MAZO
A twofold interest attaches to Juan Bautista de Mazo, the pupil and
son-in-law of Velasquez. In the first place, he was employed by his
master to copy many of the latter’s pictures, so that he is involved in
the controversies which have arisen over their attribution. Secondly, he
was himself an original portrait painter, and practically the only
representative of landscape painting in the Spanish School.
Mazo was a native of Madrid, the date of his birth being placed
approximately in 1612, because he is reported to have lived a little
over fifty years, and his death took place in 1667. It is not known when
he entered the studio of Velasquez, but he married the latter’s
daughter, Francisca, in 1634. The King signalised his approval of the
marriage by relieving Velasquez of his duties as Usher of the Chamber
and transferring them to Mazo. The young people made their home with
their parents-in-law, and Mazo worked in constant companionship with
Velasquez until the latter’s death. He seems to have had a remarkable
faculty of imitation, for Palomino, writing shortly after Mazo’s death,
says: “He was so skilled as a copyist, especially with regard to the
works of his master, that it is hardly possible to distinguish the
copies from the originals. I have seen some copies of his, after
pictures by Tintoretto, Veronese and Titian, which are now in the
possession of his heirs. If these copies were produced in Italy, where
his talent is unknown, they would be taken without any doubt for
originals.” Velasquez utilised this ability of his pupil, as Rubens and
Rembrandt made use respectively of theirs, to assist him in part or in
whole. Copies of his pictures were required by the King for presentation
to members of the Royal Family of Austria, to ambassadors and others to
whom he wished to show special favor. In some cases Velasquez himself
made a replica, more often, because of the interruptions of his Court
duties and the stress of other work, would employ Mazo to make a copy,
leaving it intact or touching it up as the case might be.
An example of one of these copies, according to Señor Beruete, is the
_Philip IV as Sportsman_, of the Louvre. He assigns it as a copy, made
by Mazo, of the original that is now in the Prado. There is a slight
difference between the two. In the Louvre picture the King holds his cap
with the left hand on his hip; in the Prado the cap appears upon the
head. This was an alteration, subsequently made by Velasquez, for one
can still trace in the original picture a dark mass over the hip, where
the under-painting shows through. The copy, therefore, must have been
made before the alteration.
An example of an original by Mazo, which has passed as a Velasquez, is,
according to Señor Beruete, the celebrated portrait of _Admiral Adrian
Pulido Pareja_ in the National Gallery. It is signed with the name of
[Illustration:
DOÑA MARIANA DE AUSTRIA MAZO
THE PRADO]
Velasquez in Latin. But the Spanish critic points out that, while a
signature itself is no proof of authenticity, this one differs in matter
and character from the only other three instances of the signature of
Velasquez on a picture. These are on undoubted works of the master: the
full-length _Philip IV_ in the National Gallery, the portrait of _Pope
Innocent X_ in the Doria Gallery, and the fragment of a picture which is
preserved in the Royal Palace in Madrid. Studying the technical
qualities of the _Admiral_ and comparing them with those of undoubted
examples of the same period in Velasquez’s career, Señor Beruete
reaches, in brief, the following conclusions. The figure does not stand
firmly on its feet; the latter and the legs are badly shaped; the hat
looks like a sack; its curve is prolonged by that of the left arm and
both are parallel to the curve of the body; the hands are poorly
modeled; the baton is held without distinction, the silhouette of the
whole figure is neither sure nor beautiful, and the masses lack just
disposition and balance. The whole is without the distinction, sureness
of touch and _brio_ that characterise all the authentic portraits of
Velasquez. It is a fine work by a painter of less power than Velasquez,
but bears so strong a resemblance to his style, that it can be by no
other than his pupil, Mazo. For other pictures, hitherto supposed to be
by Velasquez but now claimed by Señor Beruete for his pupil, the reader
is referred to the Spanish critic’s book: “The School of Madrid.”
With the _Portrait of Doña Mariana of Austria_ (p. 122), the second wife
of Philip IV, we reach an unquestioned original by Mazo. It is the same
subject as in Velasquez’s portrait (p. 119), only the girl-bride has
now become a girl-mother. Her child, the Infanta Margarita, about four
years old, appears in the rear with attendants and a dwarf. It is a drab
interior rather reminiscent of that in _Las Meniñas_. The crimson
curtain and chair and the Queen’s pose, on the other hand, recall
Velasquez’s portrait, just mentioned. The suggestion, in fact,
throughout is Velasquez, but not the handling and the style. Compare,
for example, the hand on the chair in the one portrait and the other. In
the Mazo there is an absence of modeling and character. How
characterless also the line of the right arm, and wanting in decision
and distinction the whole silhouette of the figure. Yet the picture has
a very great charm of refinement and tender feeling.
Another probable original by Mazo in the Prado (No. 1083), _Portrait of
Prince Baltasar Carlos_, is attributed to Velasquez in the official
catalogue. It is one of a number of similar attributions that surprise
the visitor to the Prado. The portrait in question shows the Prince, now
in his fourteenth year, standing with his left hand upon the back of a
chair, while his right hangs gracefully, holding a plumed hat. The
figure is entirely in black against a drab background. There is no
picture by Velasquez, known to exist, from which this could be a copy.
That it is not an original by the master is evident in the softness an
indecision of the drawing, and the actually bad drawing of the right leg
which does not connect properly with the hip. It is therefore assumed
with probability to be an original by Mazo, and the fault of drawing is
explained by the fact that he was only twenty-four years old when he
painted it. This picture has an undeniable elegance, but falls very
short of Mazo’s _Doña Mariana_ in accomplishment.
However, both the originality and the capacity of Mazo are best
displayed in his landscapes, which have now been collected into one of
the upper galleries of the Prado. As we have noted, Mazo is the single
great landscape painter of the old Spanish School. While the
contemporary School of Holland, in the persons of Ruisdael, Van Goyen,
Hobbema, Cuyp and many others, was developing landscape as an
independent branch of art and carrying it to a high level of
representation and expression, the Spanish School, with the exception of
Mazo, still used it in subordination to the figure. Considering that
both schools were influenced by the naturalistic motive, how is one to
account for this difference? Probably in the fact that, while the Dutch
artists were in a great measure painting to please themselves and
choosing their own subjects, the Spanish artists worked directly under
the patronage of Royalty and the Church. Portraiture and religious
subjects were the only work demanded of them. Added to this may be the
fact that the Dutch ideal was democratic, the Spanish aristocratic. The
Dutch people were interested in themselves and in the everyday concerns
and environment of their lives, and the Dutch artists, being of the same
stuff as their public, contributed to the popular taste. On the other
hand, both the Spanish monarchy and the Church were strongholds of
aristocracy and both had close affiliations with Italy, the art of which
had been pre-eminently aristocratic. It was based, as has been pointed
out in a companion volume to this one, “The Story of Dutch Painting,” on
the idea of the superiority of the individual person, or, translated
into terms of art, on the supremacy of the human figure as an
art-motive.
We may well believe that Mazo was encouraged in his feeling for
landscape by Velasquez himself. For it is recalled that the latter
during his leisure in Rome painted two vistas in the gardens of the
Villa Medici. There is also in the Prado a _View of the Arch of Titus_,
which the catalogue admits was probably painted in Spain from a sketch
made in Rome. Later criticism, however, has concluded that it was Mazo
who painted this from Velasquez’s sketch, and has also assigned to the
younger man several other landscapes, originally supposed to be by
Velasquez. In this judgment the Director of the Prado acquiesces, for
the pictures have been placed in the gallery devoted to Mazo’s
landscapes.
Before considering them, let us note the contribution made by Velasquez,
indirectly through his portraits, to the art of landscape painting. He
used landscape, with the freedom and feeling of one who comprehended it
and loved it, in his equestrian and sportsman portraits, in the
_Surrender of Breda_ and particularly in one of his latest works, _S.
Antony Visiting S. Paul_, where the figures are small and the picture is
virtually a landscape subject. The chief distinction of all these
landscape scenes is that Velasquez, the student of light, has brought
natural light into the scenes, in which respect they differ from the
landscape of Italian backgrounds, even those
[Illustration:
THE FOUNTAIN OF THE TRITONS MAZO
THE PRADO]
noble ones of Titian’s, which are pervaded with what is, comparatively
speaking, a studio lighting. Velasquez is in a sense even more
naturalistic than his contemporaries, the Holland masters of landscape,
for, although they rendered nature more intimately, they were disposed
to translate the actual hues of nature into a tonality of their own.
Velasquez, on the contrary, recorded what seemed to him to be the facts
of sight. He, therefore, reappears among the moderns of the nineteenth
century, in landscape as in portraiture, one of themselves, because
their mutual study was the light of nature.
One of Mazo’s most important landscapes, known to be his by documentary
evidence, is the _View of Zaragoza_. It hangs in the Velasquez gallery
of the Prado, because the master added the figures which are distributed
in three planes throughout the foreground. But the river beyond, dotted
with sailboats, the bridge and distant view of the city are
unquestionably by Mazo. The silvery deep olive-green of the water and
the accurate definition of the buildings, which nevertheless are felt as
masses, recall the finest manner of Il Canaletto, while the suggestion
of light in the sky is more naturalistic than the Venetian ever
attained. It is a picture that interests one to compare with the single
landscape of Jan Vermeer: his _View of Delft_ in the Hague Gallery. Each
gives one an extraordinary realisation of the actuality of the scene;
but, while the Holland artist’s picture breathes an intimate
domesticity, the work of the Spaniard is psychologically different,
suggesting a certain _hauteur_ and exclusiveness; partly, no doubt,
through the introduction of the choice groups of figures by Velasquez.
The three landscapes originally attributed to Velasquez, but now
included by the Director of the Gallery among Mazo’s are: _The Fountain
of the Tritons_ (p. 122), _Calle de la Reina de Aranjuez_, and _The View
of Buen Retiro_. In the first named the tree-stem on the
left-foreground, sprinkled with leaves, is reminiscent of Velasquez, and
the beautiful little figures, so suggestively rendered, may have been
added by him. But the handling of the grey-green foliage of the further
trees, softly blurred against a bluish grey sky, is unlike the method of
Velasquez as seen in any of his landscape backgrounds. On the other
hand, the soft faint masses of tone, subsequently worked over with
little curly strokes, can be found to a greater or less extent in the
foliage parts of all Mazo’s landscapes in this room. The latter, it
should be observed, vary in subject, including views of buildings,
romantic scenes of rocks and waterfalls, sea-shore in combination with
cliffs and temple-ruins, and views more simply naturalistic. To each the
artist has adopted a technique suitable to the occasion, so that it is
not at first sight easy to recognise them as the work of one man.
Mazo, in fact, in his approach to landscape, shows nothing of the
timidity and indecision and tendency to follow closely his master, such
as characterise his portraits. Here he shows himself an original
experimenter, freely pursuing his own motive. In the case of _The
Fountain of the Tritons_ it has brought him to a method that anticipates
the impressionistic style of Corot. The peeps of sky through the soft
screen of trees; their very coloring, the single tree-stem in the
foreground and the envelope of cool grey atmosphere--Corot might have
painted them.
The _Calle de la Reina_ has again a strangely modern air, somewhat that
of a Jules Dupré, when he is not stirred to emotional effects. The
avenue, leading to the palace of Aranjuez, recedes in the shadow of tall
trees, which tower up in dark masses against a fine twilight sky. Its
light is dimly reflected in the grey-blue water of a shadowed lake on
the left of the foreground; the rest of the latter being enlivened with
figures which form the retinue of two arriving coaches. All these
sprinkled forms count as dark spots upon the pale-lighted sandy road. In
its truth of observation and simple nobility of feeling this landscape
would do honor to any school of any period.
To assist his appreciation of Mazo’s romantic and mythological
landscapes, the visitor to the Prado will do well to step into an
adjoining gallery, devoted to the works of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas
Poussin. It is true they are not represented here at their best; yet
perhaps sufficiently well to suggest the character of their work and
certainly its spirit. Particularly in the case of Claude Lorrain it is
slighter, shallower than the spirit of Mazo’s corresponding scenes; less
reinforced by close observation of nature; or, it may be, inspired by
softer influences. For the source of the difference is perhaps the
contrast of character of the Spanish as compared with the Italian
landscape. Mazo has noted to good purpose the stirring cloud effects
that pile high above the gaunt sierras, and their grandeur and bigness
have inspired his feeling. By comparison, the mellow skies of the
French-Italian landscapes, seem trivial, and communicate their slighter
feeling to the formal, classically composed foregrounds, so that they
seem mannered. In Mazo’s on the other hand, the grandeur of the sky’s
suggestion spreads to the mountains, rocks and water, investing the
whole with a sense of structural power and therefore of sincerity. In
fact, in these romantic, mythological subjects Mazo stands alongside
Turner rather than Claude and Poussin.