stretched on the beach, their bright bodies wet and glistening and
casting blue shadows on the sands. They are lying so close to the
water's edge that the waves lap over them, the boy's skin shines like
polished marble under the wet film just passing across it, and the
girl's drenched garments cling with sharp chiseled folds to the form
beneath like the draperies of some young Greek goddess just risen from
the sea. The insolence of laughing eyes, the idle fumbling of young
hands in the wet sand, the tingling life in the clean-cut limbs, the
buoyancy of the waves that lift them slightly and hold them above the
earth,--all are seen with unwearied eyes, and reproduced with energy.
The management of the pigment in this picture as in many of the others
can be called neither learned nor subtle. Apparently the artist had in
mind two intentions, the one to represent motion, the other to represent
light, and he set about his task in the simplest way possible, with such
simplicity, indeed, that the extraordinary character of the result would
easily be missed by a pedant. It has not been missed by the public, who
have entered with enthusiasm into the painter's mood, perceived the
originality of his vision and the joyousness of his art, and have
radiated their own appreciation of this vitalized, healthful world of
happy people until they have increased the distrust of the pedant for an
art so helplessly popular.
[Illustration: In the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
THE BATH--JAVEA
_From a painting by Sorolla_]
The distrust is not unnatural. To follow the popular taste would lead us
into strange errors in our judgments of art, and only rarely would
produce a predilection capable of lasting over a generation. How is it,
then, that we fearlessly may range ourselves on the side of the public
in admiration of Sorolla's art? Because the painter has cast off the
slavery of the conventional vision. He sees for himself, the rarest of
gifts, and thus can well afford to paint like others. He spends,
apparently, but little thought upon his execution, letting it flow
easily according to his instinct for the appropriate. It is not a safe
example to follow for painters who do not see with unusual directness.
Often in searching out refinements of execution the eye discovers
refinements of fact in the scene to be portrayed and makes its selection
with greater distinction than would be possible at first sight. But
Sorolla's prompt selective vision flies to its goal like a bee to a
honey-bearing flower. He takes what he wants and leaves the rest with
the dew still on it. His forces are neither scattered nor spent. His
freshness is overmastering, and with our eyes on his creations we have
that curious sense of possessing youth and health and freedom which we
get sometimes from the sight of boys at their games. We are cheated into
forgetfulness of the world's great age and our own lassitudes and
physical ineffectiveness. This illusion is agreeable to the most of us,
hence our unreserved liking for Sorolla's art which produces it.
The art of Ignacio Zuloaga, on the contrary, produces the opposite
impression of complete sophistication. In place of adolescent
exultations and ebullient physical activities, we find in it the strange
sorceries of a guileful civilization. There are smiling women with
narrowed eyelids and powdered faces, old men practising dolorous
rejuvenations, laughter that conceals more than it expresses, motions
that are as calculated as those of the dance, serpentine forms, fervid
passions, and underneath the sophistries a violent primeval temper. In
spite of the flowerlike gaiety of the color in rich costumes, the glint
of silver, the sweet cool blues, the pale violets, in the painter's
versions of the typical toreador of Spain the types are bold, cruel, and
sullen. In spite of the fragility and elegance of the women on balconies
under soft laces the prevailing note is that of undisciplined ferocity
of emotion. This too is Spain, but not the Spain of the beach and sea
life.
The rather numerous examples of what Mr. Christian Brinton has called
Zuloaga's "growing diabolic tendency" make it clear that his art holds
no place for spontaneity and the innocence due to ignorance, but where
he keeps to Spanish subjects his work remains healthy. There is the
picture entitled "The Sorceresses of San Milan" in which three old
women are seen against a dramatic landscape. These haggard jests of
nature bring before us a Spain from which the American finds it
impossible not to shrink with horror, but they are rich in dramatic
quality and recall the power of Goya to endow the abnormal with
imaginative splendor while holding to essential truth. They are
diabolic, if you will, but not Mephistophelian. There is the abstract
horror in them which we associate with unknown powers of darkness, but
not the guile with which we endow a personal devil. In striking contrast
to this group are the balcony pictures in which women of ripe aggressive
beauty lounge gracefully in the open-air rooms with the same freedom of
pose as within doors, haughty yet frank, opulent, languid yet animated,
flowers that could have bloomed nowhere else than under a scorching sun.
[Illustration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America.
THE SORCERESSES OF SAN MILAN
_From a painting by Zuloaga_]
Then there is the group of dancers and actors and singers in each of
which we find the adroit mingling of the artificial with the real, and
the appreciation of the fact that with the people of the stage much that
is artificial to others becomes their reality. The most vivid of them
all is Mlle. Lucienne Breval as "Carmen." The sinuous figure is wrapped
in a shawl apparently of a thousand colors; actually, a strong
combination of yellow, green, and red. The skirt which the singer
gathers in one hand and lifts sufficiently to show the small foot in its
red slipper has a dark vermilion ground on which is a pattern of large
flowers of paler vermilion, boldly outlined with blue.
Over it droops the dark fringe of the shawl. A crimson flower is in the
dark hair, and the footlights cast an artificial amber glow on the face.
This tawny harmony is seen against a background of slightly acid green;
at the other side of the canvas is a little table with two men seated at
it. They look "made up," in the theatrical sense, and the table looks
rather light and rickety; there is one solid natural stage property, the
yellow jug on the table with its dull blue figure. The whole life and
reality of the picture are in the Carmen smiling and muffled in the
curious shawl, as if she were about to move in a fiery dance in which
her brilliant wrappings would take a part as animated and vital as her
own. No one but a Spaniard could invest a garment with such
expressiveness.
[Illustration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America.
THE OLD BOULEVARDIER
_From a painting by Zuloaga_]
"Paulette as Danseuse" is another stage figure. Here again the costume
speaks with extraordinary eloquence. The colors are green and pink, and
play delicately within a narrow range of varied tones. Under the short
green jacket the low-cut bodice shows a finely modeled throat and a
chest that seems almost to rise and fall with the breath, so palpitating
with life is the fleshlike surface. The poise of the figure suggests
that the dance has that moment ended, and the eyes and mouth are
slightly arched. The undulating line of the draperies, now tightly
drawn about the figure, and again billowing into ampler curves, suggests
the rhythm of the dance.
In another canvas we see Paulette once more, this time in walking
costume, standing with her hands on her hips in a daintily awkward pose.
Her lips, in the first picture upturned at the corners, mouselike, have
widened in a frank smile, her eyes have lost their formal archness and
look with detached interest upon the passing show, she still is supple,
clear cut, with a flexible silhouette, but her gown would find it
impossible to dance, and, as before, she and her gown are one.
In "The Actress Pilar Soler," on the other hand, Zuloaga dispenses as
far as possible with definite aids to expression. The costume is
undefined; the half-length figure, draped in black and placed high on
the canvas, is seen against a dark greenish-blue background. The mass of
the silhouette, unbroken as in an Egyptian statue, but with tremulous
contours suggesting the fluttering of life in the dimly defined body, is
sufficiently considered and distinguished; but it is the modeling of the
face that holds the attention, a mere blur of tone, yet with all the
planes understood and with a certain material richness of impasto that
contributes to the look of solid flesh, the dark of the eyebrows making
the only pronounced accent--a face that becomes more and more vital as
you look at it, with that indestructible vitality of which, among the
Frenchmen, Carriere was master.
In several other canvases, notably in the first version of "My Cousin
Esperanza," and the second version of "Women in a Balcony," Zuloaga has
caught this effect of vague fleeting values, changes in surface so
subtle as to be felt rather than seen, a kind of floating modeling that
suggests form rather than insists upon it. And he has done this in the
most difficult manner. Whistler long ago taught us to appreciate the
effect, but he worked with thin layers of pigment, a sensitive surface
upon which the slightest accent made an impression. Zuloaga, on the
contrary, works with a full brush, and consequently a more unmanageable
surface. He attains his success as a sculptor does against the odds of
his material, but he seems better to suggest his special types in this
way.
[Illustration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America.
MERCEDES
_From a painting by Zuloaga_]
Often he makes his modeling with the sweep of his brush in one direction
and another. "Candida Laughing" shows this method, and so does the
"Village Judge," in which the pigment is still more freely swept about
the bone of the cheek and the setting of the eye, telling its story of
the way the human face is built up in the frankest and briefest manner.
With the lovely "Mercedes," a fragile figure, elegant in type, the
workmanship becomes again less outspoken. The haughty, graceful
carriage, and the intense refinement of the features that glow with
a pale light beneath the fine lace of the scarf, demand and receive a
daintier, more fastidious interpretation. In the portrait of Mrs. F., Jr.,
there is a fresher manner, a breezier, crisper feeling throughout. The
color harmony of gray and green is cool and lively, the poise of the
figure lacks the touch of languor that is present in the fieriest of the
typical Spaniards. We seem to have passed into another and cooler air.
The composition of this picture too, is especially admirable. The
subject stands, bending forward a little, the left hand resting on the
hip, the other fingering a string of pearls, a gauzy scarf is about the
shoulder and floats away from the figure at the hips, the sky is
atmospheric and there is a background of trees, river, and bridge. At
the left of the canvas an iron balustrade, bent into free, graceful
curves, comes into the composition, beautifully drawn and painted in a
just value, adding in the happiest manner to the decorative effect.
This is the class of pictures in which Zuloaga is at his best. The types
offer him adequate opportunity for exercising the faculty of astute
discrimination with which he is gifted, without calling into play the
ironic temper that broods with cold amusement over such a canvas as "The
Old Boulevardier" than which cynicism can go but little farther. It
might reasonably be argued that it is only in subjects which call forth
as many evidences as possible of the artist's temperament and character
that we can fully measure his force. The impulse, however, that turns
his gaze toward those physiognomies that offer the richest reward to the
investigating scrutiny is a part of his force, as also his choice of
subjects about which he can talk, as one of his French critics has put
it in his own language.
Transcriber's Notes:
The word esthetic left as is throughout text. Compound words left as is
throughout text. Alternative and original spelling has been maintained
including Rijksmuseum and Rijks Museum.
Spelling and punctuation, by page number:
Page
3 - _Tiger devouring a Gavial of the Ganges_ changed to Devouring.
12 - the patine of commerce[inserted . period] "The ideal
27 - fluent handling and the mystery of tone changed to mastery.
44 - In Les Maitre Contemporains, M. Paul Mongre thus changed to
Maitre.
45 - but the abounding enthusisam of the latter changed to enthusiasm.
61 - the _Gobbi_, the _Beggars_?" inserted question mark and closing
quotation mark.
74 - Years 1827 and 1828 changed to 1627 and 1628 respectively.
82 -(Staedel Gallery) in the Museum of Brussels, changed to (Staedel
Gallery), in the Museum of Brussels,
84 - those set in the Virign's changed to Virgin's.
85 - physical anguish that mark the figure changed to marks.
92 - his most temperate moods, the _Pieta_ changed to _Pieta_.
100 - 1831 changed to 1631.
132 - of the two painters, Jordaen's silvery---Jordaen's left as is,
corrected it would have been Jordaens'. Jordaens was the painter's
name.
138 - In the "_Frohliche Heimkehr_" at Amsterdam changed to Froehliche.
174 - slightest accent made an impresssion changed to impression.
174 - With the lovely "Mercedes," changed to Mercedes.
End of Project Gutenberg's Artists Past and Present, by Elisabeth Luther Cary