The pictures representing Goya at Burlington House were composed of some twenty works. Among those which belonged to his first period were the portraits of the Marchioness of Lazan, the Duchess of Alba, lent by the Duke of Alba, “La Tirana,” from the Academy of St. Fernando, the Countess of Haro, belonging to the Duchess of San Carlos, four of the smaller paintings of rural scenes, the property of the Duke of Montellano, and An Amorous Parley (“Coloquio Galante”), the property of the Marquis de la Romana, the prototype of the Spanish feeling for gallantry in the eighteenth century. As representative of the second phase, of that which holds a note intense and pessimistic, may be taken A Pest House, lent by the Marquis de la Romana, and those truly dramatic scenes, the property of the Marquis of Villagonzalo.
Of portraits of the artist by himself two were exhibited, one small in size painted in his youth ([Plate XXVI.]), in which the full figure is shown, and the other a head, done in 1815, which gives us a good idea of the expression and temperament of this extraordinary man.
The influence of the art of Goya was not immediate. A contemporary of his is to be remembered in Esteve, who assisted him and copied from him. Later, an artist of considerable talent, Leonardo Alenza, who died very young and had no time to develop his art, was happily inspired by him. With regard to Lucas, a well-known painter whose production was very large, and who flourished many years later, and is now known to have followed Goya, he can scarcely be considered as one of his continuators, but rather as an imitator—by no means the same thing. For he imitated Goya, as, on other occasions, he imitated Velázquez and other artists. Lucas is much more praiseworthy when he follows his own instincts and does original work. His picture The Auto de Fé, the property of M. Labat, which was shown at the London exhibition in the room dedicated to artists of the nineteenth century, is one of the best that we know of from his brush.
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If the eighteenth century was for Spanish painting an epoch of external influences, the nineteenth century, especially its second half, must be characterized as one which sought for foreign direction. During this period the greater number of painters of talent sought for inspiration from foreign masters. This was a grave mistake, not because in Spain there were artists of much ability or even good instructors, but because this exodus of Spanish painters was a sign that they had lost faith and confidence in themselves and were strangers to that native force which in the end triumphs in painting as in everything else. First Paris, then Rome, the two most important centres of the art of this period, were undoubtedly centres of a lamentable distortion of Spanish art.
The organizing committee did not wish the London exhibition to be lacking in examples of this period of prolific production, to which they dedicated a room in which were shown examples of the painters of the nineteenth century. We mention some of the many artists of talent of the Spain of those days, and indicate their individual characteristics; but we are unable to allude to their general outlook and the characterization of their schools, which we do not think existed among them to any great extent.
The most famous painter who succeeded Goya was Vincente López, better known for his portraits than for his other canvases, a skilful artist with a perfect knowledge of technique, conscientious, fecund, minute in detail, who has left us the reflection of a whole generation.
Classicism arrived in Spain with all the lustre of the triumphs of Louis David, under whose direction José de Madrazo placed himself, the first of those artists of this type to maintain a position of dignity throughout three artistic generations. He held an important place among contemporary painters at a difficult time during which, in consequence of the political disorder which reigned, the commissions usually given by the churches and religious communities ceased, private persons acquired few paintings, and the academies decreased in the number of their students. It was a time in which art offered but little wherewithal to its votaries.
But this period of paralysis was of short duration. The pictorial temperament, which inalienably belongs to Spain, and the appearance of romanticism, with a tendency conformable to the spirit of Spain, and which had for a long time given a brilliant impulse to her men of letters, revived painting, which forgot its period of exhaustion. The frigid classicism, ill-suited to the national genius, now passed away. José de Madrazo was succeeded in prestige and surpassed in ability by his son Federico de Madrazo. By his portraits he has bequeathed to us faithful renderings of all the personages of his day, which compete with those of the greater foreign portrait painters among his contemporaries.
Studying at first under classical influences, but regarded as romantics in their later development, were remarkable portrait painters like Esquivel and Gutiérrez de la Vega, and a landscape painter of especial interest, Pérez Villamil, who may in a manner be compared to the great English landscape painter Turner, though he had no opportunities for coming in contact with him or any knowledge of his work. Both men, each in his own environment, breathed the same atmosphere; and, although reared in lands remote from one another, thought in a like manner because they both reflected the period in which they lived. Becquer and others adequately maintained the descriptive note which now entered into the making of popular subjects.