some experts believe, by first painting a solid monochrome in tempera
on which the picture was finished in oil. Unquestionably Titian
corrected and amended his work as much as did Velasquez. It is a
pleasing if somewhat theatric belief that Titian and Velasquez,
duelled with their canvases, their rapier a brush. After inspecting
many of the Hals portraits the evidences of direct painting, swift
though calculated, are not to be denied. This may account, with the
temperamental equation, for the less profound psychological interest
of his portraiture when compared with the Raphael, Titian, Velasquez,
and Rembrandt heads. Yet, what superiority in brush-work had Hals over
Raphael and Rembrandt. The Raphael surfaces are as a rule hard, dry,
and lustreless, while Rembrandt's heavy, troubled paint is no mate for
the airy touch of the Mercutio of Haarlem. But Titian's impasto is
lyric. It sings on the least of his canvases. No doubt his pictures in
the Prado have been "skinned" of their delicate glaze by the
iconoclastic restorer; yet they bloom and chant and ever bloom. The
Bacchanal, which bears a faint family resemblance to the Bacchus and
Ariadne of the London National Gallery, fairly exults in its joy of
life, in its frank paganism. What rich reverberating tones, what
powers of evocation! The Garden of the Loves is a vision of childhood
at its sweetest; the surface of the canvas seems alive with festooned
babies. The more voluptuous Venus or Danaë do not so stir your pulse
as this immortal choir of cupids. The two portraits of Charles V--one
equestrian--are charged with the noble, ardent gravity and splendour
of phrasing we expect from the greatest Venetian of them all. We
doubt, however, if the Prado Entombment is as finely wrought as the
same subject by Titian in Paris; but it sounds a poignant note of
sorrow. Rembrandt is more dramatic when dealing with a similar theme.
The St. Margaret with its subtle green gown is a figure that is
touching and almost tragic. The Madonna and Child, with St. Bridget
and St. Hulfus, has been called Giorgionesque. St. Bridget is of the
sumptuous Venetian type; the modelling of her head is lovely, her
colouring rich.
Rubens in the Prado is singularly attractive. There are over fifty,
not all of the best quality, but numbering such works as the Three
Graces, the Rondo, the Garden of Love, and the masterly unfinished
portrait of Marie de Medicis. The Brazen Serpent is a Van Dyck, though
the catalogue of 1907 credits it to Rubens. Then there are the
Andromeda and Perseus, the Holy Family and Diana and Calista. The
portrait of Marie de Médicis, stout, smiling, amiability personified,
has been called one of the finest feminine portraits extant--which is
a slight exaggeration. It is both mellow and magnificent, and unless
history or Rubens lied the lady must have been as mild as mother's
milk. The Three Graces, executed during the latter years of the
Flemish master, is Rubens at his pagan best. These stalwart and
handsome females, without a hint of sleek Italian delicacy, include
Rubens's second wife, Helena Fourment, the ox-eyed beauty. What blond
flesh tones, what solidity of human architecture, what positive beauty
of surfaces and nobility of contours! The Rondo is a mad, whirling
dance, the Diana and Calista suggestive of a Turkish bath outdoors,
but a picture that might have impelled Walt Whitman to write a sequel
to his Children of Adam. Such women were born not alone to bear
children but to rule the destinies of mankind; genuine matriarchs.
Rembrandt fares ill. His Artemisia about to drink her husband's ashes
from a costly cup reveals a ponderous hand. It is but indifferent
Rembrandt, despite several jewelled passages. Van Dyck shows at least
one great picture, the Betrayal of Christ. The Brazen Serpent only
ranks second to it; both are masterpieces, and Antwerp must envy the
Prado. The Crown of Thorns, and the portraits, particularly that of
the Countess of Wexford, are arresting. His Musician, being the
portrait of Lanière the lute-player, and his own portrait on the same
canvas with Count Bristol, are cherished treasures. The lutist is
especially fascinating. That somewhat mysterious Dutch master, Moro,
or Mor (Antonis; born in Utrecht, 1512; died at Antwerp, 1576 or
1578), is represented by more than a dozen portraits. To know what a
master of physiognomy he was we need only study his Mary Queen of
England, the Buffoon of the Beneventas, the Philip II, and the various
heads of royal and noble born dames. The subdued fire and subtlety of
this series, the piercing vision and superior handicraft of the
painter have placed him high in the artistic hierarchy; but not high
enough. At his best he is not far behind Holbein. That great German's
art is shown in a solitary masterpiece, the portrait of an unknown
man, with shrewd cold eyes, an enormous nose, the hands full of
meaning, the fabrics scrupulous as to detail. Next to this Holbein,
whose glance follows you around the gallery, are the two Dürers, the
portrait of Hans Imhof, a world-renowned picture, and his own portrait
(1498), a magical rendering of a Christ-like head, the ringlets curly,
the beard youthful, the hands folded as if in prayer. A marvellous
composition. It formerly hung too high, above the Hans Imhof; it now
hangs next to it. A similar head in the Uffizi is a copy, Sir Walter
Armstrong to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Flemish schools are to be seen in the basement, not altogether a
favourable place, though in the afternoon there is an agreeable light.
Like Rubens, Jan van Eyck visited Spain and left the impress of his
style. But the Van Eycks at the Prado are now all queried, though
several are noteworthy. The Marriage of the Virgin is discredited. The
Virgin, Christ and St. John under the golden canopy, called a Hubert
van Eyck, is probably by Gossaert de Mabuse, and a clever
transposition of the altar piece in St. Bavon's at Ghent. The Fountain
of Life, also in the catalogue as a Jan van Eyck, has been pronounced
a sixteenth-century copy of a lost picture by his brother Hubert. We
may add that not one of these so-called Van Eycks recalls in all their
native delicacy and richness the real Van Eycks of Bruges, Ghent, and
Brussels; though the Virgin Reading, given as Jan's handiwork, is of a
charm. The Depositions, attributed to Rogier van der Weyden (De la
Pasture), are acknowledged to be old sixteenth-century copies of the
Deposition in the Escorial. The altar piece is excellent. But there is
a fine Memling, glowing in pigment and of beautiful design, The
Adoration of the Kings, a triptych, like the one at Bruges. In the
centre panel we see the kings adoring, one a black man; the two wings,
or doors, respectively depict the birth of Christ (right) and the
presentation in the temple (left). There is a retablo (reredos) in
four compartments, by Petrus Cristus, and two Jerome Patinirs, one, a
Temptation of St. Anthony, being enjoyable. The painter-persecuted
saint sits in the foreground of a freshly painted landscape, harassed
by the attentions of witches, several of them comely and clothed. To
be precise, the composition suggests a much-married man listening to
the reproaches of his spouses. Hanging in a doorway we found a Herri
Met de Bles that is not marked doubtful. It is a triptych, an
Adoration, in which the three kings, the Queen of Sheba before
Solomon, and Herod participate. A brilliantly tinted work this, which
once hung in the Escorial, and, _mirabile dictu_, attributed to Lucas
van Leyden. No need to speak of the later Dutch and Flemish school,
Teniers, Ostade, Dou, Pourbus, and the minor masters. There are
Breughels and Bosches aplenty, and none too good. But there are
several Jordaens of quality, a family group, and three heads of street
musicians. We forgot to mention an attribution to Jan van Eyck, The
Triumph of Religion, which is a curious affair no matter whose brain
conceived it. The attendant always points out its religious features
with ill-concealed glee. A group of ecclesiastics have confounded a
group of rabbis at a fountain which is the foundation of an altar; the
old fervour burns in the eyes of the gallery servitor as he shows you
the discomfited Hebrew doctors of the law. We may dismiss as harmless
the Pinturicchio and other Italian attributions in these basement
galleries. There is the usual crew of Anonimos, and a lot of those
fantastic painters who are nicknamed by critics without a sense of
humour as "The Master of the Fiery Hencoop," "The Master of the
Eccentric Omelet," or some such idiotic title.
Up-stairs familiar names such as Domenichino, Bassano, Cortona,
Crespi, Bellino, Pietra della Vecchia, Allori, Veronese, Maratta,
Guido Reni, Romano need not detain us. The catalogue numbers of the
Italian school go as high as 628. The Titians, however, are the glory
of the Prado. The Spanish school begins at 629, ends at 1,029. The
German, Flemish, and Holland schools begin at 1,146, running to 1,852.
There are supplements to all of the foregoing. The French school runs
from 1,969 to 2,111. But the examples in this section are not
inspiring, the Watteaus excepted. There is the usual Champagne,
Coypel, Claude of Lorraine (10), Largillière, Lebrun, Van Loo, Mignard
(5); one of Le Nain--by both brothers. Nattier (4), Nicolas Poussin
(20), Rigaud, and two delicious Watteaus; a rustic betrothal and a
view of the garden of St. Cloud, the two exhaling melancholy grace and
displaying subdued richness of tone. Tiepolo has been called the last
link in the chain of Venetian colourists, which began with the
Bellini, followed by Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Palma Vecchio,
Bonifazio, Veronese--and to this list might be added the name of the
Frenchman Watteau. Chardin was also a colourist, and how many of the
Poussins at this gallery might be spared to make room for one of his
cool, charming paintings!
The Prado about exhausts the art treasures of Madrid. In the Escorial,
that most monstrous and gloomiest of the tombs of kings, are pictures
that should be seen--some Grecos among the rest--even if the palace
does not win your sympathy. In Madrid what was once called the
Academia de San Fernando is now the Real Academia de Bellas Artes. It
is at 11 Calle de Alcalá and contains a Murillo of quality, the Dream
of the Roman Knight, Zurbaran's Carthusians, an Ecce Homo by Ribera,
of power; the Death of Dido by Fragonard; a Rubens, St. Francis, the
work of his pupils; Alonzo Cano, two Murillos, Domenichino, Tristan,
Mengs, Giovanni Bellini; Goya's bull-fights, mad-house scenes, and
several portraits--one of the Due de la Paz; a Pereda, a Da Vinci (?),
Madrazo, Zurbaran, and Goya's equestrian portrait of Charles IV. A
minor gathering, the débris of a former superb collection, and not
even catalogued.
There are museums devoted to artillery, armour, natural sciences, and
archæology. In the imposing National Library, full of precious
manuscripts, is the museum of modern art--also without a catalogue. It
does not make much of an impression after the Prado. The Fortuny is
not characteristic, though a rarity; a sketch for his Battle of
Tetuan, the original an unfinished painting, is at Barcelona. There
are special galleries such as the Sala Haes with its seventy pictures,
which are depressing. The modern Spaniards Zuloaga, Sorolla,
Angla-Camarosa are either not represented or else are not at their
best. There is a Diaz, who was of Spanish origin; but the Madrazos,
Villegas, Montenas, and the others are academic echoes or else feeble
and mannered. There are some adroit water-colours by modern Frenchmen,
and there is a seeming attempt to make the collection contemporary in
spirit, but it is all as dead as the allegorical dormouse, while over
at the Prado there is a vitality manifested by the old fellows that
bids fair to outlast the drums, tramplings, and conquests of many
generations. We have not more than alluded to the sculpture at the
Prado; it is not particularly distinguished. The best sculpture we saw
in Spain was displayed in wood-carvings. The pride of the Prado is
centred upon its Titians, Raphaels, Rubenses, Murillos, El Grecos,
and, above all, upon Don Diego de Silva, better known as Velasquez.
EL GRECO AT TOLEDO
Toledo is less than three hours from Madrid; it might be three years
away for all the resemblance it bears to the capital. Both situated in
New Castille, Madrid seems sharply modern, as modern as the early
nineteenth century, when compared to the mediæval cluster of buildings
on the horseshoe-shaped granite heights almost entirely hemmed in by
the river Tagus. It is not only one of the most original cities in
Spain, but in all Europe. No other boasts its incomparable profile,
few the extraordinary vicissitudes of its history. Not romantic in the
operatic moonlit Grenada fashion, without the sparkle and colour of
Seville or the mundane savour of Madrid, Toledo incarnates in its
cold, detached, proud, pious way all that we feel as Spain the
aristocratic, Spain the theocratic. To this city on a crag there once
came, by way of Venice, a wanderer from Crete. Toledo was the final
frame of the strange genius of El Greco; he made it the consecrate
ground of his new art. It is difficult to imagine him developing in
luxuriant Italy as he did in Spain. His nature needed a sombre and
magnificent background; this city gave it to him; for no artist can
entirely isolate himself from life, can work in _vacuo_. And El
Greco's shivering, spiritual art could have been born on no other soil
than Toledo. He is as original as the city.
The place shows traces of its masters--Romans, Goths, Saracens, and
Christians. It is, indeed, as much Moorish as Christian--the narrow
streets, high, narrow houses often windowless, the inner court
replacing the open squares that are to be found in Seville. Miscalled
the "Spanish Rome," Gautier's description still holds good: Toledo has
the character of a convent, a prison, a fortress with something of a
seraglio. The enormous cathedral, which dates back to Visigothic
Christianity, is, next to Seville's, the most beautiful in Spain. Such
a façade, such stained glass, such ceilings! Blanco Ibañez has written
pages about this structure. The synagogues, the Moorish mosque, the
Alcázar are picturesque. And then there are the Puente de Alcántara,
the Casa de Cervantes, the Puerta del Sol, the Prison of the
Inquisition, the Church of Santo Tomé--which holds the most precious
example of Greco's art--the Sinagogo del Transito, the Church of San
Vicente--with Grecos--Santo Domingo (more Grecos); the Convent, near
the Church of San Juan de los Reyes, contains the Museo Provincial in
which were formerly a number of Grecos; many of these have been
transferred to the new Museo El Greco, founded by the Marquis de la
Vega-Inclan, an admirer of the painter. This museum was once the home
of Greco, and has been restored, so that if the artist returned he
might find himself in familiar quarters. Pictures, furniture, carvings
of his are there, while the adjoining house is rebuilt in a harmonious
style of old material. Remain various antique patios or court-like
interiors, the sword manufactory, and the general view from the top of
the town. El Greco's romantic portrayment of his adopted city is as
true now as the day it was painted--one catches a glimpse of the scene
when the contrasts of light and shadow are strong. During a
thunderstorm illuminated by blazing shafts of Peninsular lightning
Toledo resembles a page torn from the Apocalypse.
The cathedral is the usual objective; instead, we first went to the
church of Santo Tomé. It is a small Gothic structure, rebuilt from a
mosque by Count Orgáz. In commemoration of this gift a large canvas,
entitled El Entierro, depicting the funeral of Orgáz, by El Greco, has
made Santo Tomé more celebrated than the cathedral. It is an amazing,
a thrilling work, nevertheless, on a scale that prevents it from
giving completely the quintessence of El Greco. No doubt he was a
pupil of Titian; Gautier but repeated current gossip when he said that
the Greek went mad in his attempt to emulate his master. But
Tintoretto's influence counts heavier in this picture than Titian's, a
picture assigned by Cossió midway between Greco's first and second
period. Decorative as is the general scheme, the emotional intensity
aroused by the row of portraits in the second _plan_, the touching
expression of the two saints, Augustine and Stephen, as they gently
bear the corpse of the Count, the murky light of the torches in the
background, while overhead the saintly hierarchy terminating in a
white radiance, Christ the Comforter, His mother at His right hand,
quiring hosts at His left--all these figures make an ensemble that at
first glance benumbs the critical faculty. You recall the solemn and
spasmodic music of Michael Angelo (of whom El Greco is reported to
have irreverently declared that he couldn't paint); then as your
perspective slowly shapes itself you note that Tintoretto, plus a
certain personal accent of morbid magnificence, is the artistic
progenitor of this art, an art which otherwise furiously boils over
with Spanish characteristics.
Nothing could be more vivid and various than the twenty-odd heads near
the bottom of the picture. Expression, character, race are not pushed
beyond normal limits. The Spaniard, truly noble here, is seen at a
half-dozen periods of life. El Greco himself is said to be in the
group; the portrait certainly tallies with a reputed one of his. The
sumptuousness of the ecclesiastical vestments, court costumes, ruffs,
and eloquent hands, the grays, whites, golds, blues, blacks, chord
rolling upon chord of subtle tonalities, the supreme illumination of
the scene, with its suggestion of a moment swiftly trapped forever in
eternity, hook this masterpiece firmly to your memory. It is not one
of the greatest pictures in the pantheon of art, not Rembrandt,
Velasquez, Hals, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, or Rubens; yet it
stands close to them all because of its massed effect of light, life,
and emotional situation. We confess to liking it better than the
Gloria at the Escorial Palace. This glorification of a dream of Philip
II does not pluck electrically at your heart-strings as does the
Burial of Count Orgáz, though the two canvases are similar in
architectonic.
The Expolio is in the cathedral; it belongs to the first period,
before El Greco had shaken off Italian influences. The colouring is
rather cold. The St. Maurice in the chapter hall of the Escorial is a
long step toward a new method of expression. (A replica is in
Bucharest.) The Ascension altar piece, formerly in Santo Domingo, now
hangs in the Art Institute, Chicago. At Toledo there are about eighty
pieces of the master, not including his sculpture, retablos; like
Tintoretto, he was accustomed to make little models in clay or wax for
the figures in his pictures. His last manner is best exemplified in
the Divine Love and Profane Love, belonging to Señor Zuloaga, in The
Adoration of the Shepherds, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the
Assumption at the Church of St. Vicente, Toledo. His chalky whites,
poisonous greens, violet shadows, discordant passages of lighting are,
as Arthur Symons puts it: Sharp and dim, gray and green, the colour of
Toledo. Greco composed his palette with white vermilion, lake, yellow
ochre, ivory black. Señor Beruete says that "he generally laid on an
impasto for his flesh, put on in little touches, and then added a few
definite strokes with the brush which, though accentuated, are very
delicate... The gradations of the values is in itself instructive."
His human forms became more elongated as he aged; this applies only to
his males; his women are of sweetness compounded and graceful in
contour. Some a mere arabesque, or living flames; some sinister and
fantastic; from the sublime to the silly is with Greco not a wide
stride. But in all his surging, writhing sea of wraiths, saints,
kings, damned souls and blest, a cerebral grip is manifest. He knew a
hawk from a handsaw despite his temperament of a mystic. "He who
carries his own most intimate emotions to their highest point becomes
the first in a file of a long series of men"; but, adds Mr. Ellis: "To
be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men." El Greco, like
Charles Baudelaire, cultivated his hysteria. He developed his
individuality to the border line across which looms madness. The
transmogrification of his temperament after living in Toledo was
profound. Born Greek, in art a Venetian, the atmosphere of the
Castilian plain changed the colour of his soul. In him there was
material enough for both a Savonarola or a Torquemada--his piety was
at once iconoclastic and fanatical. And his restlessness, his
ceaseless experiments, his absolute discoveries of new tonalities, his
sense of mystic grandeur--why here you have, if you will, a Berlioz of
paint, a man of cold ardours, hot ecstasies, visions apocalyptic, with
a brain like a gloomy cathedral in which the _Tuba Mirum_ is
sonorously chanted. But Greco is on the side of the angels; Berlioz,
like Goya, too often joined in the infernal antiphonies of Satan
_Mekatrig_. And Greco is as dramatic as either.
Beruete admits that his idol, Velasquez, was affected by the study of
El Greco's colouring. Canaille Saint-Saëns, when Liszt and Rubinstein
were compared, exclaimed: "Two great artists who have nothing in
common except their superiority." It is bootless to bracket Velasquez
with his elder. And Gautier was off the track when he spoke of Greco's
resemblance to the bizarre romances of Mrs. Radcliffe; bizarre Greco
was, but not trivial nor a charlatan. As to his decadent tendencies we
side with the opinion of Mr. Frank Jewett Mather, Jr.: "Certain
pedants have written as if the world would be better without its
disorderly geniuses. There could, I think, be no sorer error. We need
the unbalanced talents, the _poètes damnés_ of every craft. They strew
the passions that enrich a lordlier art than their own. They fight
valiantly, a little at the expense of their fame, against the only
unpardonable sins, stupidity and indifference. Greco should always be
an honoured name in this ill-destined company."
In the Prado Museum there is a goodly collection. The Annunciation,
The Holy Family, Jesus Christ Dead, The Baptism of Christ, The
Resurrection, The Crucifixion--a tremendous conception; and The Coming
of the Holy Ghost; this latter, with its tongues of fire, its
flickering torches, its ecstatic apostles and Mary, her face flooded
by a supernal illumination, mightily stirs the æsthetic pulse. The
Prado has two dozen specimens, though two of them at least--a poor
replica of the Orgáz burial, and another--are known to be by El
Greco's son, Jorge Manuel Theotocopuli; of the numerous portraits and
other pictures dispersed by time and chance to the four quarters of
the globe, we have written earlier in this volume, when dealing with
the definitive work on this Greek by Señor Manuel B. Cossio. El Greco,
through sheer intensity of temperament and fierce sincerity, could
pluck out from men who had become, because of their apathy and
grotesque pride, mere vegetable growths, their very souls afire; or if
stained by crimes, these souls, he shot them up to God like green
meteors. To be sure they have eyes drunk with dreams, the pointed
skull of the mystic, and betray a plentiful lack of chin and often an
atrabilious nature. When old his saints resemble him, when young he
must have looked like his saints, Sebastian and Martin. With his
ardent faith he could have confuted the Gnostic or the Manichean
heresies in colourful allegory, but instead he sang fervid hosannahs
on his canvases to the greater glory of Christ and His saints. Perhaps
if he had lived in our times he might have painted heads of
fashionable courtesans or equivocal statesmen. But whether primitive
or modern, realist or symbolist, he would always have been a painter
of dramatic genius. He is the unicorn among artists.
VELASQUEZ IN THE PRADO