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Velasquez maintained no regular studio for pupils, yet he naturally exercised an influence on many of the younger painters of the day, and actually gave instruction to some. Among the latter the best known are Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo and Juan Carreño, who will be considered later, and Juan de Pareja. The last mentioned was a mulatto, born in Seville about 1608, who came to Madrid with Velasquez in the capacity of a servant and remained with him all his life. Being constantly employed in the studio, he was himself inspired to become an artist; but as no slave might practise the free art of painting he worked in secret, copying his master’s works. At last by a stratagem he revealed his talent. Having painted a picture with special care, he placed it in his master’s studio with its face to the wall. The king, on his next visit, ordered the picture to be turned and enquired who had painted it. Whereupon Pareja went down on his knees, and implored the royal protection. The king, turning to Velasquez, said—“you will have no say in this matter and I warn you that he who possesses so much talent cannot remain a slave.” At least such is the story, though it is considered more probable that Velasquez, whose generosity was marked, actually connived at the slave’s education and procured his enfranchisement. But, although a free man, he continued to serve his beloved master, and after the latter’s death in 1660 continued in the service of his son-in-law, Mazo, until his own death in 1670. He is represented in the Prado by the Vocation of S. Matthew. Christ, arrayed in the conventional draperies, is standing beside a table at which is seated Matthew, in Oriental clothes, surrounded by others in Spanish costume of the period. It is an ambitious and rather tedious picture.

Three painters of this period which call for brief notice are Antonio Pereda, Francisco Collantes and José Leonardo. Pereda (1599-1669) was born in Valladolid, but moved to Madrid to study art and remained there. In the Academy of San Fernando is an “allegory” by him, entitled The Dream of Life. It represents a young man of heavy, rather Dutch aspect, handsomely dressed, seated asleep before a table. The latter is strewn with a variety of objects—jewels, flowers, coins, weapons, music, a mask, a book—which contribute to the joy and fulness of life. Meanwhile, on the book rests a skull, while an angel in the background, gazing at the youth, holds a scroll inscribed—“Æterne pungit, cito volat et occidet.” The picture is blackened and murky, but the still-life is rendered with remarkable naturalness. Indeed, naturalistic veracity and a taste for ascetic or moral suggestion characterises Pereda’s art. Note, for example, the S. Jerome of the Prado where the aged saint, stripped to the waist, sits in a spiritual daze, grasping a cross of rudely joined sticks, which lies upon a book. The latter contains an engraved illustration, represented with extraordinary vraisemblance, and the same quality is carried to a disgusting pitch in the rendering of the withered, flabby flesh. Even more revolting and commonplace in its excessive naturalism is an adjoining Ecce Homo—blood that looks like blood, a rope unmistakably a rope, and a cross made out of a tree, the bark of which is realised with ridiculously ineffectual exactness. The two pictures have neither the vigor of handling nor the dignity of conception to be found in Ribera’s corresponding subjects. They represent naturalism for the sake of naturalism; and anticipate the general decadence which settled down on the School of Castile toward the end of the seventeenth century.

Collantes (1599-1656), a pupil of Vincente Carducho, is represented in the Prado by a Vision of Ezekiel. In the foreground is confusion of opened tombs and risen bodies and skeletons; in the background the ruins of a stately classic city, and in the center, raised on an eminence, the prophet preaching to the awakened dead. The scene both in composition and chiaroscuro is quite impressive. Collantes is also represented in the Louvre by The Burning Bush.

José Leonardo (1616-1656) is of chief interest to the student because of his large canvas in the Prado, in which he has represented the same subject that was immortalised by Velasquez—The Surrender of Breda. Leonardo’s composition is divided diagonally, the left foreground being occupied by the principal group, while the upper right triangle includes the background: a plain in which troops are deploying, and a distant view of the city. It is noticeable that the younger man, whose short life, clouded by mental trouble, scarcely permitted him to reach his own maturity, has, like Velasquez, made a decorative use of the lances. His conception, also, of the scene is one that probably commended itself to Spanish feeling, for he has represented the conquered Justin of Nassau submissively kneeling, as he presents the keys to his conqueror, who is on horseback. Another example by Leonardo in the Prado is the Taking of Acqui. It is, with the group reversed, similarly composed to the previous picture, of which it is a companion piece, both having been painted for the “Hall of the Kings” in the Palace of Buen Retiro. Notable, again, is the device of lances, while the mounted figure of the Duke de Feria, as he leads the attack, bears an unmistakable general resemblance to the equestrian portrait of the Count Olivarez by Velasquez.

Among the Italian painters summoned to Madrid by Philip II, had been a native of Bologna, Antonio Rizi. He had two sons, Juan and Francisco. Fray Juan Rizi, for he entered the Benedictine order and spent the latter part of his life in a monastery at Rome, was the pupil of Fray Juan Bautista Mayno. His portraits, bearing some resemblance to those of Velasquez, have been at times attributed to Mazo. Such was the case with the Portrait of Don Tiburcio de Redin in the Prado, which represents a man with curls falling to his shoulders, dressed in a handsome cavalier costume, standing beside a table. He rests one hand on it and with the other holds a large felt hat. It is a straightforward presentation of a virile personality, but painted with little verve. Far more interesting is a Saint Benedict Celebrating Mass, in the Academy of San Fernando. With the sacred wafer in his hand, the saint bends his strong head, with its black hair and beard, over the white altar-cloth. Over his alb is a gold embroidered white chasuble, supported by a monk in black. These figures are seen against a grey-drab wall, meanwhile a third figure, an acolyte, is in white. It is thus a very handsome tonality of grey, white and black, which gives an air of grandiose distinction to the very naturalistic way in which the whole is painted. The brother, Francisco Rizi, was a pupil of Carducho, and enjoyed reputation as a painter in fresco, decorating among other sacred edifices the Cathedral of Toledo. He was also employed as a director of scenery and stage effects in the dramatic performances given in the Palace of Buen Retiro. Apropos of these experiences, he executed a curious picture, now in the Prado, in which he has represented in an ensemble the successive stages of an auto-de-fé. It commemorates one that actually took place in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid on June 30, 1680, lasting from eight in the morning until half-past nine at night. The function had afforded a spasm of zest to the wretched religious maniac, Charles II, who commanded the painting. It contains some three thousand figures, and, considering that Rizi was seventy-five years old when he executed it, is an achievement as surprising as unnecessary.

One of Francisco Rizi’s pupils was José Antolinez (1639-1676), a native of Seville. Something of southern sweetness of sentiment pervades his pictures as may be seen in The Assumption of the Munich Pinakothek, The Glorification of the Virgin in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam and the Ecstasy of the Magdalen, of the Prado. The last named represents the penitent floating in a seated posture, upborne by angels. Two others hold above her the jar of ointment, while an older angel plays the lute. The drapery is of ashy purple silk brocaded with mauve arabesques, a fine passage of color suggestive of the influence of Van Dyke, which at this period began to find its way into Spain. One may discover it again in the elegantly sentimental style of Mateo Cerezo, who was originally a pupil of Carreño. Examples that may be quoted are the Penitent Magdalen in the Gallery of the Hague, and the S. John the Baptist of the Cassel Gallery, both of them characterised by affectation. A more important example, because of its decorative composition, is the Assumption of the Virgin in the Prado. Down below, the faithful are peering into a sarcophagus, filled

PRESENTATION OF JESUS IN THE TEMPLELUIS MORALES
THE PRADO