The Story of Spanish Painting

by Charles H. Caffin

Guido was selected. Two hired bravos set upon his servant, thrashed him, and ordered him to tell his master that a similar fate was in store for himself should he begin the decoration of S. Januarius. Guido fled the city; and his pupil, Gessi, was chosen as a substitute. He arrived in Naples with two assistants, who were inveigled on board a boat in the bay and never seen again. The commissioners now yielded and gave the commission to the triumvirate. But a little later they revoked the order and offered Domenichino a handsome remuneration, with a promise of protection, if he would undertake the work. He consented and became immediately the target of an insidious persecution. Threatening letters were sent to him; his character was slandered and his ability as a painter impugned; the plasterers were bribed to mix ashes with the mortar on which his frescoes were to be painted; and finally Ribera prevailed on the viceroy to order some pictures of Domenichino. These were carried from his studio before they were finished, or retouched and ruined before reaching the viceroy. At length, in despair, Domenichino fled to Rome; but was induced to return and shortly afterwards died under suspicion of having been poisoned. The cabal, however, failed of its purpose. The Neapolitan died the same year as Domenichino; the Greek two years later and Ribera painted only one altarpiece for the chapel, The Martyrdom of S. Januarius. The decorations were executed by one, Lanfranco.

For his share in this disgraceful intrigue, and because of his being a foreigner, Ribera incurred the hatred of a large number of Neapolitans. To this, probably is to be attributed the story which passed into a tradition, that Don Juan of Austria, while on a visit to Naples, induced Ribera’s daughter to elope with him; and, soon growing tired of his victim, placed her in a convent. In consequence of shame and grief, Ribera, so the story goes, sank into a profound melancholy, until one day he left his home and was never again heard of. This is now believed to be a mere fabrication of Neapolitan hatred; the true facts being that Ribera settled down to a life of honor and prosperity and finally died in Naples in 1656.

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In the popular imagination Ribera is associated with pictures of martyrs and ascetics, with scenes of cruelty and suffering and the portrayal of old and wasted bodies. The impression is justified, for the taste of his time demanded these revolting subjects, and Ribera’s own temperament made him more than acquiesce. He represented them with a zest that proves he revelled in his opportunities. But this is only one aspect of Ribera, and even in itself not complete, for it is prone to take no account of the superb artistry with which he invested the unpleasantness of these themes.

Thus, in the example, selected for reproduction here, because it is characteristic of Ribera’s best known subjects, the original has a beauty which in the reproduction may possibly escape observation. The head of this Hermit Saint is of extreme nobility both of technique and expression. In the suggestion of the powerful skull, the boldly modeled flesh and the clustering masses of grizzled hair and beard, there is an unusual feeling for and realisation of the dignity of human form. It is not merely that the artist has selected a model with a fine head, and rendered its benign and grave distinction, but he has heightened the expression by the expressiveness of the technique. The artist’s sympathetic imagination and extraordinary reverence, not for the saint-idea in his theme but for humanity in its relation to art, have informed the technique with a noble sympathy, grand imagination and a sovereign reverence. For the point, difficult to put into words, is that technique such as this, while it is magnificent as mere representation, achieves the higher quality of expression, and the measure of the latter is the quality of the artist’s conception not only of his subject but even more of his art, as one of the noble mediums of expression. So, in the presence of a work like this, the spectator forgets his dislike of the subject and finds his imagination kindled and his capacity of abstract appreciation heightened. Even the Saint’s back though you may not believe it from the photograph, which has reduced the transparent shadows to opacity and robbed the flesh of its glorious luminosity, adds its quota to the stimulus of the intellectual-esthetic sense. For, in this capacity, not only to delight the sense perception but to stimulate also the intellectual conception of beauty in the abstract, Ribera belongs in the company of Velasquez. He occupies a lower rank because his art, like himself, was less self-centered and controlled; more dependent upon subject and at the mercy of his own impetuous temperament. In the art of both naturalism was lifted mountain-high; but, while Velasquez was the summit, aloof, unapproachable, Ribera is the torrent, racing, often madly, to the valley. Yet in its career there are level pools of quiet pause, and it is these that the general estimation of Ribera has overlooked.

I am not thinking of his portrayals of the Immaculate Conception or his Assumption of the Magdalen in the Academy of San Fernando. These are rather examples of the concessions that Ribera was obliged and perhaps willing to make in the direction of obvious beauty. They satisfied the Spanish taste in female loveliness, but have little abstraction of expression; and are inclined to be sentimentally pretty. It is rather when you visit the gallery in the Prado devoted to Ribera’s works, that you experience a new impression of this artist. With the exception of a powerful but ghastly Martyrdom of S. Bartholomew, the general suggestion of the gallery is the reverse of the violent and sensational. A sense of grave dignity prevails, which one begins to discover is largely the result of a fine reserve and frequent subtlety in the color schemes. For example, there is a canvas of life-size figures, representing the Holy Trinity. On the Father’s knees lies the limp form of the Christ. It is grievously disfigured with grossly naturalistic blood stains; but one gradually loses the insistence of this in admiration of the elevated beauty of the picture as a whole. The Father’s head, benign and tranquil, is seen against a sky in which are faintly discernible the flocking heads of cherubs. From his shoulders floats a silvery plum-colored drapery, while a mantle of pale rose, lined with violet, lies over the shadowed lapis-lazuli of the under robe. It is a color scheme of choice splendour, full of subtle stimulus to the intellectual-esthetic imagination.

A very interesting canvas is the S. John the Baptist in the Desert for the feeling of it is pagan, a trait rarely met with in the art of Spain, which had so rigorously opposed the Humanistic movement. The figure, nude nearly to the waist, is that of a shepherd youth, with large smiling mouth and eyes glancing to one side. The face sets one to thinking of the so-called S. John the Baptist of the Louvre, attributed to Da Vinci. The Ribera has something of the faun-like suggestion; only it is less subtle, piqueing less to mystery; the suggestion being rather of wild, young animal life, a creature of silent, vacant places, not afraid yet watchful. The figure is at the foot of a big tree-trunk, a red drapery covering the upper part of the legs and the stone on which it is seated. The arms are extended; one aloft, holding a staff, the other lowered to feed a lamb; both forming pliant loops which increase the suppleness of the whole design. In its blend of classical and naturalistic composition and feeling, and the character of the thought which prompted it, the canvas is probably unique in the Spanish School as an example of the direct influence of Humanism.

One turns to a Penitent Magdalen (Prado, 980), not to endorse her very lady-like sentiment, but to admire the way in which the beautiful brown hair is rendered and the exquisite color and texture of the old-rose drapery. A similarly choice treatment of this delicate color, shot with silver light and dove-grey shadows, appears in Isaac Blessing Jacob. Then for another fine example of color one may note a half length, S. Simon. Here again is a head of magnificent character; black hair and beard, ruddy features, massive brow, a characterization, generously masculine and vigorous. A warm brown drapery hangs over the slightly yellow-tinted brown of the robe, which shows below it the collar and cuff of a grey shirt; all this placed against a dark olive background. The tonality, organised with extreme delicacy, is in its ensemble superb. Another choice passage of color occurs in S. Bartholomew, where the saint is shown, life size, seated beneath a cliff. He holds across his body a white drapery; or such is your first impression of the hue. But study reveals a more subtle tissue of smoked ivory and grey, woven into the pallor of the white.

However, the finest example of Ribera’s subtle vein of color-expression in this gallery is in the Jacob’s Ladder. The sleeping figure reclines horizontally across the foreground, a hand supporting the head, while in the sky are faint suggestions of ascending and descending angels. The foreground consists of slabs of rock out of which, at the back of the figure, rises a tree-trunk, with a broken limb. The figure is clothed in an olive-greyish-brown habit, resembling a monk’s; the hair and beard are black in strong contrast to the pallor of the face, which is slightly flushed with warmth and puffed with sleep. The suggestion of sleep is, indeed, rendered with extraordinary truth; it seems no idle fancy that one hears the breathing and watches the stir of the drapery over the rise and fall of the chest. But the dignity of this canvas depends upon the color scheme, cold, severe, constrained; so opposite to the sensuous, impassioned or splendid; yet withal so stimulating to the imagination. This picture is a grand example of the intellectual-esthetic quality in Ribera’s finest work; placing this artist far above the estimate popularly formed of him. It is not difficult to discover the influence of this large, grave feeling in the earlier work of Murillo and in almost all the work of Zurburán.