Estéban March, a distinguished Spanish painter of the 17th century, was
eccentric in character and violent in temperament. Battles being his
favorite subjects, his studio was hung round with pikes, cutlasses,
javelins, and other implements of war, which he used in a very peculiar
and boisterous manner. As the mild and saintly Joanes was wont to
prepare himself for his daily task by prayer and fasting, so his riotous
countryman used to excite his imagination to the proper creative pitch
by beating a drum, or blowing a trumpet, and then valiantly assaulting
the walls of his chamber with sword and buckler, laying about him, like
another Don Quixote, with a blind energy that told severely on the
plaster and furniture, and drove his terrified scholars or assistants to
seek safety in flight. Having thus lashed himself into sufficient
frenzy, he performed miracles, according to Palomino, in the field of
battle-pieces, throwing off many bold and spirited pictures of Pharaoh
and his host struggling in the angry waters, or mailed Christians
quelling the turbaned armies of the Crescent. Few will withhold from him
the praise of Bermudez, for brilliancy of coloring, and for the skill
with which the dust, smoke, and dense atmosphere of the combat are
depicted.