Spanish Painting

by A. de Beruete y Moret

The years which followed those of Goya, the remainder of the nineteenth century, those years of easy communication, of rapid transit, of frequent travelling, of international study and residence abroad, so much more advanced in some respects, were less rich for Spanish painting. Spanish artists, absent from their country, engaged in many departments of work and instruction, lost something of their former qualities. At the present time, in which there seems to have been born into the world a new assertion and exaltation of nationality, Spaniards have regained their ancient spirit, and while aspiring to absolute modernity, remain faithful to a tradition which is peculiarly their own, which makes for national individuality, and has caused them to be regarded with that interest which always accrues to the original, the characteristic, the intelligent, and consequently arouses attention and anticipation.

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England has ever followed the progress of Spanish art with enthusiasm and interest. During the nineteenth century, the majority of the works of art which left Spain found a resting place in England. In London within recent years three exhibitions of Spanish painting ante-dated that of 1920—one in the New Gallery (1891), another in the Guildhall (1901), and the last in the Grafton Gallery (1913). All of them were rich in results, more especially the third, which was remarkable for its modern section. The difference in character between the exhibition of 1913 and that of the Royal Academy in 1920 consists more especially in the display of works belonging to English collections, the latter being composed for the most part of examples sent from Spain as an act of homage to the English people, and to assure them once more of the existence of a spiritual bond or tie between the two countries, which with the passage of time aspire to a more intimate relationship.

It was at first the intention of the organisers of the exhibition of 1920 not to send as representative of the older art any except the works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and a few pictures by Goya, as examples of the golden age of Spanish painting, and especially in view of the exceptional interest in Goya. But it was ultimately decided to furnish an exhibit completely representative of all epochs. At the same time the Spanish Committee recognised that the section devoted to Primitive Art—in which among the many artists represented the most remarkable was Ribera—was lacking in distinction. This it regretted and felt a pleasure in its ability to compensate for the omission by providing a full representation of the greater Spanish painters, and in being able to lend ten Grecos and twenty-one Goyas, preserved in Spain, to Burlington House, a thing until now impossible of accomplishment and which it will not be easy to repeat.

The works of the primitive period placed on view, though all of peculiar interest, and several of striking character, were still inadequate to give a just idea of the development of early art in the Iberian Peninsula. The first essays of Spanish art were indeed lacking in national characteristics. At a time when Italy and Flanders produced painters of distinctive note, Spain, and perhaps the whole Peninsula—for in this connection we must not forget Portugal—filled its churches, monasteries and convents with panels and altarpieces. With the exception of the names of several artists now identified, all of its productions are of doubtful paternity, its style is borrowed and in general is distinguished only by the possession of regional characteristics of a minor kind. Therefore the paintings on panel that it produced are to-day referred to, in order to distinguish them one from another, as belonging to the Castilian, Portuguese, Catalan, Aragonese or Valencian Schools. For this there is an historical reason. The Peninsula, at the time in which its early art was produced, was divided into different kingdoms and states, each absolutely independent and having its own history and traditions. Thus the kingdom of Aragon, with Valencia, was intimately connected with the Mediterranean, and came within the sphere of Italian influence. Castile was more closely related to the states of Flanders and the Rhine, admitting and developing Flemish and German tendencies. Catalonia possessed an art very similar to that of Provence. But I believe that all this work, chaotic, lacking in national expression, and in determinative characteristics, presents a difficult problem for its investigators. Add to this that these panels and altarpieces were often the joint work of several artists, one painting costumes, others specialising in heads and hands, others in drapery, still others in backgrounds, so that the whole resulted frequently in a composition confused and equivocal. All that can be said with any degree of certainty is that the production of this time was large, rich and of great merit, so far as that can be attained by a race of colourists who were lacking in discipline and insight.

This manifestation of pictorial art did not obtrude itself in any decided manner until the fourteenth century. To discover its origin we may have to compare it with the miniatures in the manuscripts of San Isidor, or the archaic mural decorations traceable by Byzantine art, and it would seem to possess a greater archæological than artistic interest.

Spanish art during the last years of the thirteenth century and until two centuries later is so incomplete in its details, presents so many diverse aspects, and the circumstances of its rise and tendency are so vague, that to venture any general opinions regarding it would be unwise. Its study has recently been confined to short monographs by various critics and scholars, both Spanish and foreign, which do not go beyond the discussion of specific works and artists, and the particular investigation of obscure titles and documents exhumed from the archives.

The arrival of Starnina and the Florentine Dello at the Court of Juan I of Castile in the second half of the fourteenth century, appears to have given a very great impetus to that style to which the Spanish painters were growing accustomed. But this Italianism notwithstanding, Flemish influences penetrated, if more lately, still more rapidly into Spain. The early Spaniards pursued and sought a realism in art which they were unable to find in that of Italy, hence their predilection for the style and manner of the Flemish and German painters and those of other countries whom they came to call painters of the North. The appearance of Van Eyck in the Peninsula in 1428, and that of other Flemish painters who arrived there about that time, aroused a true enthusiasm and imparted to Spanish art a tendency to copy faithfully from nature which henceforth came to be one of the characteristics which have never left it. Among these painters of the North it is strange to find, a little before the middle of the fifteenth century, an artist called Jorge Inglés (George the Englishman), so named, without doubt, from his origin, who did some important work, especially in the hospital of Buitrago, the study of which we heartily commend to the English public and critics. We should like to have sent this work to the exhibition of the Royal Academy, but its enormous dimensions, as well as other circumstances, rendered this impracticable.

During this epoch, the composition of Spanish works begins to show the use of colours prepared with oil, thus permitting the development of a technique more in conformity with the Spanish temperament. Consequently the new medium appears in the works of many masters, among the first of these recorded being La Virgen de los Consellers, painted and signed by Luis Dalmau in 1445.

Andalusia, a region which has come in more recent times to be regarded as the cradle of Spanish artists, produced at this time not a few painters. The work, Saint Michael, of the master Bartolomé de Cárdenas, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy, pertains to this rich and flourishing period, which gave an impetus to the forces then impelling all Spanish life toward the national union which came to pass in the reign of the Catholic kings. Two new centres of activity arose at this epoch, which greatly fostered the rise of Spanish civilisation and favoured the development of pictorial art—two cities glorious and historical in Spain—Toledo and Salamanca.