his life so
peaceful; it was ever afterward full of change. He went from Milan to
Venice, to Rome, to Florence, and back to Milan where his greatest
work was done.
While Leonardo was a baby he lived in the Castle of Vinci. He was
beautiful as a child and very handsome as a man. When a child he wore
long curls reaching below his waist. He was richly clothed, and
greatly beloved. His body seemed no less wonderful than his mind. He
wished to learn everything, and his memory was so wonderful that he
remembered all that he undertook to learn. His muscles were so
powerful that he could bend iron, and all animals seemed to love
him. It is said he could tame the wildest horses. Indeed his life and
accomplishments read as if he were one enchanted. One writer tells us
that "he never could bear to see any creature cruelly treated, and
sometimes he would buy little caged birds that he might just have the
pleasure of opening the doors of their cages, and setting them at
liberty."
The story told of his first known work is that his master, being
hurried in finishing a picture, permitted Leonardo to paint in an
angel's head, and that it was so much better than the rest of the
picture, that Verrocchio burned his brushes and broke his palette,
determined never to paint again, but probably this is a good deal of a
fairy tale and one that is not needed to impress us with the artist's
greatness, since there is so much to prove it without adding fable to
fact.
Leonardo was also a very far seeing inventor and most ingenious. He
made mechanical toys that "worked" when they were wound up. He even
devised a miniature flying machine; however, history does not tell us
whether it flew or not. He thought out the uses of steam as a motive
power long before Fulton's time.
Leonardo haunted the public streets, sketchbook in hand, and when
attracted by a face, would follow till he was able to transfer it to
paper. Ida Prentice Whitcomb, who has compiled many anecdotes of da
Vinci, says that it was also his habit to invite peasants to his
house, and there amuse them with funny stories till he caught some
fleeting expression of mirth which he was pleased to reproduce.