More cheerful, more various, and more splendid is the great Velasquez. Almost all his masterpieces are there. They form a world: everything is pictured in them—war, the court, the street, the tavern, Paradise. It is a gallery of dwarfs, idiots, beggars, buffoons, revellers, comedians, kings, warriors, martyrs, and gods, all alive and speaking, in bold and novel attitudes, with serene brow and smiling lip, full of animation and vigor; the great painting of Count-Duke de Olivares on horseback, the celebrated paintings of the Beggars, of the Weavers, of the Revellers, the Forge of Vulcan, and of the surrender of Breda—large canvases full of figures which seem to be stepping out of the frame, which on once seeing you remember distinctly by some trifling characteristic, a gesture or a shadow on the face, as though they were real persons whom you have just met; people with whom you seem to have talked, and of whom you think long afterward as of acquaintances of a forgotten time; people who might inspire cheerfulness and provoke a smile of admiration, causing you to regret that it is possible only to enjoy them with the eyes and not to mingle with them and share a little of their exuberant life. This is not the effect of a preconceived opinion which the name of the great artist has given, nor need one be a connoisseur of art to experience it. The poor ignorant woman and the boy stop before those pictures, clap their hands, and laugh. It is Nature painted with a fidelity higher than any imagination. One forgets the painter, does not think of the art, nor try to discover its meaning, but says, “This is true! This is the very thing! It is the picture I had in my mind!” One would say that Velasquez has not put anything of himself in it, but that his hand has only drawn the lines and put the colors on the canvas from a likeness which reproduced the very persons whom he was painting. There are more than sixty of his paintings in the museum of Madrid, and if one saw them only once, and hurriedly at that, not one of them would be forgotten. It is with the paintings of Velasquez as with the romances of Alessandro Manzoni—when one has read them for the tenth time they become so interwoven and confused with one’s personal memories that one seems to have lived them. So the persons in Velasquez’s paintings melt into the crowd of friends and acquaintances; the neighbors and strangers of our whole life present themselves and entertain us without our even remembering that we have seen them on the canvas.
Now let us speak of Murillo in our gentlest tones. Velasquez is in art an eagle; Murillo is an angel. One admires Velasquez and adores Murillo. By his canvases we know him as if he had lived among us. He was handsome, good, and virtuous. Envy knew not where to attack him; around his crown of glory he bore a halo of love. He was born to paint the sky. Fortune gave him a mild and serene genius, which bore him to God on the wings of a tranquil inspiration, and yet his most admirable paintings breathe an air of gentle sweetness which inspires sympathy and affection even before admiration. A simple nobility and elegance of outline, an expression full of sprightliness and grace, an inexpressible harmony of colors,—these are the qualities that impress one at first sight; but the more one looks at the paintings, the more one discovers, and surprise is transformed little by little into a delicious sense of pleasure. His saints have a benign aspect, cheering and consoling; his angels, whom he groups with marvellous ability, make one’s lips tremble with a desire to kiss them; his Virgins, clothed in white, with long flowing draperies of azure, with their great black eyes, their clasped hands, delicate, graceful, and ethereal, make one’s heart tremble with their beauty and one’s eyes fill with tears. He combines the truth of Velasquez, the vigor of Ribera, the harmonious transparency of Titian, and the brilliant vivacity of Rubens. Spain has given
him the name of the “Painter of Conceptions” because he is unsurpassed in the art of representing that divine idea. There are four grand Conceptions in the museum of Madrid. I have stood for hours in front of those four paintings, motionless and entranced. I was enraptured, above all, by that incomplete one, with the arms folded over the Virgin’s breast and a half moon across her waist. Many prefer the others; I trembled on hearing this, for I was filled with an inexpressible love for that face. More than once as I looked at it I felt the tears coursing down my cheeks. As I stood before that painting my heart was softened and my mind was lifted to a plane of thought higher than any I had ever before reached. It was not the enthusiasm of faith; it was a longing, a boundless aspiration toward faith, a hope which gave me visions of a life nobler, richer, and more beautiful than that which I had yet known—a new feeling of prayer, a desire to love, to do good, to suffer for others, to make atonement, to elevate my mind and heart. I have never been so full of faith as in those moments. I have never felt so good and affectionate, and I believe that my soul has never shone more clearly in my face. The Lady of Sorrows, Saint Anna Teaching the Virgin to Read, Christ Crucified, The Annunciation, The Adoration of the Shepherds, The Holy Family, The Virgin of the Rosary, and The Child Jesus are all admirable and beautiful paintings of a soft and serene light which appeal to the soul. One should see on a Sunday the children, the girls, and the poor women before those pictures—see how their faces light up and hear the sweet words upon their lips. Murillo is a saint to them, and they speak his name with a smile, as if to say, “He is ours!” and in so saying they look as though they were performing an act of reverence. The artists do not all regard him in the same manner, but they love him above all others, and they are not able to divorce their admiration from their love.
Murillo is not merely a great painter; he is a great soul. He has won more than glory: he has won the love of Spain. He is more than a sovereign master of the beautiful; he is a benefactor, an inspiration to noble deeds, for a lovely image, when once seen on his canvas, is carried in the heart throughout life with a feeling of gratitude and religious devotion. He is one of those men whom some secret prompting tells us we must see again, and that the meeting will be a reward: such men cannot have disappeared for ever; in some place they still live where their life is as a lamp of constant flame, which must one day appear to the eyes of mortals in all its splendor. “The empty dreams of fancy,” one may say, but, ah, what pleasant dreams!