It is with more interest than one turns to the work of another artist of this transition period, Luis de Morales. For although he experimented with various motives, his adoption of them seems to have been prompted by his search for the expression of a personally sincere religious fervor. Almost nothing is recorded of his life, beyond the few facts that he was a native of Badajoz, on the frontier of Portugal, and died there in 1586; that, except for a visit to Madrid at the invitation of Philip II he seems to have spent his life in the quiet retirement of his native city, and notwithstanding the estimation in which his pictures were held, reached an old age of poverty. For it is related that the king passing through Badajoz, sent for the artist. The latter, when as a young man he had been summoned to Court, appeared in so sumptuous an attire, that the King remonstrated with him, but was appeased by Morales’ explanation that he donned it in honor of his Majesty. Now, however, he appeared in a condition of extreme destitution. To Philip’s remark: “Morales, you are very old,” the artist replied, “Yes, your Majesty, and very poor.” The king on the spot awarded him a pension of two hundred ducats. “For your dinner,” he said, to which Morales replied, “And for supper, Sire?” The King, so the story goes, accepted the jest and added another hundred ducats a year to the pension. This episode took place in 1581 and it is supposed that Morales at the time of his death, five years later, had reached the age of seventy-seven years.
Nothing is known as to the way in which Morales learned his art, but a comparative study of his various styles suggests that he may have had access to some work or copy of a work of Michelangelo, to some examples of the Milanese School of Leonardo da Vinci and to pictures of the contemporary Flemish and German Schools. The Michelangelesque influence, according to the official notice of this artist in the catalogue of the Prado Gallery, is discernible chiefly in works that are to be found in Badajoz and Lisbon. It would appear that they are distinguished by an exaggeration of manner. A similar trait appears in a Pietá which hangs in the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. The Virgin is seated at the foot of the Cross, supporting the dead body of Christ. The latter is in an attitude of being seated, the arms suspended and the head laid back on the shoulder, immediately below the head of the Virgin. The nude form is as hard as if it were carved in wood, and in contrast to its pallid whiteness are long streams of crimson blood, as glossy and stiff as ribands. In fact, combined with the naturalistic correctness of the drawing the figure has an exaggerated Gothic feeling, while another excess, this time of refinement, appears in the microscopic precision with which the hair of the beard and head is represented. This delicacy, suggestive of the Milanese influence, reappears in the Virgin Caressing the Infant Jesus of the Prado Gallery and the variations of the same theme which may be seen in the Hispanic Museum, New York. Here, however, the meticulous rendering of the little golden chestnut curls which cluster on the heads of the Mother and Child is in accord with the loving, tender regard for refined sweetness of expression that characterises the whole treatment. The Prado also possesses an Ecce Homo; the figure, seen nearly to the waist, nude but for a crimson mantle which covers the shoulders and is fastened on the chest. One of the bound hands holds a reed and a crown of thorns surmounts the head, drops of blood showing on the forehead. The face, with its straight brows and deep-set eyes, long finely chiseled nose, and sensitive mouth, surrounded by a softly growing beard, the whole modeled sensitively with a Milanese subtlety of chiaroscuro, expresses an interesting blend of intellectuality and ecstasy. In this union one may easily discover an essentially Spanish feeling. However the methods may have been borrowed from elsewhere, the sentiment is Castilian of the sixteenth century, a mingling of high-bred nature and spiritual introspection.
Another picture of the Prado, selected for reproduction on page [62], is The Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple. It is an important example, revealing a fuller capacity for ordered composition, in which there is a grandiose dignity, strangely
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interrupted by a littleness of feeling. The latter is particularly noticeable in the highly finished rendering of the child’s body, disposed so affectedly amid the prim folds of the greyish white drapery. One may be conscious also of a certain exaggerated gesture of humility in the Virgin’s figure; but, on the other hand, how firm in its assertion of liberty of action is the supple figure of the maiden who holds the basket of doves! How excellently imagined, moreover, are the spotting of the several heads, the upright lines of the candles and the broad bold spaces of the white tablecloth!
The reputation of Morales has been injured by the number of Ecce Homos and Magdalens, sentimentally mawkish, which, according to latest judgment, have been ascribed to him falsely. For, in an age of artistic copying, working for patrons who demanded an excessive display of pietistic ecstasy, he was distinguished by a considerable measure of individual temperament as well as of sincere religious feeling.
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