THE LONG GALLERY OF THE PRADO
AN HOUR WITH THE PAINTERS 173
the incidents of the mad revel; every one is shouting or singing or weeping with maudlin glee or tears. But in this scene of the Borrachos there is nothing scenic or forced. These topers have come together to drink, for the love of the wine,--the fun is secondary. This wonderful reserve of Velazquez is clearly seen in his conception of the king of the rouse. He is a young man, with a heavy, dull, somewhat serious face, fat rather than bloated, rather pale than flushed. He is naked to the waist to show the plump white arms and shoulders and the satiny skin of the voluptuary; one of those men whose heads and whose stomachs are too loyal ever to give them Katzenjammer or remorse. The others are of the commoner type of haunters of wine-shops,--with red eyes and coarse hides and grizzled matted hair,--but every man of them inexorably true, and a predestined sot.
We must break away from Velazquez, passing by his marvellous portraits of kings and dwarfs, saints and poodles,--among whom there is a dwarf of two centuries ago, who is too like Tom Thumb to serve for his twin brother,--and a portrait of Aesop, which is a flash of intuition,
174 CASTILIAN DAYS
an epitome of all the fables. Before leaving the Spaniards we must look at the most pleasing of all Ribera's works,--the Ladder-Dream of Jacob. The patriarch lies stretched on the open plain in the deep sleep of the weary. To the right in a broad shaft of cloudy gold the angels are ascending and descending. The picture is remarkable for its mingling the merits of Ribera's first and second manner. It is a Caravaggio in its strength and breadth of light and shade, and a Correggio in its delicacy of sentiment and refined beauty of coloring. He was not often so fortunate in his Parmese efforts. They are usually marked by a timidity and an attempt at prettiness inconceivable in the haughty and impulsive master of the Neapolitan school.
Of the three great Spaniards, Ribera is the least sympathetic. He often displays a tumultuous power and energy to which his calmer rivals are strangers. But you miss in him that steady devotion to truth which distinguishes Velazquez, and that spiritual lift which ennobles Murillo. The difference, I conceive, lies in the moral character of the three. Ribera was a great artist, and the others were noble men. Ribera passed a youth of