seems to have found peculiar relief in the sentimental aspirations of the followers of Raphael in the rendering of religious subjects from the Romish point of view. At the present time we are readier to estimate Murillo's justly high place in the annals of painting by such a picture as his own portrait, lent by Lord Spencer to the recent Exhibition, than to allow it on the strength of our recollection of the Madonnas and Holy Families, Immaculate Conceptions and Assumptions, of which there exist so many copies in the dining rooms of country rectories. The Boy Drinking, which is here reproduced, if it is the least "important" of the four examples in the National Gallery, is certainly not the least excellent.
From the miserable state into which Spain had fallen by the end of the seventeenth century, it could hardly be expected that anything further in the nature of art would result, and it was not until towards the end of the eighteenth that another genius arose, in the person of Francisco Goya (1746-1828). Of this extraordinary phenomenon in the firmament of art it is impossible to say more than a very few words in this place. Like a meteor, he is rather to be pointed at than talked about, when there are so many stars and planets whose regular courses have to be observed and recorded. He was like a sharp knife drawn across the face of Spain, gashing it here and there, but for the most part just touching it lightly enough to sting and to leave a mark. As a Court painter he was an unqualified success, his salary under Charles IV. rising in ten years from 15,000 to 50,000 reals; but his official productions are not the less devoid of interest on that account, and are sometimes the more satirical from the necessity for concealment. In his more outspoken works, such as the Disasters of War, and the series of prints called Los Caprichos and Tauromachia, he is too brutal not to affect the ordinary observer's judgment upon his artistic qualities. Velasquez himself could scarcely stop short enough, when painting dwarfs and idiots and cripples, to let us admire his genius unhampered by shivers of repulsion. Goya, being exactly the opposite of Velasquez in temperament, had no scruples about expressing the utmost of his subject; and even in decorating a church was reproved for "falling short of the standard of chastity" required. But between the extremes of brutality and conventionalism there is such a wide expanse of pure joy of painting that nothing can diminish the reputation of Goya, however much it is likely to be enhanced. To the modern Spanish painter he is probably as fixed a beacon as Velasquez.
FLEMISH SCHOOL
I
HUBERT AND JAN VAN EYCK
In 1383, on the death of Louis de Maele, his son-in-law Philip the Hardy, Duke of Burgundy, assumed the government of Flanders. In the same year Philip founded the Carthusian Convent at Dijon and employed a Flemish painter named Melchin Broederlam to embellish two great shrines within it. To the strong-handed policy of Philip and his successors during the ensuing century may be attributed the rise of Netherlandish art which, though existing before their time, required their vigorous repression of intestine feuds to give it an opportunity of developing. Under Louis and his predecessors Flanders and its cities had risen to great commercial importance, but its rulers had neither the strength nor the prestige to keep the turbulent spirit of their subjects in due bounds. The school of painting which now arose so rapidly to perfection under the Dukes of Burgundy thus owed a portion of its progress to the wealth and independence of the commercial classes. The taste, power, and cultivation of a Court gave it an additional spur; and the clergy throwing in their weight, added their support in aid of art.
Two wings of one of the Dijon shrines are still preserved in the museum there, and in these Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle observe the characteristics of much that was to follow:—"Although Melchior's style was founded on the study of the painters of the Rhine, his composition was similar to the later productions of the Flemish school. A tendency to realism already marks this early Fleming, and is the distinctive feature of a manner in which the painter strives to imitate nature in its most material forms. Idealism and noble forms are lacking, but Broederlam is a fair imitator of the truth. Distinctive combination and choice of colours in draperies, and vigorous tone, characterise him as they do the early works at Bruges and other cities of the Netherlands which may be judged by his standard." And again, "the painter evidently struggled between the desire to give a material imitation, and the inspirations of graceful teachers like those of Cologne.... Penetrated with similar ideas the early Flemings might under similar circumstances have risen to a sweet and dignified conception of nature; and if we fail to discover that they attained this aim we must attribute the failure to causes peculiar to Flanders. Amongst these we may class the social status of the Flemish painters, whose positions in the household of princes subjected them perhaps to caprices unfavourable to the development of high aspirations, or the contemplation and free communion with self which are the soul of art."