DETAIL FROM “THE BURIAL OF COUNT ORGAZ.” Greco
and power. His most famous picture, the Funeral of Count Orgaz, in the church of San Tomé, is a fine illustration both of his strength and his weakness. In the lower part of the canvas we have the dead Count, with the priests and the mourners about him. Here all is real; the dead man in his armor, the Bishop in his mitre and gorgeous robes, the long line of attendants and mourners, and the lovely head of the young boy are all portrait studies. In the upper part, where the heavenly vision is painted, Greco has left the realm of the real and entered that of the ideal. Instead of raising us to the seventh heaven, he lets us down upon the earth. Saints Augustine and Stephen, who appear in the clouds as a heavenly vision attended by a heavenly host—things imagined and not seen—are grotesque, almost ridiculous.
Don Luis was right; it is only at Toledo that one can really understand El Greco. The religious pictures at the Prado had offended us; they had seemed the work of a madman. At Toledo one gets a true understanding of his original and extraordinary personality. He neither saw nor painted as other men see and paint. There was much that was morbid, something that was mad in his vision; but there was, besides, much that was sincere, honest and lucid. El Greco, who is now ranked as second only to Velasquez by many critics, by some as his equal if not superior, seems to have become so thoroughly saturated with the Spanish sentiment that, though his name is a constant reminder of his nationality, he is invariably spoken of as if he were in truth a Spaniard. The strange and wayward genius, who has so touched and influenced the imagination of Velasquez, of Sargent and so many other famous painters, was a true son of Hellas. To Greece belong his glory and his laurels.
XIV
THE BRIDE COMES
IN March Sir Maurice de Bunsen, the new English Ambassador, presented his credentials to the King. We went over to the palace to see what we could of the ceremony. There had been a sudden change in the weather. It was very hot waiting in the Plaza de Armas outside the palace. The chicos, playing at marbles instead of basking in the sun, had moved into the shadow. There were very few spectators; Mrs. Young, the wife of one of the English Secretaries, fair and cool in a white summer dress, her maid armed with a kodak, and perhaps a dozen other people.
“What do they mean,” said Patsy, “by saying that in Madrid you must not put away your overcoat till the fortieth of May?”
“Wait a little and perhaps you will know,” said a familiar voice. It was the Argentino, who had lately come to Madrid; the chance acquaintance begun at Cordova was ripening into something like friendship.