It may easily be imagined how the example of this young Prince, only in his nineteenth year when Buckingham visited Spain, must have awakened in him, as in Charles, a new sense; fresh conceptions of the beautiful, cravings hitherto unfelt, an honourable emulation. And the example of Philip had its effect on both: the reception given to Rubens, who, as an artist, was treated with far greater distinction than he would have been as a mere diplomatist, in which capacity he came; the efforts of Philip to form an academy of fine arts; the honours bestowed on Velasquez; and the enthusiasm which he shewed in the collection of fine pictures for the galleries, which he so wonderfully enriched, must have proved to Charles and Buckingham how far behind was their own country in taste and liberality. They saw that the gold of Mexico and Peru was freely given for the treasures of art, whilst royalty at home was lavish only on pageants, horse-racing, hunting, and feasting. They saw the elevating effects of art and letters, and staid not in Spain long enough to witness the results of that life-long mistake made by Philip IV., in resigning the reins of government to the hands of a minister who lost for his sovereign great possessions, far exceeding those that many conquerors have acquired.
These refined tastes, which shone forth in Philip, were participated by his young and beautiful queen, Isabella of Bourbon, his first wife, and the sister of Henrietta Maria. She was the loveliest subject of the pencil of Velasquez. At Broom-Hall, in Fifeshire, there is a picture by him representing the exchange of this Princess, when a girl, with Anne of Austria, the sister of Philip IV.
Isabella was destined to be the bride of Philip, then Prince of the Asturias--Anne to become the wife of Louis XIII. of France.
This production of Velasquez was only one of many portraits of this lovely princess; for she was by all acknowledged to be the very star of the Court. She shared the taste of her husband, whilst his young brothers, both early instructed in drawing, warmly joined in the King’s pursuits, not only in the arts, but in literature. The elder, Don Carlos, beloved, as has been stated, by the Spaniards for his dark complexion, was supposed to have excited the jealousy of Olivares by his talents--he died in 1626: the second, the Boy-Cardinal, who assumed the Roman purple and the mitre of an archbishop, was the able pupil in painting of Vincencio Carducho, and became the most intellectual of the Spanish Princes that had appeared since Charles V. He set the fashion of those half-dramatic, half-musical pieces, which were called in Spain, Zarzuelas.[[143]] The boy--whom we have seen joining heart and soul, in his purple robe, and beneath his mitre, in court revels, given in honour of Charles I., was, at that very time, a student in philosophy and mathematics; and when at the age of twenty-two he was sent to govern Flanders, and henceforth to spend the brief span of life allotted to him in camps and councils--was still, to the last, the patron of Velasquez and Rubens.[[144]]
Olivares the Magnificent, as he was often called, cultivated the fine arts as a means of diverting the young monarch from his own abuse of power, and the consequent discontents which marked his administration. He possessed the most magnificent library in Europe, abounding in rare manuscripts, and, domesticated in this house as chaplain, Lope de Vega passed his old age. Quevedo, Pachecho, and many others, owed much to the patronage of Olivares--a protection which they paid back in compliments, and, like Lord Halifax, he was “fed with dedications.” Olivares was one of the first sitters to Velasquez; he was the patron of Murillo, and, in the downfall of this minister, these two painters did not desert their early friend, but alone clung to him in his misfortunes.
The King, his Queen, the two royal brothers, and Olivares, had all a passion for having portraits taken of themselves. Philip was born for a sitter. His face, as Dr. Waagen remarks, “is better known than his history.” His pale Flemish complexion, Austrian features, and fair hair have been many times depicted by Rubens and Velasquez. He was sometimes painted on his Andalusian courser, sometimes in black velvet, as he was going to the council--even at his prayers. There was an hereditary gift of silence and composure in his race: in Philip the attribute was so signal, that he could witness a whole comedy without stirring hand or foot, and conduct an audience without a muscle moving, except those in his lips and tongue.[[145]] Even after slaying the bull of Xarama, famed for strength and fierceness, not for a moment did he change countenance. To this incomparable staidness and dignity was added the advantage of a tall figure, which Philip knew well how to set off by a perfect mastery in combination of colours. Black he mixed almost uniformly with white, and gold and silver. This stately monarch was never known to smile more than three times in his life--that is, publicly, for in private he was ever “full of merry discourses.”
Thus, taste, letters in every branch, the noblest works of architecture and sculpture, were the themes of a court where those who had left behind them the pedantry and vulgarity of King James arrived in the vigour of youth and intellect. Velasquez was painting a portrait of the King, and one also of the Infant, Don Fernando, when Charles and Buckingham arrived at Madrid, and interrupted, by their presence and the ceremonials of their reception, the completion of these pictures. The astonished Prince and his favourite found themselves transformed into a region hitherto scarcely dreamed of, yet which they were, by natural refinement of taste, well calculated to enter. They had left King James hunting in a ruff and bombasted garments; that King hated novelties. “It was as well,” Horace Walpole remarks, “that he had no disposition to the arts, but let them take their own course, for he might have introduced as bad a taste into them as he did into literature.”
Walpole attributes, likewise, the absence of pictures in the houses of the English nobility at this period to the great size and height of the rooms which they erected in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when vastness seems to have constituted the idea of grandeur. Pictures would have been lost in rooms of such height, which were better calculated for tapestry; and he offers, as an instance, Hardwicke--which was furnished for the reception and imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots--and Audley-End, as proofs of the prodigious space covered by a modern gentleman’s house in the days of James I., and observes how impossible it would have been to place pictures in such structures.
One may readily conceive, therefore, the enchantment that was felt in visiting the Escurial, the palace of Buen-retiro, and the noble churches and famous convents of Madrid. Charles and Buckingham beheld that capital in the height of its splendour, and witnessed its most brilliant displays; they attended the grand, picturesque services and processions; they became acquainted with the works of Titian, of Velasquez, and Carducho. That Charles cherished the remembrance of the scenes in which he had once played so romantic a part, is evident from his employing a young painter, Miquel de la Cruz, even when England was threatened with the great Rebellion, to paint for him copies of a number of pictures from those in the Alcazar of Madrid.[[146]] The painter was cut off by an early death, and the project was never carried out.
After visiting the halls of the Escurial and of the Pardo, Charles resolved to form a gallery of art at Whitehall; and Buckingham, at the same time, determined to decorate York House with Spanish paintings. The nucleus of the gallery of art at Whitehall was bought from the collection of the Conde de Villame. Charles, also, endeavoured to purchase a small picture, on copper, of Correggio’s, from Don Andres Velasquez, for a thousand crowns, but was unsuccessful; he failed, also, in obtaining the valuable volumes of Da Vinci’s drawings, which Don Juan de Espina refused to sell, saying that he intended to bequeath these treasures of art to his master, the King. The nobles in the Spanish Court were in the habit of gratifying their young sovereign with presents of pictures and statues; and a similar attention was paid both to the Duke of Buckingham and to Charles. Philip gave the Prince the famous “Antiope,” by Titian; as well as “Diana Bathing,” "Europa," and “Danaë,” by the same master. Buckingham had several presents of value given him; but though they were packed up, these paintings were left behind, in the hurry of departure, and were never forwarded to England.