CARREÑO
Among the painters who were contemporaries of Velasquez and after his
death helped to stem for a little while the decline of the School of
Madrid, special notice is due to Juan Carreño de Miranda. He came of a
noble family of the province of Asturias, his father being Alcade de los
Hijosdalgos or Chief of the Council of Nobles, in the town of Aviles,
where Juan was born in 1614. When he was still a boy he accompanied his
father to Madrid, and made up his mind to be an artist. His father, at
last acquiescing, placed him with Pedro de las Cuevas, who had also been
the teacher of José Leonardo and Pereda. Carreño afterwards worked with
a painter, Bartolomé Roman; but by the time that he was twenty years old
had so distinguished himself that he was entrusted with several
important commissions. Velasquez recognised his talent and, thinking he
should be employed in the King’s service, commissioned him to paint some
frescoes for the royal palace. These were destroyed in the fire of 1734.
In 1669 Carreño was appointed one of the Court Painters, a post which he
continued to hold after the succession of the young king, Charles II,
when the regency was in the hands of the Queen-Mother, Mariana de
Austria. In this capacity Carreño executed portraits of the royal family
which represent his best work.
Meanwhile his popularity was based upon his decorations and
altar-pieces. His decorative ability, which had been recognised, as we
have seen, by Velasquez, included a familiarity with the technique of
fresco painting, a branch of the art which had few representatives among
Spanish painters. The taste for it had been introduced by the Italians
summoned to decorate the Escoriál, and perpetuated by other foreigners
who were employed in decorating the principal churches and convents.
From them Carreño acquired a knowledge of the process. He seems (for I
am not acquainted with Carreño’s mural decorations) to have been
distinguished in his use of it by a combination of Italian decorative
composition with types and motives characteristically Spanish, and by
very delicate and spiritual schemes of color.
Perhaps the character and quality of the latter may be discovered in the
altar-piece by this artist in the Hispanic Museum, New York. It is a
_Conception_; the subject being presented in the usual way prescribed by
the Church. But the composition is looser, if one may say so, than
Murillo’s in similar pictures, with lines more flowing and masses
distributed more gaily. It is the arrangement, in fact, of a painter
accustomed to the liberty of decoration on a large surface. It has a
sweep and elegance that make it akin to the compositions of Antolinez
and particularly of Cerezo, whom we briefly discussed in the fourth
chapter. In its color-scheme also, it favors theirs. All these artists,
in fact, represent
[Illustration:
CHARLES II CARREÑO
THE PRADO]
a reaction from the more sober and restricted color-schemes, imposed
upon Velasquez and other Court painters. At the same time, they are
characteristic of the decline which had already begun. The coloring of
this _Conception_ of Carreño’s is distinguishably prettified; pearly
pinks and blues, soft greys and greens, perilously suggestive of the
_bonboniére_ style. And the sentiment of the whole is correspondingly
suave, almost, if not completely, to insipidity. Similarly sentimental
are this artist’s _Magdalen in the Desert_ in the Academy of San
Fernando in Madrid, and his _San Sebastian_ of the Prado. The Magdalen
looks like a matured Ariadne, abandoned by her lover. She is posed upon
a rocky seat, so that her beautiful arms may be seen to advantage and
the long line of her graceful figure duly emphasised. Meanwhile she
lifts her tearful gaze to the sky, at a carefully calculated angle that
will impress the beauty of her neck upon the sympathetic spectator. As
for the _San Sebastian_, it should make a gentle lady weep to behold how
this tender body has been abused. In fact, the student who has
discovered the true sources of greatness in the Spanish School of
painting will not take Carreño very seriously when he is in these moods.
Fortunately for his present reputation there is a graver and more
dignified side to his art.
In his portraits, especially those of the members of the royal family,
Carreño shows himself to have absorbed no little of the influence of
Velasquez. These portraits of Charles II and his mother, Queen Mariana,
vary in quality; for he was called upon to repeat them, and the replicas
display a lack of interest and falling off in technical distinction.
Perhaps the handsomest portrait of the King, painted when he was still a
lad of twelve, is the one in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin. The
boy, as usual in a black velvet suit, with long blond cavalier locks
descending over his shoulders, stands resting his left hand on a
marble-topped table, which is supported on a lion and ball pedestal. His
face has not yet acquired the expression of settled melancholy and is
gracious and lovable. The coloring is rich and luminous, and the
concavity behind the figure, full of atmospheric suggestion. The replica
of this in the Prado is tighter and drier in treatment, lacking in
quality of tone and lighting.
Another portrait of this period, showing the figure at half length is
owned by Señor Beruete. Judged by the photograph of it, reproduced in
his “School of Madrid,” it is a very superior canvas, distinguished by
graciousness and dignity. It is a terrible contrast to turn from the
weak yet winning beauty of the boy to the portrait in which Carreño has
depicted the man (p. 132). In all the range of portrait-painting can we
find a face so degenerate as this? The face droops to an inordinate
length, as if the vacuous brain could no longer hold it in position; the
mental distortion is reflected in the grotesquely exaggerated features;
the expression of the pallid mask is one in which hope and joy of life
are extinguished and reasonless fear is habitually present. Such was the
last of the proud Hapsburg line of Spanish Sovereigns.
Carreño’s most important work, however, is the _Portrait of Queen
Mariana of Austria_, in the Munich Old Pinakothek, of which there is an
unsatisfactory replica in the Prado. But the Munich portrait, once seen,
impresses itself indelibly on the memory. It is a cold, implacable
indictment. The surly sadness of the girl-wife, painted by Velasquez (p.
119), who had our sympathy for the cruel grossness of her lot, has
hardened into callous obstinacy and weak self-indulgence. Her widowhood
has brought authority without a sense of responsibility, she has
betrayed her maternal trust in order that through her child’s feebleness
she may hold on to power; she has dallied between her lover and
confessor, and is now _devote_. Clothed in black and white weeds that
resemble a nun’s garb, she sits squarely at a table, a loveless,
forbidding woman. Yet strangely haunting because of Carreño’s analysis
and fearless exposition.