The Portuguese section does not present any great painter such as Spain,
for instance, has produced in Sorolla or Zuloaga, though both seem to be
very much admired by all Latin painters, as well as by some of the
Germanic artists, as a certain canvas of a Dutch lady in the Holland
section will demonstrate.
Nudes are still in vogue, or rather naked women, and probably will be as
long as the sale of strong drink needs to be increased by the kind of
creation commonly known as the saloon picture. There is surely nothing
nobler than the truly idealized interpretation of the human figure by
artistic means, but the purposely sensuous nude is becoming rather a
bore. Painting flesh is one of the most difficult of all things,
particularly as to the correct texture, but there ought to be a limit in
the production of such a type of picture as the one by Veloso Salgado in
the Portuguese section.
Here a great variety of subjects is treated, mostly with entirely too
much realism. Photographic truthfulness is not the function of painting,
because, first of all, the medium will not allow it without losing a
certain quality indicating the fact that it is painting; and secondly,
art can only be an approximation anyhow, and it should carry its point
by forceful and convincing suggestion rather than by a tightly rendered
photographic fact. The great pictures are first those of a strong
suggestive quality and, secondly, those possessing a certain something
the artist calls design - meaning thereby a more or less arbitrary
arrangement of form and colour effects which will please the eye. The
idea of design has not struck the Portuguese artist as yet; at least it
is not apparent in the pictures of that section. The technical
excellence of their work is uniform and in some cases very creditable,
particularly in the many small canvases by Senhor de Sousa Lopes, the
art commissioner of his country.
Continuing in the western gallery of the Portuguese section, directly
opposite the nude referred to, an outdoor sewing circle by José Malhoa
arouses interest. The outdoor quality in this canvas is very pronounced,
and the gay enlacement of the luxuriant wistaria with the orange trees
in the distance, together with the multi-coloured ensemble of children,
make for a lovely effect. The middle gallery doubtless holds Portugal's
most important claims upon artistic distinction, in the group of three
portraits and two still-lifes by Columbano. The three portraits are
unusually dignified and psychologically suggestive enough to show that
the painter was not interested in exterior facts alone. The portrait of
the bearded gentleman in the middle is fine, though somewhat academic in
colour. The two little still-lifes wedged in between the larger
portraits are exquisite in every way, and make up for a lot of
superficialities found in this section. All around in this gallery, in
more than a dozen sketches from Spain and Italy, Sousa Lopes shows fine
ability in the handling of paint and great power of observation. All of
these apparently recent things by Senhor Lopes are far more enjoyable
than a huge "Pilgrimage", which, while well painted, is too scattered.
The unity of feeling in the work of Columbano is much more necessary in
a canvas of this size than in a small sketch. (Rembrandt's famous
"Nightwatch" and Velasquez's "Surrender of Breda" illustrate this point
very well.) Malhoa's well-painted interior called "The Native Song" has
more of this desirable feeling of oneness, which may be due to the fact
that it deals with an indoor setting, while de Sousa Lopes' "Pilgrimage"
in the adjoining gallery presents a far more difficult problem in the
reflected and glaring light effect of a southern country. Among the
sculptures of this country Vaz Jor's "Grandmother" is of unusually high
merit and intensely well studied. On the whole there is more academic
training in evidence than originality of expression, but we may expect
good things hereafter from the art of this country, which practically at
no time in the history of art has produced any really great name.