Fortuny won his own opportunities. He took a prize, while still very young, which made it possible for him to go to Rome where he wished to study art. He did not spend his time studying and copying the old masters as did most artists who went there, but, instead, he studied the life of the Roman streets.
He had already been at the Academy of Barcelona, but he did not follow his first master; instead, he struck out a line of art for himself. After a year in Rome the artist went to war; but he did not go to fight men, he was still fighting fate, and his weapon was his sketch book. He went with General Prim, and he filled his book with warlike scenes and the brilliant skies of Morocco. From that time his work was inspired by his Moorish experiences.
After going to war without becoming a soldier, Fortuny returned to Paris and there he became fast friends with Meissonier, so that a good deal of his work was influenced by that artist's genius. After a time Fortuny's paintings came into great vogue and far-off Americans began buying them, as well as Europeans. There was a certain rich dry-goods merchant in the United States who had made a large fortune for those days, and while he knew nothing about art, he wanted to spend his money for fine things. So he employed people who did understand the matter to buy for him many pictures whose excellence he, himself, could not understand, but which were to become a fine possession for succeeding generations. This was about 1860, and this man, A.T. Stewart, bought two of Fortuny's pictures at high prices. "The Serpent Charmer," and "A Fantasy of Morocco."
When Fortuny was thirty years old he married the daughter of a Spaniard called Madrazo, director of the Royal Museum. His wife's family had several well known artists in it, and the marriage was a very happy one. Because of this, Fortuny was inspired to paint one of the greatest of his pictures, "The Spanish Marriage." In it are to be seen the portraits of his wife and his friend Regnault. After a time he went to live in Granada; but he could never forget the beautiful, barbaric scenes in Morocco, and so he returned there. Afterward he went with his wife to live in Rome, and there they had a fine home and everything exquisite about them, while fortune and favour showered upon them; but he fell ill with Roman fever, because of working in the open air, and he died while he was comparatively a young man.
PLATE--THE SPANISH MARRIAGE
Fortuny is said to "split the light into a thousand particles, till his pictures sparkle like jewels and are as brilliant as a kaleidoscope.... He set the fashion for a class of pictures, filled with silks and satins, bric-à-brac and elegant trifling."
Look at the brilliant scene in this picture! The priest rising from his chair and leaning over the table is watching the bridegroom sign his name. This chap is an old fop, bedecked in lilac satin, while the bride is a dainty young woman, without much interest in her husband, for she is fingering her beautiful fan and gossiping with one of her girl friends. She wears orange-blossoms in her black hair and is in full bridal array. One couple, two men, sit on an elegantly carved seat and are looking at the goings-on with amusement, while an old gentleman sits quite apart, disgusted with the whole unimpressive scene. Everybody is trifling, and no one is serious for the occasion. The furnishings of the room are beautiful, delicate, almost frivolous. People are strewn about like flowers, and the whole effect is airy and inconsequent. Fortuny painted also "The Praying Arab," "A Fantasy of Morocco," "Snake Charmers," "Camels at Rest," etc.