Two Months In Spain
During The Late Revolution.
MADRID.
Monday, Oct. 19.
We visit the "Museo" to-day—the richest picture-gallery in the world. Ten Raphaels, forty-six Murillos, sixty-two Rubens, sixty-four Velasquez, forty-three Titians, etc. But even Raphael's "Perla," (that holy family called the Pearl,) even his "Spasmo de Silicia," (Christ falling beneath the cross,) even Guido's exquisite Magdalen and Spagnoletto's "Jacob's Dream," even these great pictures sink to nothingness beside Murillo's "Annunciation," his "Adoration of the Shepherds," "Eleazar at the Well," "The Martyrdom of St. Andrew," the "Divine Shepherd," the Infant Saviour giving St. John to drink from a shell, called "Los Niños de la Concha," the "Vision of St. Bernard," and those wonderful "Conceptions" which embody "all that is most sublime and ecstatic in devotion and in the representation of divine love."
The more one sees of Murillo, the more one is convinced that he is the greatest painter of the world. Others may have points of excellence superior to his; but his subjects are so full of piety and tenderness, so fascinating in coloring, and appeal so at once to the heart and the common sense of mankind, that they please at once the learned and the unlearned. The Spaniards say of him that he painted "Con leche y sangre," with milk and blood, so wonderful are his flesh tints.
The "Spasmo de Silicia" is so called from the convent for which it was painted, "St. Maria della Spasima," in Palermo. "The Virgin's Trance on the way to Calvary" is considered by some critics only second to the "Transfiguration."
The "Perla" is so named because Philip IV., beholding it for the first time, exclaimed, "This is the pearl of my pictures." It belonged to the Duke of Mantua, was bought by Charles I., and was sold with his other pictures by the "tasteless puritans and reformers."
Tuesday, Oct. 20.
Spend another hour in the "Museo," looking at the pictures of the Flemish and Dutch schools—fifty-three Teniers, twenty-two Van Eycks, fifty-four Breughels, twenty-three Snyders, ten Wouvermans, etc. A wonderful gallery, so rich in great masters.
We then go to see the "House of the Congress," which is handsomely decorated. The ministers' bench is here blue, while the others are red.