Spain and Her Colonies, Compiled from the Best Authorities

by Unknown

Alonso Cano (born at Granada, 1601; died there, 1667) enjoys the highest reputation in Spain after Zurbaran. He was painter, sculptor, and architect, and, moreover, carved and painted wooden figures of the Virgin and Saints, an art in which he attained great success and renown. Many examples of his skill may be seen at Granada. One of the most celebrated is the statuette of St. Francis in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Toledo. Cano was a violent, but not unkindly man, constantly engaged in quarrels and lawsuits. He ended by becoming a canon of the Cathedral of Granada, after narrowly escaping from the clutches of the Inquisition. His drawing is carefully studied, but is frequently exaggerated, and wants ease and flow; his coloring conventional and somewhat weak; but there is a delicacy of expression and refinement in his works which have earned him the praise of some critics. The Madrid Gallery contains a few of his pictures: among them a “Dead Christ”; but he is best seen at Granada.

Francisco Herrera el Viejo, or the elder (b. 1576; d. 1656). His principal works are at Seville and out of Spain. The Madrid Gallery contains nothing by him. Spanish writers on art attribute to him the introduction into Spain of a new style of painting, characteristic of the national genius. It was vigorous, but coarse, and has little to recommend it even to those who admire the Italian eclectic school. Like Cano, he was a man of hot temper, quarreled with his pupils, among whom was Velasquez, and was thrown into prison on a charge of coining false money. He was released by Philip IV. on account of his merits as a painter. His best work in Spain is the “Last Judgment,” in the church of St. Bernardo at Seville, which is praised for its composition and the correct anatomy of the human form. Herrera painted in fresco, for which he was well fitted from his bold and rapid execution; but his works in that material have mostly perished.

Francisco Herrera el Mozo, or the younger (b. 1622; d. 1685), son of the former, studied at Rome, where he was chiefly known for his pictures of dead animals and still life. The Italians nicknamed him “Lo Spagnuolo dei pesci,” from his clever representations of fish. He was a painter of small merit; weak and affected in his drawing, color, and composition. The Madrid Gallery contains but one of his pictures—the “Triumph of St. Hermenegildo.” Like his father, he painted frescoes, some of which are still preserved in the churches of Madrid. He was also an architect, and made the plans for the “Virgen del Pilar” at Saragossa.

Juan de las Roelas, commonly known in Spain as “El Clerigo Roelas,” was born at Seville about 1558, and died in 1625. He studied at Venice; hence the richness and brilliancy of color in his best works, as in the fine picture of the “Martyrdom of St. Andrew,” in the Museum of Seville. In the churches of that city are some altar-pieces by him worthy of notice. He is scarcely known out of Spain, or, indeed, out of Seville, although he may be ranked among the best of the Spanish painters of the second rank. The picture in the Madrid Gallery attributed to him, if genuine, is a very inferior work.

Juan de Valdés Leal—born at Cordova in 1630, died at Seville 1691—was a painter of considerable ability, but of a hasty and jealous temper, which he especially displayed toward Murillo, the superiority of whose work he would not acknowledge. His pictures are rare, and are best seen at Seville. The Caridad in that city contains two, representing the “Triumph of Death,” which are powerful, but coarse. He was also an engraver of skill.

Francisco Rizzi, the son of a Bolognese painter who had settled in Spain, was born at Madrid in 1608, and died there in 1685. He was a rapid and not unskillful painter, and was employed to decorate in fresco, in the Italian fashion, the churches and royal palaces of the capital. His well-known picture in the Madrid Gallery representing the “Auto da Fé” held in the Plaza Mayor before Charles II. and his queen, Marie Luisa of Orleans, in 1680, although awkward and formal in composition, is cleverly painted.

Claudio Coello, died 1693, was chiefly employed by the Spanish court in portrait-painting and in decorating the royal palaces for triumphs and festivities. His best known and most important picture, in the sacristy of the Escorial, is the “Santa Forma,” or “Removal of the Miraculous Wafer of Gorcum,” in which he has introduced portraits of Charles II. and of the officers of his court. It is crowded and unskillful in composition, but has merits which show that he had preserved the best traditions of the Spanish school of painters, of whom he was almost the last.

The history of Spanish painting closes with the seventeenth century. During the eighteenth there appeared a few feeble painters who imitated, but were even immeasurably behind the Luca Giordanos, Tiepolos, and other Italians whom the Bourbon kings invited to Madrid to decorate the new royal palace, and to make designs for the royal manufactory of tapestries. The first who attempted to revive Spanish art was Francisco Goya (born in 1746), a vigorous but eccentric painter and etcher in aqua fortis, not wanting in genius. He studied at Rome, and returning to Spain executed frescoes, with little success, in churches at Madrid and elsewhere. He became “pintor de camara,” or court painter, to the weak Charles IV. and vicious Ferdinand VII. In numerous portraits of these kings and of members of the Spanish Bourbon family he made them, perhaps with deliberate malice—for in politics he was an ardent liberal—even more hideous than they were. His large picture of Charles IV. and his family in the Madrid Gallery is the best, but by no means an attractive example of his skill, and is in parts, especially in the details of costume, not altogether unworthy of Velasquez, whom he sought to imitate. But his genius was chiefly shown in his etchings, in which, in a grotesque, and not always decent way, he lashed the vices and corruption of his country, and vented his hatred against its French invaders. The Spaniards are very proud of Goya. The author of the “Guide to the Madrid Gallery” discovers in his works a union of the best qualities of Rembrandt, Titian, Paul Veronese, Watteau, and Lancret! He was, no doubt, a powerful and original painter, and his touch is often masterly; but he was incorrect in his drawing, and his color is frequently exaggerated and unnatural. His designs for the tapestries in the royal palaces are generally weak and ill-drawn; but they are interesting as representations of national manners and costume. Goya died in voluntary exile at Bordeaux in 1828, having left Spain disgusted with the political reaction which set in on the restoration of the Bourbons, and with the persecution of the best and most enlightened of his countrymen. His works have of late years been much sought after, especially in France. His etchings, consisting chiefly of political caricatures (caprichos), scenes in the bull-ring, the horrors of war, etc., are rare. A new edition has recently been published of the “Caprichos” from the worn-out plates.

Goya may be considered the founder of the modern Spanish school of painting, which has produced Fortuny, Madrazo, Plamaroli, and a number of other clever painters who have achieved a European reputation. It is not, however, in Spain, but in the private collections of London, Paris, and New York, that their principal works are to be found. Spaniards have little love or knowledge of art, and the high prices it is now the fashion to pay for Spanish pictures are beyond their means.

The history of architecture in Spain is similar to that of France and other countries of northern Europe, with, however, the essential difference that Moorish art in the Middle Ages attained in Spain as great an importance as in the East, and when combined with Christian art, a new style was formed, known by the name of Morisco or Mudejar, which is not met with out of the Spanish Peninsula, and is of great interest.