The Story of Spanish Painting

by Charles H. Caffin

MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES AND FISHES MOSES STRIKING THE ROCK	MURILLO
HOSPITAL DE LA CARIDAD, SEVILLE

pæan of the bells of the cathedral and churches, Archbishop de Castro swore to maintain and defend this peculiar tenet of his see. It was followed by a splendid entertainment in the bull-ring, where in the presence of enormous throngs the nobles appeared, accompanied by magnificent retinues, and one in particular, Don Melchior de Alcázar, attended by his dwarf and four gigantic negroes, performed prodigies of valor and dexterity. It was recognised that a new era had commenced; that the old dark days of inquisitorial rigor were passed and love and gentleness were to reign henceforth. It was into this atmosphere of sweet religious ecstasy that Murillo was born, destined to become the artist who best succeeded in expressing it.

Murillo’s only teacher was his uncle, Juan de Castillo, who gave his pupil a thorough grounding in drawing, though his own style could not do much to help his pupil’s advance in painting. After a time Juan moved to Cadiz and his nephew, without father or mother, was left to face life alone. He gained a living by painting “bodegones,” or still-life subjects, and pictures of saints, which he sold in the feria or weekly market. His ambition was to study in Rome and, as a first step, to visit Madrid. Having saved a little money, he made his way on foot to the capital and presented himself to his fellow townsman, Velasquez. The latter received him kindly and obtained permission for the young man to paint in the royal galleries. Here Murillo studied and copied the works of Titian, Rubens, Van Dyck, Ribera and Velasquez himself, to such purpose that the last-named advised him to go to Rome. But Murillo, who had now been three years away from Seville, determined to return thither. The same independent spirit which had enabled him to shift for himself and to leave home and study in wider fields, now assured him that he had gained what he needed without further travel. From the various influences which he had experienced, he discovered a style for himself. He returned to Seville without friends or influence, but opportunity presented itself. The monks of the convent of S. Francis wished their cloister decorated. Murillo applied to them for the commission. They would have preferred a well known artist of the city, but, having little money to offer, engaged the young, unknown painter. Murillo spent three years on this work, and, when it was completed, found himself the most famous painter in Seville. He had taken something from the several styles of the artists he had studied and imprinted upon it his own individuality. This expressed itself particularly in an ability to give reality to his picturing of the story involved in the legends of S. Francis. He had proved himself to be a great illustrator.

This term to-day perhaps involves a certain depreciatory significance. Men are often illustrators because they cannot find a market for their easel-pictures; or, having obtained a reputation as illustrators, are ambitious to be painters. The fact is, that illustration to-day is confined to books and magazines, and from the publisher’s point of view is designed rather to attract attention to the text than to illuminate it. But in Murillo’s day, as in Raphael’s, illustration was a noble and honored art, the readiest and most efficient way of bringing the sacred truth home to the minds of the unlettered masses, and permitted so grand a scope, that it was also a decoration to monumental buildings. Thus the value of an illustration at that date, while it incidentally might be decorative, depended primarily on the appeal which it made to the hearts and understandings of the people. Murillo was a sincere Catholic; he could feel his subject in accordance with the Church’s teaching, and moreover he had the gift of telling the story in the vernacular; depicting it in familiar guise and investing it with those touches of everyday life that pique and hold the interest of the simplest mind.

To be indifferent to the genius and value of such a gift is to admit oneself a careless student of human nature. It is either that we refuse to be interested in what interests the masses, or that we underrate the virtue of the latter being thus interested. To-day, in our modern experience, there are thousands of illustrators; but if one looks back, say, twenty years, how many are there who have been leaders, in the sense that they have caught the spirit of the age for the first time and given it an expression which the educated and unlearned alike recognise as something vital? This is the point. For the thousands who can perpetuate a tradition, imitate somebody else, or carry on the accepted convention, there will be found but one or two who can synthetise the time-spirit into a new expression. And for the worth-while of doing this? I repeat that, to-day, illustration is mainly a method of amusing vacant minds. But it was not so in the seventeenth century, any more than during the early and the great days of the Renaissance. It was something that influenced the lives of millions in their attitude to what, then at least, was of supreme moment, religion. Therefore, to estimate the genius and value of Murillo’s gift of illustration we must not judge it from the standpoint of to-day, but in the light of the needs and desires of his contemporaries. Then we shall realise that what Murillo did for the simple, religious folk of Seville is akin to Raphael’s contribution to the mingled Humanistic and Christian needs of Rome. Both were great illustrators, whose subject matter was religion, and who told their story in the medium that appealed to the sympathy and understanding of the largest number of people of their day. But the very freedom from Humanistic influence which characterised Murillo’s art encreased its value to the people of Seville. It was essentially Spanish in its naturalism and specifically Andalusian in its sentiment.

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Murillo’s method of painting has been described as exhibiting three styles—cold, warm and vaporous. According to this arrangement, the first style (estilo frio) is distinguished by cold coloring and dark shadows; the second (estilo calido) by warmth of coloring, stronger contrasts of luminous light and shade, and by increased plasticity of form; the third, (estilo vaporoso) by the vaporous or misty effects of atmosphere, enveloping the whole or part of the composition. But while his works show this variety of method, they cannot be distributed into periods, definitely characterised by one or another style. Nor will it repay the student to try to docket the different pictures according to any such pigeon-hole