His successor, Charles III., an artist of some repute himself, sincerely loved and generously fostered the arts. While King of the Two Sicilies, he had dragged into the light of day the long-lost wonders of Herculaneum and Pompeii; and when called to the throne of Spain and the Indies, he manifested his sense of the obligations due from royalty to art, by conferring fresh privileges on the Academy of St Ferdinand, and founding two new academies, one in Valencia, the other in Mexico. If Mengs and Tiepolo, and other mediocrities, were the best living painters his patronage could discover, it is evident from his ultra-protectionist decree against the exportation of Murillo's, pictures, that he fully appreciated the works of the mighty dead; and, had his spirit animated Spanish officials, many a masterpiece that now mournfully, and without meaning, graces the Hermitage at St Petersburg, or the Louvre at Paris, would still be hanging over the altar, or adorning the refectory for which it was painted, at Seville or Toledo. Even Charles IV., "the drivelling tool of Godoy," was a collector of pictures, and founder of an academy. In his disastrous reign flourished Francisco Goya y Lucientes, the last Spanish painter who has obtained a niche in the Temple of Fame. Though portraits and caricatures were his forte, in that venerable museum of all that is beautiful in Spanish Art—the cathedral at Toledo—is to be seen a fine religious production of his pencil, representing the Betrayal of our Lord. But he loved painting at, better than for the church; and those who have examined and wondered at the grotesque satirical carvings of the stalls in the cathedral at Manchester, will be able to form some idea of Goya's anti-monkish caricatures. Not Lord Mark Kerr, when giving the rein to his exuberant fancy, ever devised more ludicrous or repulsive "monsters" than this strange successor to the religious painters of orthodox Spain. But when the vice, and intrigues, and imbecility of the royal knives and fools, whom his ready graver had exposed to popular ridicule, had yielded to the unsupportable tyranny of French invaders, the same indignant spirit that hurried the water-carriers of Madrid into unavailing conflict with the troops of Murat, guided his caustic hand against the fierce oppressors of his country; and, while Gilray was exciting the angry contempt of all true John Bulls at the impudence of the little Corsican upstart, Goya was appealing to his countrymen's bitter experience of the tender mercies of the French invaders. He died at Bordeaux in 1828. Mr Stirling closes his labours with a graceful tribute to those of Cean Bermudez, "the able and indefatigable historian of Spanish art, to whose rich harvest of valuable materials I have ventured to add the fruit of my own humble gleanings—" a deserved tribute, and most handsomely rendered. But, before we dismiss this pleasant theme of Spanish art, we would add one artist more to the catalogue of Spanish painters—albeit, that artist is a Bourbon!
Near the little town of Azpeitia, in Biscay, stands the magnificent college of the Jesuits, built on the birth-place of Ignatius Loyola. Here, in a low room at the top of the building, are shown a piece of the bed in which he died, and his autograph; and here among its cool corridors and ever-playing fountains, in 1839, was living the royal painter—the Infante Don Sebastian. A strange spectacle, truly, did that religious house present in the summer of 1839: wild Biscayan soldiers and dejected Jesuits, red boynas and black cowls, muskets and crucifixes, oaths and benedictions, crossed and mingled with each other in picturesque, though profane disorder; and here, released from the cares of his military command, and free to follow the bent of his disposition, the ex-commander-in-chief of the Carlist forces was quietly painting altar-pieces, and dashing off caricatures. In the circular church which, of exquisite proportions, forms the centre of the vast pile, and is beautiful with fawn-coloured marble and gold, hung a large and well-painted picture of his production; and those who are curious in such matters may see a worse specimen of his royal highness's skill in Pietro di Cortona's church of St Luke at Rome. On one side of the altar is Canova's beautiful statue of Religion preaching; on the other the Spanish prince's large picture of the Crucifixion; but, alas! it must be owned that the inspiration which guided Velasquez to his conception of that sublime subject was denied to the royal amateur. In the academy of St Luke, adjoining the church, is a well-executed bust of Canova, by the Spanish sculptor Alvarez. We suspect that, like Goya, the Infante would do better to stick to caricature, in which branch of art many a pleasant story is told of his proficiency. Seated on a rocky plateau, which, if commanding a view of Bilbao and its defenders, was also exposed to their fire, 'tis said the royal artist would amuse himself and his staff with drawing the uneasy movements, and disturbed countenances, of some unfortunate London reporters, who, attached to the Carlist headquarters, were invited by the commander-in-chief to attend his person, and enjoy the perilous honour of his company. Be this, however, as it may, we think we have vindicated the claim of one living Bourbon prince to be admitted into the roll of Spanish painters in the next edition of the Annals.
In these tumultuous days, when
"Royal heads are haunted like a maukin,"
over half the Continent, and even in steady England grave merchants and wealthy tradesmen are counselling together on how little their sovereign can be clothed and fed, and all things are being brought to the vulgar test of L. s. d., it is pleasant to turn to the artistic annals of a once mighty empire like Spain, and see how uniformly, for more than five hundred years, its monarchs have been the patrons, always munificent, generally discriminating, of the fine arts—how, from the days of Isabella the Catholic, to those of Isabella the Innocent, the Spanish sceptre has courted, not disdained, the companionship of the pencil and the chisel. Mr Stirling has enriched his pages with many an amusing anecdote illustrative of this royal love of art, and suggestive, alas! of the painful reflection, that the future annalist of the artists of England will find great difficulty in scraping together half-a-dozen stories of a similar kind. With the one striking exception of Charles I., we know not who among our sovereigns can be compared, as a patron of art, to any of the Spanish sovereigns, from Charles V. of the Austrian to Charles III. of the Bourbon race. Lord Hervey has made notorious George II's ignorance and dislike of art. Among the many noble and kingly qualities of his grandson, we fear a love and appreciation of art may not be reckoned; and although, in his intercourse with men of genius, George IV. was gracious and generous, what can be said in favour of his taste and discernment? The previous life of William IV., the mature age at which he ascended the throne, and the troublous character of his reign, explain why art received but slight countenance from the court of the frank and noble-hearted Sailor Prince; but we turn with hope to the future. The recent proceedings in the Court of Chancery have made public a fact, already known to many, that her Majesty wields with skilful hand a graceful graver, and the Christmas plays acted at Windsor are a satisfactory proof that English art and genius are not exiled from England's palaces. The professors, then, of that art which Velasquez and Rubens, Murillo and Vandyck practised, shall yet see that the Crown of England is not only in ancient legal phrase, "the Fountain of Honour," but that it loves to direct its grateful streams in their honoured direction. Free was the intercourse, unfettered the conversation, independent the relations, between Titian and Charles V., Velasquez and Philip IV.; let us hope that Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, will yet witness a revival of those palmy days of English art, when Inigo Jones, and Vandyck, and Cowley, Waller, and Ben Jonson, shed a lustre on the art-loving court of England!
The extracts we have given from Mr Stirling's work will have sufficiently shown the scope of the Annals, and the spirit and style in which they are written. There is no tedious, inflexible, though often unmanageable leading idea, or theory of art, running through these lively volumes. In the introduction, whatever is to be said on the philosophy of Spanish art is carefully collected, and the reader is thenceforward left at liberty to carry on the conclusions of the introduction with him in his perusal of the Annals, or to drop them at the threshold. We would, however, strongly recommend all who desire to appreciate Spanish art, never to forget that she owes all her beauty and inspiration to Spanish nature and Spanish religion. Remember this, O holyday tourist along the Andalusian coast, or more adventurous explorer of Castile and Estremadura, and you will not be disappointed with her productions. Mr Stirling has not contented himself with doing ample justice to the great painters, and slurring over the comparatively unknown artists, whose merits are in advance of their fame, but has embraced in his careful view the long line of Spanish artists who have flourished or faded in the course of nearly eight hundred years; and he has accomplished this difficult task, not in the plodding spirit of a Dryasdust, or with the curt dulness of a catalogue-monger, but with the discriminating good taste of an accomplished English gentleman, and in a style at once racy and rhetorical. There are whole pages in the Annals as full of picturesque beauty as the scenes or events they describe, and of melody, as an Andalusian summer's eve; indeed, the vigorous fancy and genial humour of the author have, on some few occasions, led him to stray from those strict rules of ������������, which we are old-fashioned enough to wish always observed. But where the charms and merits are so great, and so many, and the defects so few and so small, we may safely leave the discovery of the latter to the critical reader, and satisfy our conscience by expressing a hope that, when Mr Stirling next appears in the character of author—a period not remote, we sincerely trust—he will have discarded those few scentless flowers from his literary garden, and present us with a bouquet—
"Full of sweet buds and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie."
But if he never again put pen to paper, in these annals of the artists of Spain he has given to the reading public a work which, for utility of design, patience of research, and grace of language, merits and has won the highest honours of authorship.