with flowers, while overhead the Virgin and her supporting angels make an elegant mass of white and blue silk and fluttering wings. But the picture is fatally pretty, characteristic of the decline of devotional feeling and artistic taste.
This allusion to the decadence of the School of Castile which marks the end of the seventeenth century may be closed by a reference to Claudio Coello (d. 1693). The work which brought him greatest fame in his own day is the altar-piece of La Santa Forma at the south end of the sacristry of the Escoriál. It represents a perspective view of the room in which you are standing as you look at the picture. Thus the great school of Spanish naturalism passes out in the meretricious glamour of a looking-glass picture.
SCHOOL OF VALENCIA, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
In the School of Valencia the connecting link between the period of mannerism, represented by Juan de Juanes, and the highest development of the naturalistic motive in the person of Ribera is supplied by Francisco Ribalta. He was born in Castellón de la Plana, between the years 1550 and 1560 and died in 1628. After studying with an unknown painter in Valencia, he spent three years in Italy, where he was particularly attracted by the works of Raphael, Sebastian del Piombo and the Caracci. Returning to Valencia, he executed a Last Supper for the high altar of the Church of Corpus Christi. The picture, which is still in the place for which it was painted, aroused so much enthusiasm that he was kept employed in providing works for the churches, monasteries and hospitals in and around Valencia. Some of these are distinguished by grandiose compositions and figures of noble character. But in other works Ribalta’s coloring is attenuated and his handling thin; while on other occasions he exhibits a mingling of Italian “idealism” with Spanish naturalism. Examples of his poor color and technique are Nos. 946 and 949 in the Prado, which, moreover, are disfigured by their sentimentality. His particular talent, however, appears at its best in an adjacent canvas, S. Francis d’Assisi. The monk, clad in a brown habit, is lying on a pallet covered with a blanket. His parched yellow face and strong, nervous hands are raised in ecstacy toward an angel, playing a lute, who floats above him in well-disposed draperies of dull green and rose. Contrasted with the grace of this figure is the severely naturalistic way in which the monk and the accessories, such as an iron lamp and missal, are represented. It is a picture both of charm and force and is characteristic of the kind of influence that Ribalta exerted over his pupil, Ribera.
SCHOOL OF ANDALUSIA OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The transition period in the School of Andalusia is filled by two men. These were Juan de las Roelas, who painted in a broad and yet seductive manner with soft, warm chiaroscuro, and the eccentric Francisco Herrera, who adapted these qualities to a “furioso” style. For this reason he has been credited with the chief influence in developing the naturalistic methods of the Andalusian School. But the credit is now assigned to Ribera, whose pictures, introduced into Seville, helped materially to shape the studies of a group of young artists which included Alonso Cano, Zurbarán, Murillo and Velasquez.
In the eighteenth century native painting declined to a condition that renders it negligible to the student. The names which occur are those of foreigners such as Luca Giordano, Tiepolo, and Raphael Mengs. Suddenly, however, toward the last quarter it sprang again to life in the genius of Goya. The latter died in 1826, and of the few names which break the monotony of Spanish painting during the nineteenth century it may be sufficient to mention those of Mariano Fortuny, Francisco Pradilla, Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida and Ignacio Zuloaga. These are to be considered later.
CHAPTER V
DOMENCO THEOTOCOPULI (EL GRECO)
DOMENCO THEOTOCOPULI was born in Crete; hence the nickname by which he was known: El Greco. He arrived in Spain by way of Venice and Rome; therefore in the catalogue of the Prado he is included among the Italian artists. It was either an excess of modesty on the part of the Spanish or a curious symptom of indifference thus to rob their own school of so great an artist. Nor has it the warrant of facts. Though El Greco had been a pupil of Titian and had drawn inspiration from Tintoretto, it is the fact of his art being so different from that of Italy, of his developing so unique a personality of his own, that is the distinguishing feature of his genius. Moreover, it was not until after his arrival in Spain and a sojourn of some time in Toledo that he discovered himself. It was the conditions, physical and spiritual, of his adopted country that brought to maturity the real El Greco. Spain drew forth his genius and in return he expressed the genius of the Spanish race in its spiritual aspects to a higher degree than any other artist of Spain. He was the seer, the diviner, who not only mirrored the external character of his times but also realised its soul.