We offered him a present of some of our flies. He looked at them and smiled.
“Muchas gracias, they are very pretty. But how can I catch big trout with these little hooks?”
He laughed till the tears ran down his face. But in a minute he remembered the good manners in which every Spanish child is trained. He added:
“Mil gracias, señora! Es favor que usted me hace (A thousand thanks, señora! It is a favour you make me). I will keep them as toys!”
CHAPTER VI—SPANISH ART
Spanish Art the Reflection of the Spanish Temperament—The Great Buildings of Spain—Spanish Gothic—Its Realistic Naturalness, its Massiveness and Extravagance—The Churches, the Real Museums of Art Treasures—Polychrome Sculpture—Spanish Painting—Its Late Development—Its Special Character—Its Strength, its Dramatic and Religious Character.
To understand Spain you must know her architecture, her sculpture, and her pictures. For in Spain, perhaps to a greater extent than in any country, art is the reflection of the life and temper of the people. And this is true although the essential ideas of her art in building, in carving, and in painting, have all been borrowed from other nations. It is the distinctive Spanish gift to stamp with the seal of her own character all that she learns from without.
The first, as it has remained the strongest, expression in art of this people was in building and in sculpture, which gave opportunity for emphasis to their special dramatic temperament. We must go back to Rome for another country that has spoken in its buildings with the same overwhelming force.
The cathedrals which arose in the period of the nation’s greatest prosperity were the chief point of attraction—the theatre, the centre, of all life. They were built for the honour of God, but also for the enjoyment of the people themselves; religion was joyful, popular—democratic, one might say. All the exuberant life garnered by Hispano-Arab culture lives in the Spanish buildings. Here Roman, Byzantine, and Arab art have passed, and also the Mudejar, the Gothic, and the Renaissance—in fact, all the styles of Europe. For this reason there is no native school of architecture. Spain possesses few pure Gothic, Romanesque, or Renaissance buildings.
But it is just this complexity which gives to the Spanish buildings their special character. The Spanish artists, though they lacked creative genius, were no base imitators; they sought to combine, and they gave to the temples they had to construct that massive, strong, and exuberant spirit that was in harmony with their own temperament. In such a cathedral, for instance, as that of Burgos we find vigour and joyous exuberance rather than reserve and beauty—a confused richness that has a flavour of brutality almost. The sombre Gothic can be traced in the older portions of the building, but everywhere it has been seized upon by the restless fancy of later workers. Spanish architecture is like the Spanish manners. The Spaniard can use a floridity of expression that would be ridiculous in England.