Southern Spain, Painted by Trevor Haddon, Described by A. F. Calvert

by Albert Frederick Calvert

There is rather less to reward your curiosity at the Palacio de las Dueñas, a vast mansion belonging to the Duke of Alba. Once it boasted eleven "patios," with nine fountains and one hundred columns of marble. A fine court, surrounded by a graceful arcade, remains. The staircase recalls that of the Casa de Pilatos. Our countryman Lord Holland stayed here a hundred years ago. He was a great admirer of Spanish literature at a time when it was hardly as much a matter of interest to foreigners as it is at present.

Then there is the Casa de Bustos Tavera, where, according to Lope de Vega, Sancho the Brave used to visit the "Star of Seville"; and the Casa Olea, in the Calle Guzman el Bueno, with a hall of Mudejar workmanship dating from the days of Don Pedro.

It is the romantic aspect of Seville that has impressed some visitors much more than its historical or archæological side. Over the poets and dramatists of the Romantic school the city exercised a strange fascination. Byron and Alfred de Musset found the atmosphere of the place most congenial. Through their rose-coloured spectacles every girl they met in these narrow white streets seemed "preternaturally pretty." The principal business of the inhabitants in the 'twenties and 'thirties of last century, to judge by the French poet's descriptions, was love-making, strumming the guitar, and duelling. That Spain was ever a romantic country in the vulgarly accepted sense of the term, I doubt. Roman Catholic customs and institutions forbid that free intermingling of the sexes from which result the thousand and one emotions, complications, situations, and catastrophes that are the ingredients of romance. In countries like Spain, where the canon law obtained, there could be, for instance, no runaway matches, no desperate flights in a post-chaise to a church (say) over the Portuguese border, with an irate father in pursuit. There could not have been, and cannot be at the present time, any walks with the beloved down the moonlit grove, any trysts by the stile or the ruined keep, any rendezvous among the rose-bushes. If a Spanish girl did any of these things, she would indeed, in French parlance, have thrown her cap over the mill. The affair would no longer have the complexion of a romance but of a sordid intrigue. This being so, I was delighted to hear that occasionally clandestine marriages are resorted to in Spain, and that fond lovers find a means of uniting in defiance of stern parents, even in Andalusia. The couple, accompanied by a few friends, contrive to sit next to each other in church, as far out of sight of the rest of the worshippers as possible. Their troths are plighted in an undertone just loud enough for the witnesses to hear, the ring slipped on under cover of the mantilla, and the hands joined at the precise moment the all-unconscious celebrant turns towards the congregation at the end of the mass and pronounces the benediction. In the eyes of the Church the two are married as irrevocably as if the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Toledo had performed the ceremony. The vows have been exchanged before witnesses in a sacred edifice, and an anointed priest has simultaneously blessed the contracting parties from the altar. What can parents do? The Don may rage, the Doña may upbraid, but when the Church makes itself an accomplice of lovers, even in Spain the law must acquiesce. And there is no divorce!

That genuine romance tinges the lives of Spanish men and women, few who know them can doubt. But the Andalusia of musical comedy, the creation of which is largely due to the poets of the Romantic school, does not exist. Seville never was a glorified Cremorne; and persons of a Byronic turn would find adventures suitable to their mood more readily by the banks of the Thames and the Hudson than by those of the Guadalquivir.

For all that, some romantic stories are told about old Seville, and one of these has some foundation of truth. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the city re-echoed with reports of the wild and desperate doings of a certain wealthy gallant, Don Miguel de Marana by name. By some he is called De Mañara. Marriage with the heiress of the Mendoza family did not sober him, though an alliance with so solemn a thing as money generally brings the most hot-headed Latin youth to his senses. Like many other wicked persons, our gallant had a nice taste in art, and is said to have encouraged Murillo. Now comes the remarkable and the improving part of the story. It is not safe to vouch for the accuracy of the details of any part of it. One morning Seville woke up to find—no doubt to her unspeakable consolation—the wicked De Marana a changed man. He became a saint—an ascetic in the seventeenth-century acceptation of the word. The wine-bibber forswore even chocolate as too strong a beverage.

What had happened to produce so edifying a change? Accounts vary. The most picturesque explanation is that the Don, prowling about the streets one night, perceived a funeral procession approaching. Curiosity impelled him to look at the face of the corpse, which was uncovered, and lo! it was his own.

If you doubt the sincerity of Don Miguel's conversion, you have only to visit the Church of La Caridad, which, together with the adjoining hospital, he founded and wherein he was buried. I do not think you will share the opinion of Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell that this is the most elegant church in Seville, but you will be rewarded for the visit by seeing some very remarkable works of art. Near the entrance are the two extraordinary pictures which proclaim the artist, Valdés Leal, to have been a master of realism. One of these exhibits a corpse at which, Murillo declared, you must look with your nostrils shut. The church contains six canvases by Murillo himself—"Moses Striking the Rock," "The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes," "The Charity of St. Juan de Dios," "The Annunciation," "The Infant Jesus," and "St. John." The third is really the finest of these pictures, though the first, commonly called "La Sed" (Thirst), is the most generally preferred. The figures are, as usual in this master's compositions, ordinary Seville types. Over the altar is another great work, "The Descent from the Cross," by Pedro Roldán.

The "Caridad" has indeed the most important collection of pictures in southern Spain, next to the Museo, as the old Convent of La Merced is now called. There, of course, some of the greatest works of art by Spanish masters are to be seen. There you may see the "St. Thomas of Villanueva" giving alms, Murillo's favourite picture; his beautiful "St. Felix of Cantalicio," and "St. Leander and St. Buenaventura," and his famous "Vírgen de la Servilleta" which was not painted on a serviette. On the south wall hangs his "Saints Justa and Rufina" (holding the Giralda), exquisitely coloured, and on the north wall the admirable "St. Anthony de Padua." But one grows a little weary of Murillo in Seville. Zurbaran, the great painter of monks, is well represented by the wonderful "St. Hugh in the Refectory," and "Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas." This last picture, I am told, was carried off by Soult, and recovered by Wellington at Waterloo. The older Herrera's "St. Hermenegild" is good, but by no means Andalusian. The native temper finds more truthful expression in the works of Roelas, Valdés Leal, Cespedes and Frutet, which may be studied to the best advantage here. Curiously enough, the gallery contains not a single work by Velazquez, who was born in Seville; nor any paintings by Alonso Cano or Luis de Vargas. Spanish sculpture, of which one sees so little, is not unworthily represented by a beautiful St. Bruno by Montañez, and by some busts and crucifixes of less importance. The students of Andalusian art must also visit the Hospital de la Sangre, near the Macarena Gate, for some splendid works by Zurbaran and by his less-known forerunner Roelas. The three pictures ascribed to the last named are, however, very awkwardly placed and difficult to see.