Casimiro Saiz, Muñoz Degrain—whom we have mentioned already as a painter of the figure—Urgell, Gomar and others devoted themselves to landscape; but the most salient examples of Spanish landscape painting are to be found in the work of three artists who developed with the rapid evolution of their time—Beruete, Regoyos and Rusiñol. Of these three sincere and individual painters, Beruete, in his youth a disciple of Haes, and later of Rico, evinced a very decided modern tendency. He devoted the years of his maturity to the making of a large number of pictures of Spanish cities, especially of Castile, paintings truthful and sincere in character, and revealing a very personal outlook. Regoyos was influenced by impressionism, to which he was strongly attracted, and in the North of Spain he inspired many by his numerous works. Rusiñol is, perhaps, more a poet than a painter. He still lives and works. He used to find in the gloomy and deserted gardens of Spain subjects for his pictures. One of the most remarkable figures in Catalonia to-day, both as a litterateur and painter, he has also sought inspiration in the scenes and countryside of this, his native province.
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Spanish painting was completely modernized during the last years of the nineteenth century. Three great international events took place during that period—the three exhibitions in Paris of the years 1878, 1889 and 1900. At these Spanish painting was fully represented. At the first was shown a varied collection of the works of Fortuny—one of the most famous artists of his time—who had died shortly before. In the second we experienced a rebuff, for a number of historical paintings of enormous proportions, full of the inspiration of the past, were not admitted, nor, indeed, were some of these worthy to hang in the exhibition. But in the years between 1889 and 1900 the development of Spanish painting was most marked, and in the last of the exhibitions alluded to the Spanish salons revealed a high level of excellence and a significant modernity. Moreover, there emerged the personality of a young painter, hitherto unknown, who by unanimous consent was regarded as well-nigh qualifying for the highest honours. This was a man whose name shortly afterwards became famous throughout the world—Joaquín Sorolla, one of those personalities who from time to time arise in Spain quite unexpectedly.
Sorolla, who was of humble origin, was born in Valencia, and in his youth was naturally influenced by the paintings of the old masters in his native city. He went to Madrid, later to Italy, and finally to Paris, where his work of a wholly realistic character was admired, for actuality was to this painter as the breath of life. A French advocate of naturalism has said “one rule alone guides the art of painting, the law of values, the manner in which the light plays upon an object, in which the light distributes colour over it; the light, and only the light is that which fixes the position of each object; it is the life of every scene reproduced in painting.” This statement Sorolla seems to have taken greatly to heart, even while he was still under the influence of old traditions and standards of thought.
Possessing a temperament of much forcefulness, and of great productive exuberance, enthusiastic about the scenery of the Mediterranean, and especially enamoured of the richness of colour of his native soil, the ruddy earth planted with orange-trees, the blue sea and the dazzling sky, Sorolla, oblivious of what he had done before, felt a powerful impulse to paint that which was rich in colour, so greatly was he moved by the eastern spirit. The coasts of Valencia, the lives of the fishermen, those children of the sea, the bullocks drawing the boats, the scenes beneath the cliffs and other analogous subjects, painted in full sunlight—the sunlight of July and August for preference—these are the subjects on which Sorolla laboured for several years, producing canvas after canvas, now famous both in Europe and America.
We do not say that this outlook is ideal, but the study of light and atmosphere was a contribution to the history of modern art, and was among the elements which will be handed down to posterity as the original note of the painters of the last years of the nineteenth century. Of these Sorolla was one of the most forceful, and we lay stress upon his work, as in our judgment its importance demands especial notice. We have not alluded to his great talent as a portrait painter, nor to the decorative works which he has dedicated to the Hispanic Society of America in New York, and which, although they are completed, are not yet installed in place. Some few years after the appearance of Sorolla, there arose almost simultaneously two Spanish painters of other tendencies, equally noteworthy, and whose names are universally known—Zuloaga and Anglada. Zuloaga must be regarded in a very different manner from Sorolla. In no sense does he go to nature merely to copy it in the manner in which it presents itself to our vision, but he seeks, both in nature and humanity, for types, for characteristic figures of a representative and realistic kind. His work has developed with robustness and force, and attracts the attention of the modern critic eager for characteristic and singular qualities. To his reception in the universal world of art it is not necessary to allude here. The reviews and periodicals of all countries have commented with praise upon the achievements of this master, who is still busily at work, constantly engaged in the representation of popular types in the characteristic costume of many regions, especially his own people, the Basques, and the Castilians, for whom he appears to have a special predilection.
Those landscapes which he takes for the backgrounds of his pictures also seem to be inspired by that love of character which animates all his productions. In his latest phase, too, he has executed numerous portraits of people of different social categories. In technique it is noticeable that Zuloaga strives to preserve those tonalities which characterize the Spanish School; and the study he has made of the works of Velázquez and Goya is manifested in the lively reminiscences of these masterpieces displayed at times in his pictures, which exhibit, nevertheless, a relative modernity.
Anglada is, in our view, completely distinct from Sorolla and Zuloaga. Enamoured of the charm of colour, his work has no connection with schools or traditions. Aloof from every influence, he aspires to nothing so much as rich colour-schemes and harmonies, and seeks inspiration in night-bound gardens, brightly illuminated, in subjects which reflect electric light, and in figures which appear all the more distinct as the background is often the sea beneath the radiance of the Mediterranean light. These unusual sources of inspiration appear strange at first sight; but it is noticeable that they manifest on the part of the painter always the same idea of seeking for rich colouring. We must regard Anglada as one of the most remarkable and most original of modern painters. It is a great pity that he was not represented at Burlington House. His absence, like that of Sert, the great decorative painter, Beltran, Miguel Nieto and others, was accounted for by the fact that the pictures were received too late to be included in the Exhibition.
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The salons set apart for modern painting at the London Exhibition seem to us to have been disposed and arranged with care. There were shown in the first of these rooms works by Sorolla, his disciple Benedito, one of the most esteemed portrait painters in Madrid, Zaragoza, Moisés, Carlos Vázquez, and some landscapes by Rusiñol. The second room was in complete harmony with the first, and in it we observed the works of artists, some of whom are still young, but nevertheless masters of strong propensity and perfect equilibrium; the great composition by Gonzalo Bilbao, The Cigar-makers ([Plate XXXVII.]); the striking portraits of Chicharro and Sotomayor; the unmistakably Spanish canvases of Mezquita and Rodriguez Acosta; and the picturesque and suggestive note of the Valencian figures by Pinazo Martinez.