Wanderings in Spain

by Théophile Gautier

The Armeria does not come up to the ideas generally entertained of it. The Museum of Artillery at Paris is, beyond comparison, far richer and more complete. In the Armeria at Madrid there are very few entire suits, with the various portions of which they are composed belonging to one another; helmets of one period being stuck upon breastplates of another as well as of quite a different style. The reason given for this confusion is, that at the time of the French invasion all these curious relics were hidden away in lofts and other places, where they were so mixed up and jumbled together that it was subsequently impossible to reunite the different parts with any certainty. No degree of credit can therefore be placed in the description of the guides. We were shown a carriage of admirably-carved wood-work, said to be that of Joanna of Aragon, mother of Charles V., but it evidently could not be more ancient than the reign of Louis XIV. The chariot of Charles V., with its leather cushions and curtains, struck us as far more authentic. There are very few Moorish weapons: two or three shields, and a few yatagans form the whole collection. The greatest curiosities are the embroidered saddles, studded with gold and silver stars, and covered with steel scales; these are very numerous and of all kinds of strange shapes, but it is impossible to say to what period or to whom they belonged. The English admire very much a kind of triumphal hackney-coach made of wrought iron, and presented to Ferdinand somewhere about the year 1823 or 1824.

I may here mention some fountains of a very corrupt rococo style, but very amusing; the bridge of Toledo, a specimen of bad taste, very rich and highly ornamented with ovalos and chicory leaves, and a few strangely-variegated churches surmounted by Muscovite turrets. We will now direct our steps towards the Buen Retiro, a royal residence situated at the distance of a few paces from the Prado. We Frenchmen, who possess Versailles and Saint Cloud, and could formerly boast of Marly, are difficult to please in the matter of royal residences. The Buen Retiro strikes us as being the realization of the dreams of some well-to-do tallowchandler. It is a garden filled with the most ordinary but glaring flowers, and little basins ornamented with vermicular rustic rock-work, and small fountains like those we see in certain fishmongers' shops. It also contains pieces of green water, on which swim wooden swans painted white and varnished, besides an infinity of other marvels of a very ordinary description. The natives fall into ecstasies before a certain rustic pavilion built of small round blocks, the interior of which has rather strong claims to being considered Hindoo in style. The first Jardin Turc at Paris, the primitive and patriarchal Jardin Turc, with its kiosks and windows filled with small coloured panes, through which you saw a blue, green, or red landscape, was far superior both in taste and magnificence. There is also a certain Swiss cottage, which is the most ridiculous and absurd affair it is possible to imagine. At the side of this cottage is a stable, furnished with a goat and a kid both stuffed, and also with a sow of grey stone, suckling a litter of young pigs of the same material. A few paces from the cottage the guide suddenly leaves you, and opens the door in a mysterious manner. When, at last, he calls you and gives you leave to enter, you hear low rumbling of wheels and balance-weights, and find yourself in the presence of a number of frightful automatons, who are churning, spinning, or rocking, with their wooden feet, children equally wooden, and sleeping in carved cradles: in the next room is the grandfather ill in bed, while his medicine is standing on a table beside him. Such is a very accurate summary of the principal wonders of the Buen Retiro. A fine equestrian statue in bronze of Philip V., the pose of which resembles that of the statue of Louis XIV. in the Place des Victoires at Paris, makes up in some degree for all these absurdities.

MADRID.

The description of the Museum at Madrid would require a whole volume. It is rich in the extreme, and contains a very large number of the works of Titian, Raphael, Paolo Veronese, Rubens, Velasquez, Ribeira, and Murillo. The pictures are hung in an excellent light, and the architectural style of the building is tolerably good, especially in the interior. The Façade looks on the Prado, and is a specimen of bad taste, but taken altogether the building does honour to the architect, Villa Nueva, who drew the plans. After the Museum, the next place to be visited is the Cabinet of Natural History, containing the mastodon, or dinotherium giganteum, a marvellous specimen of the fossil world, with bones like bars of iron. It must at least be the behemoth mentioned in the Bible. The collection also contains a lump of virgin gold weighing sixteen pounds, a number of Chinese gongs, the sound of which, in spite of what people say, very much resembles that which is produced if you kick a copper, and a succession of pictures representing all the possible varieties which can be produced by crossing white, black, and copper-coloured races. I must not forget in the academy three admirable pictures by Murillo,—namely, the Foundation of Santa Maria Mayora (two pictures), and Saint Elizabeth washing the heads of persons afflicted with scurvy; two or three admirable Ribeiras; a Burial, by El Greco, some portions of which are worthy of Titian; a fantastic sketch by the same artist, representing monks performing different acts of penance, and surpassing the most mysterious and gloomy creations of Lewis or Anne Radcliffe; and a charming woman in Spanish costume, lying on a divan, by the good old Goya, that pre-eminently national painter, who seems to have come into the world expressly to collect the last vestiges of the ancient manners and customs of his country, which were about to disappear for ever.

Francisco Goya y Lucientes, was the last who could be recognised as a descendant of Velasquez. After him come Aparicio, Lopez, and others of the same stamp. The decadence of art is complete: the cyclus is closed! Who shall ever recommence it? Goya is, indeed, a strange painter—a most singular genius! Never was originality more decided—never was a Spanish painter more local. One of Goya's sketches, consisting of four touches of his graver in a cloud of aquatint, tells you more about the manners of the country than the longest description. From his adventurous kind of life, his impetuosity, and his manifold talents, Goya seems to belong to the best period of the art; and yet he was in some sort a contemporary, having died at Bordeaux in 1828.

Before attempting to judge his works, let us give a summary sketch of his biography. Don Francisco Goya y Lucientes was born in Aragon. His parents were not affluent, but their circumstances were sufficiently easy to offer no obstacle to his natural talents. His taste for drawing and painting was developed at an early age. He travelled, studied for some time at Rome, and returned to Spain, where he very soon made a fortune at the court of Charles IV., who conferred on him the title of Painter to the King. He was received at the Queen's, the Prince of Benavente's, and the Duchess d'Alba's; and lived in the same grand style as Rubens, Van Dyck, and Velasquez—a mode of existence so highly favourable to the development of picturesque genius. He had, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, a delicious casa de campo, where he used to give fêtes, and where he had his studio.

Goya was very prolific; he painted sacred subjects, frescoes, portraits, and sketches of manners, besides producing etchings, aquatints, and lithographic drawings. In everything he did, even in the slightest sketches, he gave proof of the most vigorous talent; the hand of the lion is evident in his most careless works. Although his talent was perfectly original, it is a strange mixture of Velasquez, Rembrandt, and Reynolds; reminding you in turns, or at the same time, of all these masters, but as the son reminds you of his ancestors, without any servile imitation,—or rather, more by a certain congeniality of taste than by any formal wish.