Spanish Painting

by A. de Beruete y Moret

In alluding to the Sevillean school, we must mention a contemporary of Murillo, though somewhat his junior, of singular talent. His name is little known outside of Spain, and this is doubtless the reason why so few of his pictures have left the country. We believe it a mistake to allude to him, as is sometimes done, as one of those Spanish painters whose work is no longer of interest, such is his expression, his distinctive note, his creative boldness and individuality. We refer to Valdes Leal. His harsh outlook, his frequent inaccuracies, his thought, profound and almost always obscure, and above all, his subjects, at times macabre and bizarre, at times graceful, provide reasons for his unpopularity, no less than the still scanty knowledge we possess regarding this singular man, the circumstances of whose work and life are presented to us almost in a legendary manner, as in the case of his friend and patron, Don Juán de Mañara, who has been incarnated in the popular imagination as the Don Juán of tradition.

In Granada, Alonso Cano, as great a sculptor as painter, maintained, with other artists of lesser note and standing, a flourishing school which had links with that of Seville.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We turn again to Madrid, to the Court where Velázquez, as we have indicated, stamped such character on painting and informed it with such excellence that artists flocked from all parts of the Peninsula to the capital. This resulted in the flourishing period of art—ending with the seventeenth century—fruitful and various, which is associated with the School of Madrid. It is not precisely the school of Velázquez, although equivocally so called. Velázquez had disciples who followed him, imitating and copying him, as his servant Pareja, the mulatto, did. But this notwithstanding, other painters of talent worked during these years in the capital, helping to form the school, even if they did not follow him in any decided manner. Nevertheless, he is its greatest figure, for he it was who gained the title of a school for the work of his contemporaries, and for the generation which followed him. The impulse which he gave by his technique and the composition of his palette, simple and sober, are characteristic of all this period. His son-in-law, Mazo, followed him blindly, and, working in his studio, was constantly impressed by the productions of his master, making use of the same methods—the same canvas, colours, brushes, and, giving rein to an extraordinarily imitative talent, he tried to make, and occasionally produced, actual facsimiles of his master’s works. The study of this curious problem of painting, of the distinctive note, the inclination of the time, as shown in the art of father-in-law and son-in-law, has been the subject of several works from our pen. We have not insisted on the point in these, nor have we space to do so in this brief synthesis; but we flatter ourselves that several paintings, especially those which belong to museums, have come to be more correctly attributed to Mazo rather than to Velázquez, and that those who are interested in these problems have come to distinguish the external aspect of the work of the one from that of the other, substantial and inimitable. We must remark, however, that Mazo had, besides the mere qualities of an imitator, a talent of his own of singular excellence, that of a landscape painter, which represented a relative novelty in the art of Spain at that period.

After Velázquez the most important painter of the School of Madrid is, beyond dispute, Carreño. Though his religious canvases are numerous, Carreño was, above all, a portrait painter. The relative influence of the work of Van Dyck, which extended as far as Seville, also reached Madrid, and Carreño came under it at times and discreetly made use of it. We say discreetly, for he had lost his national qualities. He borrowed from Velázquez the basic colours of his palette, but sought to enrich them with certain warm, golden tones, and he was enamoured of russets and, above all, of carmines, generally those which approximate to the colouring of the Flemings, but which appear cloying beside the works of Van Dyck. The portraits by Carreño were represented at the exhibition by that of A Young Lady ([Plate XXII.]), belonging to the Duke of Medinaceli, which might almost be described as a black-and-white from its colouring and the evident purpose of the artist to preserve this tonality throughout the work; that of The Queen of Spain, Doña Mariana de Austria, the property of Don Ramón de la Sota, a most beautiful example, from which, without doubt, have been taken the many repetitions which are known of it besides other variants; and that of The Marchioness of Santa Cruz, which is of great importance and very characteristic. Of religious pictures it is necessary to mention The Apparition of the Virgin to Saint Bernard, sent from Bilbao by Don Antonio Plasencia.

The two brothers Rizi, Juan and Francisco, were of Italian origin; both were decorative painters and worked in the style of Carducho and Caxes. Juan, the elder, was a monk, and was one of the prototypes of the School of Madrid, following Velázquez in his work, soberly and simply. Francisco seems at times to display the qualities of his Italian origin, and though sufficiently Spanish, gave to his creations a certain quality which may have influenced the Spanish decorative painters of the time. It is a curious problem of influence. In any case this artist, who achieved fame in his time, is an interesting study to-day, and it would seem that the critic must scrutinize the beginnings of the question before he tries to explain its results. Pereda, Collantes and Leonardo are also notable, if lacking the character of their school, which clearly shows them to be among the disciples of Carreño, among whom, perhaps, the most notable were Cerezo and Cabezalero, who unfortunately died young. Cerezo seems to be the most striking figure of those years, and his brilliant colour and fine style initiated a tendency which made for the enrichment of the Spanish palette, the sobriety of which we admire in the masters, but which degenerates into a certain poverty at times in the hands of their disciples. With Cerezo we should mention Antolínez, who also died before he reached artistic maturity.

We now reach that era of painting which flourished at the Court of Spain during the remainder of the seventeenth century. A long list of names of artists could be made, all estimable and some remarkable, who exhibited the proverbial vigour and picturesque temperament of the race, which, skilfully directed, and having received a noble and traditional tendency, commenced its onward progress without faltering. We mention, however, only Claudio Coello, who seems to close this period. A disciple of Rizi, whose decorative tendency he followed, he was more an artist in a general sense than a portrait painter, and above all he produced many religious subjects. By his work The Sacred Form, which is kept in the Escurial, he seems to be sealed to the School of Madrid. This picture is obviously a result of the atmosphere and the taste of the period in its fidelity to character and its happy solution of problems of perspective and effects of light.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For Spain the eighteenth century was a period of misfortune. The reasons for this are simple and evident. Grace and good taste—in the best sense of the term—lightness, came to be the characteristics of this century, and these qualities were displayed in a perfect manner in French art. And it was precisely these attributes which Spanish artists most lacked, and still lack. They are robust, strong and sincere, but without gracefulness, facility of expression or volatility. A propos of this, it must be recalled that Spanish artistic expression appears to have been more or less influenced in its development by foreign tendencies which were allowed to work freely and with absolute spontaneity. The eighteenth century was a period in which the most powerful external influences, especially the French, the least adaptable to the Spanish temperament, had full play. These external influences were wholly ordained by the rule of the House of Bourbon, and incarnated in the first of its monarchs, Philip V, nephew of Louis XIV, who, doubtless meaning well, seemed to think it possible to transplant Versailles, with its marvellous spirit and exquisite culture, to the Castilian cities, which were still dominated by the sobriety and asceticism of the mystics of past centuries.

As regards painting, these influences commenced with the arrival at the Court of Lucas Jordán, who represented the influence of the great Italian decorative artists. Afterwards came Tiépolo, who left many marvellous works, quite inimitable by Spanish artists. The Bourbons introduced Van Loo, Ranc, Houasse and other French representatives of the art of the time; and lastly came Mengs, bringing with him a spirit wholly distinct from that of the French, a style erudite and academic which was not sufficiently powerful to create an artistic output of any importance in Spain, but which possessed much destructive power, although that was limited as regards time to about a century, during which period the national production was weak, despite the number of artists, of whom those most worthy to be mentioned are Maella, the Bayeus and Paret.