he took orders within a year. He endeavored to conciliate the very natural objections of the Chapter by executing some sculptural embellishments for the Coro. He also worked for the convents of the neighborhood and for private patrons, with one of whom he came into collision respecting the price to be paid for a statue of S. Antony. The man, who held the office of auditor of Granada, had demurred at the sum asked for a work which had occupied the artist only twenty-five days; whereupon Cano, anticipating Whistler, retorted, “You are a bad reckoner; I have been fifty years learning to make such a statue in twenty-five days.” Then he dashed the S. Antony to the ground and smashed him. This was a sacrilegious offence that might have brought the artist under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, but the auditor, instead of reporting the matter to that body prevailed on the Chapter to declare Cano’s seat vacant because he had not according to agreement taken orders. Cano appealed to the King who obtained for him from the Bishop of Salamanca a chaplaincy which entitled the holder to full orders, while at the same time the Nuncio consented to grant him dispensation from saying Mass. So Cano returned in triumph to Granada, but never again would execute any work for the Cathedral. Indeed, it was in works of charity that the last years of his life were chiefly spent. He was so impoverished by them that, when he was stricken with his last sickness, the Chapter voted five hundred reals to “The Canon Cano, being sick and very poor and without means to pay the doctor”; and a week later added another two hundred reals to buy him “poultry and sweetmeats.” He died on the third of October, 1667.

The Capilla Mayor in the Cathedral of Granada is enriched with sculptural works by Cano’s hand and with some paintings. These represent the “Seven Joys of Mary,” Annunciation, Conception, Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, and Assumption. They are placed so high, that from the floor it is very difficult to see them, while, even when you view them from the nearer approach of the triforium, the colored glass of the windows interferes with their effect. As far as one can judge on the spot and with the aid of photographs they are too flimsy in character for the monumental structure which they are intended to decorate. That this conclusion is correct appears probable when you study Cano’s smaller altar-pieces. Some of them are painted so thinly, with so little variety of values of hue and so little interest of surface, that they seem to be empty. On the other hand, his best works, such as the Mother and Child over the Altar of Bethlehem in Seville Cathedral, and the S. Agnes of the Berlin Gallery, are so exquisitely refined that they need to be seen at close range.

The former is regarded as Cano’s masterpiece. The type of the Virgin is of Granada, touched with Moorish warmth, a little more womanly and much more refined than Murillo’s. But, like the latter’s and like Raphael’s Roman Madonnas, it is beautiful only in a physical and emotional way; it has nothing of the spirituality of El Greco’s creations, so absorbed in the mystery of their sacred and miraculous estate. Yet among the Madonnas of the Southern artists there is probably none so pure in its loveliness and so lovely in its purity as this one of Cano’s. A similar quality of exquisitely fragrant maidenhood appears in the S. Agnes. Both this and the other canvas represent sentiment, raised to the highest pitch of elevated feeling; yet remaining sentiment. I make the point because Cano, no more than the other Spanish artists, for all the religiosity of their pictures, touched the soul of religion. The only artist of the Spanish School to do this was the alien, El Greco.

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Francisco de Zurbarán was born in 1598 in the little town of Fuente de Cantos in the province of Estremadura. His father, a small farmer, convinced of his son’s talent for drawing, took him to Seville and placed him under the teaching of Roelas. But there is little or no trace of this painter’s influence in Zurbarán’s style. In a general way the latter came under the spell of Ribera and Caravaggio; indeed, at one period of his career Zurbarán in consequence of his dark shadows was nicknamed “the Spanish Caravaggio.” But you cannot become acquainted with Zurbarán’s various subjects without realising that he owed his style chiefly, almost entirely, to himself; that he had shaped it to the needs of his own temperament. He was an out and out naturalist; in a sense the most conspicuously naturalistic painter of the Spanish School. For there is an austerity in his point of view, which separates him from the sentiment of Murillo, the passionate virility of Ribera and the aristocratic distinction of Velasquez. Zurbarán consorted with Monks; took advantage of occasional opportunities of retiring from the world into the quiet of a monastic community; and in the simplicity and frugality of his tastes was at heart a monk. The bare walls of a cell or refectory, the plain habits of the brethren, and the orderly formality of their lives, were more to him than subjects for his brush. They were so in tune with his own instincts, that he derived from them inspiration for his art; affecting not only his habit of seeing but his technique. Both became characterised by largeness and simplicity and by more or less severity.

These qualities are represented in the great altarpiece, The Apotheosis of S. Thomas Aquinas, executed when Zurbarán was only twenty-seven years old and generally considered his masterpiece. It is to be seen to-day under very favorable conditions in the Provincial Museum of Seville, for it is hung high in a good light and can be viewed from various distances. These advantages of placing no doubt count in the impression, differing so widely from the usual circumstances under which the altar-pieces of Spain are to be studied. But the impression received of the S. Thomas is that, with the exception of the Funeral of Count Orgaz, it is the noblest ceremonial picture that one has met in Spain. It is due to the magnificence of its organic simplicity and bigness, which give the composition an emphasis and carrying force. And what is true of the large masses, viewed from a distance, is equally true on a nearer view of the details. The latter resolve themselves into finely treated surfaces of drapery and particularly into the punctuating emphasis of keenly

MIRACLE OF S. HUGOZURBARÁN
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, SEVILLE