LAS HILANDERAS (THE WEAVERS)VELASQUEZTHE PRADO
momment. How extraordinarily the arrest of action is suggested! Remark particularly the gesture of the three, who have suddenly halted in the sequence of their several hammer strokes. It is the figure of the god only that seems out of place and touch with the rest. It is disagreeably prettified, stiff and formal in gesture, with affected disposition of the drapery. It seems to be an academic solecism amid the naturalness of the scene.
The second point of interest is that in this picture Velasquez shows the first marked feeling for tone. There is no brilliance here or richness of hues, such as makeLos Borrachosglow like magnificent enamels. The color-scheme is very reserved; drab, relieved with white flesh, brownish black tools and armor and the golden-amber of Apollo’s drapery. It shows the artist already feeling toward color as light; multiplying values rather than hues; studying the local hues in the variety of the light upon them, instead of applying to them an arbitrary chiaroscuro; even contriving to give to his whole scene a certain envelope of atmosphere. The figure, raised at the back, scarcely takes its proper place in the aerial perspective; otherwise the scene, barring the artificial halo of the god, represents an immense step in naturalistic expression.
We pass to the superb equestrian portraits of the littleDon Carlos,Olivares, andThe King. I wish it had been possible to reproduce all three in these pages; for, while they are all superbly decorative, magnificently large in expression and thrilling with force, they represent differences of psychological feeling. That of theCarlos, the darling of the Court, is sprightly andlovable;bravuradistinguishes the ostentatious pleasure-loving courtier-favorite, while a kingly gravity, tinged with the artist’s affection, ennobles thePhilip(p. 96). The boy bounds forward from the landscape;Olivarescaracoles toward it, pointing to imaginary exploits; the King is placed athwart it, his figure quietly dominating space. How carefully Velasquez calculated this last effect is clear from the fact that two strips of canvas have been stitched on to the sides of the original piece. The artist evidently felt the need of more space to secure for the figure the required ascendancy. It was a frequent practice of his to add a piece to the top or sides of his canvas, which, as R. A. M. Stevenson, himself an artist, has remarked, throws a light on Velasquez’s method of work. He does not appear to have made careful original studies of his subjects, a fact corroborated by the very few drawings that he left behind. He rather seems to have attacked his subject immediately on canvas, pushing it hotly forward to realise his mental picture, and then, if necessary, adjusting the size of his canvas to secure a final unity of feeling. For the same purpose also he sometimes changed the drawing, as he proceeded, painting over the original design which now frequently shows through. In this equestrian Philip IV, for instance, even the photograph will show how he has altered the disposition of the horse’s legs, bringing them nearer together, as if he had felt that the more scattered positions detached from the quietude and dignity of the ensemble.
The horse in this portrait as compared with that of theOlivaresis deficient in splendor of muscular action.It is more monumental, the brownish bay mass forming a magnificent support to the black armored figure, with its pale rose sash. Philip was justly regarded the finest horseman of his day. Observe the seat of the figure, how absolutely its action is adjusted to that of the horse. Note, also, that while the masses of the landscape support the horse’s mass, the king’s figure shows free against the spaces of dove-grey sky; his black beaver with its white and plum-colored plume lifting proudly against the white cloud. Compare this setting of the hat upon the head, with the respectively different treatment of the same details in the other two portraits. Each is psychologically related to its subject. Compare also the scintillating liveliness of the child’s embroidered costume and fluttering scarfs, so birdlike in gaiety of plumage, with the sumptuous bravado of Olivares’ gold-fringed, wine-red damask-silk bow, and his gold-striped armor—the whole effect intentionally a trifleoutré. What a contrast of grave dignity in the King’s damascened breast-plate, brown velvet, gold-embroidered breeches, greyish drab gloves, pale buff boots and deep plum-red sash that floats over the horse’s stern! In the ensemble of concentrated, controlled stateliness the only flashes of accented energy are the horse’s white fetlock and his superbly animated nostril and eye.
In his first period Velasquez painted an historical subject,The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain; but the picture perished in the burning of the Alcázar in 1734. TheSurrender of Bredais therefore the only example of his work in this genre. It was executedafter his first visit to Italy, where he had seen how Titian and Tintoretto utilised such subjects for palace decorations. Velasquez, true to himself, has tried to represent the scene as it actually might have happened, yet with certain formalities of balanced masses, to meet its decorative purpose. The picture, in fact, presents a mixture and, if one may dare to say it of a picture so famed, a confusion, of motive. The result is neither frankly an historical picture, such as Velasquez would have imagined it and rendered it, if his intention had been single; nor is it satisfactory as a decoration. The pattern of the composition is handsome. So too its coloring, which includes a lovely blue sky, fleeced with white; fainter blue and bluish-green and warm drab distance; blue coated troops in the middle distance; and deep sapphire blue in the squares of the flag on the right and in the breeches of the man whose white shirt shows against a black horse on the left of the center, and lastly in the costume of the man with a gun over his shoulder on the extreme left. The coat of the adjoining figure is brownish buff; the horse on the right, dark reddish brown. Spinola is clad in black armor, studded with gold; Justin of Nassau in brown and gold. All this is highly decorative, but not of itself sufficient to produce a decoration. For the secret of a decoration lies in the treatment of the planes, so that a sense of flatness may be preserved. There is nothing of that here; the bulk and depth of the foreground masses contradict it. The front figures of the man on the left and the horse opposite are alone sufficient to prevent a mural feeling. On the other hand, from the point ofview of an historical picture, the attempt to treat the groups as masses, seen against the background, has resulted in a certain confusion of their planes, and in a general lack of interesting suggestion in their details. Only the treatment of the two principal figures is entirely satisfying. Nothing could exceed the beautiful expressiveness of the conqueror’s noble condescension and the no less dignified humility of the conquered. To this, the heart and soul of the conception, the rest comes near to being but an ornamental and rather distracting surplusage.
Of the three sportsmen portraits, that of theKingis again the finest. That of his youngest brother,Don Ferdinand of Austria, is a somewhat earlier work, painted, possibly, before the artist’s visit to Italy; and the littleDon Carlos, charming as it is, has lost a portion of its canvas (it is suggested that it may have been cut from its frame to save it at the time of the fire), so that the composition has not the consummate propriety and dignity of the King’s portrait. The latter is also distinguished by the masterly discretion of its tonality, which is based on brown. The tree trunk is brown; the foliage brownish olive; the cap and doublet lighter tones of the same and the trunks and gaiters darker; the gun, light brown and the glove drab brown; the dog, orange-tawny. Thus the figures and tree count as one handsome mass, in which the predominant spot is the pale face, set off by the soft, blond chestnut hair. The sleeve of the undercoat is black and silver, forming a thread of minor emphasis to connect the head and the gloved hand, the latter so full of character andtechnical distinction. The background of landscape is composed of a stretch of tawny drab grass, sloping up to bluish trees, seen against a grey sky, curdled with cream.
A fine example of the numerous portraits of dwarfs and actors, is that of the buffoon, nicknamedDon Juan de Austria(p. 100). The figure is shown in a drab grey interior, from which a door opens on to a view of sea-shore and a burning ship. The costume is of black velvet and a peculiarly subtle pale claret-colored silk. The expression of the man is one of concentration, to the suggestion of which every part of the figure so curiously and completely contributes its share, uniting in a perfect ensemble of feeling. In the atmospheric envelope and extreme choiceness of color this canvas is a worthy prelude to the masterpieces of the final period.
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To one of the latter allusion has already been made: thePhilip IVof the National Gallery. How infallibly just is the placing of the black bust and head against the dark background! With whatfinessehave been calculated the accents of the chain and ornaments and collar, in order to secure and at the same time alleviate the emphasis of the empty, solemn head with its puffed, waxy features and soft, pallid hair! How absolutely a unit is the whole impression! while the brush work is thene plus ultraof impressionistic technique.
A miracle of painting also is presented in the portrait of a child, identified variously asDoña MargaritaorDoña María Teresa, and in that of the not much olderDoña Mariana de Austria, Philip’s second wife
LAS MENIÑAS (THE MAIDS OF HONOR)VELASQUEZTHE PRADO
(p. 119). The child’s “guarda-infante” is of cloth of silver, woven diagonally with pale rose silk, all ashimmer with veiled lustre. Vermilion bows adorn her waist, a jeweled rosette of the same color her corsage, while a small rosette under the left ear and a plume on the right of the head, both vermilion, set off the soft straw-colored hair and the fresh tender hues of her face. Curtain and carpet are a rosy crimson, thus completing a tonal scheme of exquisitely delicate vivacity. In the second portrait the Queen’s robe is of black velvet, shot with brown, decorated with silver bullion. Notes of poppy scarlet appear at her wrists, while a pale scarlet mingled with silver is the color of the plume and of the ribbon flowers in her hair. The curtain, in color pale rosy burgundy, frames a dark olive background, a concavity of atmosphere, in the half-light of which appears a dainty gold clock upon a table. These two canvases are marvels of technical achievement and surpassing loveliness. A head and bust-portrait of this Queen, apparently in the same costume, hangs in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
A broader method, in which one strongly feels the exhilaration of the brushstrokes, is represented in theÆsopusandMoenippus. The grizzled black hair and pallid features of the former show against a warm drab-olive background. In the lower right corner is a spot of black and creamy fabric; opposite to it a creamy colored bowl; otherwise the figure is a study in browns of peculiarly fine quality. The background of theMoenippusis somewhat colder than theÆsopus; in key with the black cloak. The cap, boots, and the tableand pitcher are of tones of brown; the beard is grey and the flesh of the face ripely rubicund. Even in the photograph one can appreciate the masterful breadth of the draperies, and feel through the modulation of the values the bulk of the figure beneath.
TheVenusof the National Gallery, if it is to be reckoned among the works of Velasquez, is his only example of a female nude. While it attracts at first, it subsequently proves disappointing. In the emptiness of the back it is hard to recognise the hand of the master, who in early days modeled so skilfully the man’s back in theForge of Vulcanand whose modeling generally is so masterly and full of interest. Nor can we easily reconcile with his unerring truth of observation the drawing of the reflection in the mirror, which instead of being smaller than the real head is somewhat larger. Moreover the red of the curtain and general color scheme lack the choiceness and subtlety of the canvases of the latest period, to which theVenusis assigned.
We reach now the two celebrated masterpieces:Las Hilanderas, (The Weavers), (p. 109) andLas Meniñas, (Maids of Honor) (p. 114). They are very different. Both are triumphs alike of science and of inspired vision; yet, by comparison, I should distinguish theMaids of Honoras a miracle of vision, the other as a marvel of science. For we may be conscious of the science in the one and lose thought of it entirely in the other. InLas Meniñasthe unity of the ensemble seems as artless as the scene depicted; inLas Hilanderasit is perhaps less complete, certainly less simple and seems to suggest theconsummate knowledge needed to achieve it. The interest of the former pervades the whole chamber and centers in the little princess. That ofLas Hilanderas, seems, at least at first, to be distributed into three parts, and the focus point for the eye—Where is it?
Studying the two pictures, as is possible in the Prado, since they hang upon the same wall, near enough for the eye to travel backward and forward from one to the other, one discovers, I believe, that the problem involved in each is the reverse of that of the other.Las Meniñasshows a partially lighted interior, with the chief light on the little figure in the foreground; while the problem of the other picture is a dimly lighted, or rather darkened foreground, and a fully lighted background. InLas Hilanderas, in fact, the artist’s chief motive was the alcove, pervaded by a clear light that illumines the blues, greys and pale rose of the tapestry. Velasquez had seen it so and realised how the effect was heightened by the dimness of the spot in which he stood. Conscious of this, one begins to understand that the focus point of this picture is the shaded dull-red figure in the center of the middle distance. But it is a focus point of departure; not, as inLas Meninas, designed to draw our attention to it, but to direct it to the lighted space behind. When once we have recognised this, order begins to establish itself in what seemed to be the divided interest of the canvas. The beautiful figure, on the right, of the girl in a white chemise no longer holds our attention too exclusively. We see in her the artist’s twofold purpose of explaining the front plane of his scene, and pointing through the shaded figure to hismain motive. We have discovered the proper view of sight; it is in front of this girl, looking diagonally toward the alcove, and the group on the left is introduced to balance the composition. Yet even now, after one thinks one has captured the secret of the unity of the ensemble, so cunningly achieved, the beautiful figure of the girl on the right of the foreground may arrest our interest and distract it from the whole. It is because of this, that for my own part, there seems to be more of science than of inspiration in this vision.
Not so withLas Meniñas. Here one forgets to analyse—there is no need to do so—one simply accepts the scene and feels its consummate truth. How consummate it is, only familiarity with the original can reveal. It is a truth that grows upon the consciousness, stimulating it to demand more and yet more difficult tests of its truthfulness, and satisfying every one. And the unity which is the secret of the truth has not been obtained by monotony of hue. The canvas is alive with color, strong notes of most vivacious hue. The Princess’s dress is creamy silver with a bunch of rose on her breast. This rosy note is echoed in varying tones: in the glass that is being presented to her; on the artist’s palette; in the curtain reflected in the mirror at the back where the King and Queen appear; in the bright cuff ribbons on the silvery grey dress of the maid-in-waiting on the right, and in the dull rose costume of the child on the extreme right. The dwarf next to him wears a dress of slaty blue, decorated with silver; the kneeling maid, a greenish grey upper dress over a skirt of deep greyish green, and Velasquez himself is in black. But
DOÑA MARIANA DE AUSTRIAVELASQUEZTHE PRADO
the mere enumeration of the colors gives no idea of their positive vivacity, as they show out brilliantly in the light, and none of the marvellous realisation of the textures. Nothing has been evaded; nothing seems to have given the artist a moment’s pause or difficulty. Yet, when all is said, the greatest marvel is the concavity of the drab-grey room, filled with luminous atmosphere; clear, around the foreground figures, but with infinite nuances of clearness, melting into varieties of penetrable mystery in the receding perspective. In the whole scene not a trace of evasion or confusion! Everything is readily comprehended, because rendered with immediate precision, as if in a moment of infallible improvisation.
Las Meniñaswas not only the matured achievement of Velasquez’s long research into the effect of light upon color and upon their relations to one another in space; it was a new kind of picture. It is composed, built up of light. According to older conventions of composition the large space above the figures would be considered empty. But here it is not empty; it is filled with tones of light, with luminous aerial perspective that balances the group of lighted forms below. Possibly the photograph may not convey this impression to one who has not seen the original. But in the presence of the latter there can be no doubt of it. The upper part is as full of material as the lower; we may even find it more beautiful, because so infinitely subtle and stimulating to the imagination. Never before or since has the truth of natural appearances been so marvellously rendered, or the beauty of every day truth been soheightened by the artist’s inspired imagination.Las Meniñasis an apocalypse, the revelation of a supreme vision.
In the decline of Spanish art and the general interest of Europe in Italianate and rococo motives, Velasquez during the eighteenth century was forgotten. Toward the end of that century, however, Goya derived inspiration from his works, and nearly a hundred years later Manet, Whistler and others rediscovered him. His example has been the chief influence in leading the world back to regard a painting as a work of art, and in teaching the painter himself the technique that will entitle it to be so considered. The duration of his influence has corresponded with the vogue of naturalism which has prevailed in Literature and the Fine Arts, a reflex action of the general scientific attitude of the time. The vogue is passing, and Velasquez’s immediateinfluencemay grow less. But hisreputationwill endure, because it is founded upon the lasting foundation of “truth, not painting.”
ATWOFOLD interest attaches to Juan Bautista de Mazo, the pupil and son-in-law of Velasquez. In the first place, he was employed by his master to copy many of the latter’s pictures, so that he is involved in the controversies which have arisen over their attribution. Secondly, he was himself an original portrait painter, and practically the only representative of landscape painting in the Spanish School.
Mazo was a native of Madrid, the date of his birth being placed approximately in 1612, because he is reported to have lived a little over fifty years, and his death took place in 1667. It is not known when he entered the studio of Velasquez, but he married the latter’s daughter, Francisca, in 1634. The King signalised his approval of the marriage by relieving Velasquez of his duties as Usher of the Chamber and transferring them to Mazo. The young people made their home with their parents-in-law, and Mazo worked in constant companionship with Velasquez until the latter’s death. He seems to have had a remarkable faculty of imitation, for Palomino, writing shortly after Mazo’s death, says: “He was so skilled as a copyist, especially with regard to the works of his master, that it is hardly possible to distinguish the copies from the originals. I have seen some copies of his, after pictures by Tintoretto, Veronese and Titian, which are now in the possession of his heirs. If these copies were produced in Italy, where his talent is unknown, they would be taken without any doubt for originals.” Velasquez utilised this ability of his pupil, as Rubens and Rembrandt made use respectively of theirs, to assist him in part or in whole. Copies of his pictures were required by the King for presentation to members of the Royal Family of Austria, to ambassadors and others to whom he wished to show special favor. In some cases Velasquez himself made a replica, more often, because of the interruptions of his Court duties and the stress of other work, would employ Mazo to make a copy, leaving it intact or touching it up as the case might be.
An example of one of these copies, according to Señor Beruete, is thePhilip IV as Sportsman, of the Louvre. He assigns it as a copy, made by Mazo, of the original that is now in the Prado. There is a slight difference between the two. In the Louvre picture the King holds his cap with the left hand on his hip; in the Prado the cap appears upon the head. This was an alteration, subsequently made by Velasquez, for one can still trace in the original picture a dark mass over the hip, where the under-painting shows through. The copy, therefore, must have been made before the alteration.
An example of an original by Mazo, which has passed as a Velasquez, is, according to Señor Beruete, the celebrated portrait ofAdmiral Adrian Pulido Parejain the National Gallery. It is signed with the name of
DOÑA MARIANA DE AUSTRIAMAZOTHE PRADO
Velasquez in Latin. But the Spanish critic points out that, while a signature itself is no proof of authenticity, this one differs in matter and character from the only other three instances of the signature of Velasquez on a picture. These are on undoubted works of the master: the full-lengthPhilip IVin the National Gallery, the portrait ofPope Innocent Xin the Doria Gallery, and the fragment of a picture which is preserved in the Royal Palace in Madrid. Studying the technical qualities of theAdmiraland comparing them with those of undoubted examples of the same period in Velasquez’s career, Señor Beruete reaches, in brief, the following conclusions. The figure does not stand firmly on its feet; the latter and the legs are badly shaped; the hat looks like a sack; its curve is prolonged by that of the left arm and both are parallel to the curve of the body; the hands are poorly modeled; the baton is held without distinction, the silhouette of the whole figure is neither sure nor beautiful, and the masses lack just disposition and balance. The whole is without the distinction, sureness of touch andbriothat characterise all the authentic portraits of Velasquez. It is a fine work by a painter of less power than Velasquez, but bears so strong a resemblance to his style, that it can be by no other than his pupil, Mazo. For other pictures, hitherto supposed to be by Velasquez but now claimed by Señor Beruete for his pupil, the reader is referred to the Spanish critic’s book: “The School of Madrid.”
With thePortrait of Doña Mariana of Austria(p. 122), the second wife of Philip IV, we reach an unquestioned original by Mazo. It is the same subject as inVelasquez’s portrait (p. 119), only the girl-bride has now become a girl-mother. Her child, the Infanta Margarita, about four years old, appears in the rear with attendants and a dwarf. It is a drab interior rather reminiscent of that inLas Meniñas. The crimson curtain and chair and the Queen’s pose, on the other hand, recall Velasquez’s portrait, just mentioned. The suggestion, in fact, throughout is Velasquez, but not the handling and the style. Compare, for example, the hand on the chair in the one portrait and the other. In the Mazo there is an absence of modeling and character. How characterless also the line of the right arm, and wanting in decision and distinction the whole silhouette of the figure. Yet the picture has a very great charm of refinement and tender feeling.
Another probable original by Mazo in the Prado (No. 1083),Portrait of Prince Baltasar Carlos, is attributed to Velasquez in the official catalogue. It is one of a number of similar attributions that surprise the visitor to the Prado. The portrait in question shows the Prince, now in his fourteenth year, standing with his left hand upon the back of a chair, while his right hangs gracefully, holding a plumed hat. The figure is entirely in black against a drab background. There is no picture by Velasquez, known to exist, from which this could be a copy. That it is not an original by the master is evident in the softness an indecision of the drawing, and the actually bad drawing of the right leg which does not connect properly with the hip. It is therefore assumed with probability to be an original by Mazo, and the fault of drawing is explained by the fact that hewas only twenty-four years old when he painted it. This picture has an undeniable elegance, but falls very short of Mazo’sDoña Marianain accomplishment.
However, both the originality and the capacity of Mazo are best displayed in his landscapes, which have now been collected into one of the upper galleries of the Prado. As we have noted, Mazo is the single great landscape painter of the old Spanish School. While the contemporary School of Holland, in the persons of Ruisdael, Van Goyen, Hobbema, Cuyp and many others, was developing landscape as an independent branch of art and carrying it to a high level of representation and expression, the Spanish School, with the exception of Mazo, still used it in subordination to the figure. Considering that both schools were influenced by the naturalistic motive, how is one to account for this difference? Probably in the fact that, while the Dutch artists were in a great measure painting to please themselves and choosing their own subjects, the Spanish artists worked directly under the patronage of Royalty and the Church. Portraiture and religious subjects were the only work demanded of them. Added to this may be the fact that the Dutch ideal was democratic, the Spanish aristocratic. The Dutch people were interested in themselves and in the everyday concerns and environment of their lives, and the Dutch artists, being of the same stuff as their public, contributed to the popular taste. On the other hand, both the Spanish monarchy and the Church were strongholds of aristocracy and both had close affiliations with Italy, the art of which had been pre-eminently aristocratic. It was based, ashas been pointed out in a companion volume to this one, “The Story of Dutch Painting,” on the idea of the superiority of the individual person, or, translated into terms of art, on the supremacy of the human figure as an art-motive.
We may well believe that Mazo was encouraged in his feeling for landscape by Velasquez himself. For it is recalled that the latter during his leisure in Rome painted two vistas in the gardens of the Villa Medici. There is also in the Prado aView of the Arch of Titus, which the catalogue admits was probably painted in Spain from a sketch made in Rome. Later criticism, however, has concluded that it was Mazo who painted this from Velasquez’s sketch, and has also assigned to the younger man several other landscapes, originally supposed to be by Velasquez. In this judgment the Director of the Prado acquiesces, for the pictures have been placed in the gallery devoted to Mazo’s landscapes.
Before considering them, let us note the contribution made by Velasquez, indirectly through his portraits, to the art of landscape painting. He used landscape, with the freedom and feeling of one who comprehended it and loved it, in his equestrian and sportsman portraits, in theSurrender of Bredaand particularly in one of his latest works,S. Antony Visiting S. Paul, where the figures are small and the picture is virtually a landscape subject. The chief distinction of all these landscape scenes is that Velasquez, the student of light, has brought natural light into the scenes, in which respect they differ from the landscape of Italian backgrounds, even those
THE FOUNTAIN OF THE TRITONSMAZOTHE PRADO
noble ones of Titian’s, which are pervaded with what is, comparatively speaking, a studio lighting. Velasquez is in a sense even more naturalistic than his contemporaries, the Holland masters of landscape, for, although they rendered nature more intimately, they were disposed to translate the actual hues of nature into a tonality of their own. Velasquez, on the contrary, recorded what seemed to him to be the facts of sight. He, therefore, reappears among the moderns of the nineteenth century, in landscape as in portraiture, one of themselves, because their mutual study was the light of nature.
One of Mazo’s most important landscapes, known to be his by documentary evidence, is theView of Zaragoza. It hangs in the Velasquez gallery of the Prado, because the master added the figures which are distributed in three planes throughout the foreground. But the river beyond, dotted with sailboats, the bridge and distant view of the city are unquestionably by Mazo. The silvery deep olive-green of the water and the accurate definition of the buildings, which nevertheless are felt as masses, recall the finest manner of Il Canaletto, while the suggestion of light in the sky is more naturalistic than the Venetian ever attained. It is a picture that interests one to compare with the single landscape of Jan Vermeer: hisView of Delftin the Hague Gallery. Each gives one an extraordinary realisation of the actuality of the scene; but, while the Holland artist’s picture breathes an intimate domesticity, the work of the Spaniard is psychologically different, suggesting a certainhauteurand exclusiveness; partly, no doubt,through the introduction of the choice groups of figures by Velasquez.
The three landscapes originally attributed to Velasquez, but now included by the Director of the Gallery among Mazo’s are:The Fountain of the Tritons(p. 122),Calle de la Reina de Aranjuez, andThe View of Buen Retiro. In the first named the tree-stem on the left-foreground, sprinkled with leaves, is reminiscent of Velasquez, and the beautiful little figures, so suggestively rendered, may have been added by him. But the handling of the grey-green foliage of the further trees, softly blurred against a bluish grey sky, is unlike the method of Velasquez as seen in any of his landscape backgrounds. On the other hand, the soft faint masses of tone, subsequently worked over with little curly strokes, can be found to a greater or less extent in the foliage parts of all Mazo’s landscapes in this room. The latter, it should be observed, vary in subject, including views of buildings, romantic scenes of rocks and waterfalls, sea-shore in combination with cliffs and temple-ruins, and views more simply naturalistic. To each the artist has adopted a technique suitable to the occasion, so that it is not at first sight easy to recognise them as the work of one man.
Mazo, in fact, in his approach to landscape, shows nothing of the timidity and indecision and tendency to follow closely his master, such as characterise his portraits. Here he shows himself an original experimenter, freely pursuing his own motive. In the case ofThe Fountain of the Tritonsit has brought him to a method that anticipates the impressionistic style of Corot. Thepeeps of sky through the soft screen of trees; their very coloring, the single tree-stem in the foreground and the envelope of cool grey atmosphere—Corot might have painted them.
TheCalle de la Reinahas again a strangely modern air, somewhat that of a Jules Dupré, when he is not stirred to emotional effects. The avenue, leading to the palace of Aranjuez, recedes in the shadow of tall trees, which tower up in dark masses against a fine twilight sky. Its light is dimly reflected in the grey-blue water of a shadowed lake on the left of the foreground; the rest of the latter being enlivened with figures which form the retinue of two arriving coaches. All these sprinkled forms count as dark spots upon the pale-lighted sandy road. In its truth of observation and simple nobility of feeling this landscape would do honor to any school of any period.
To assist his appreciation of Mazo’s romantic and mythological landscapes, the visitor to the Prado will do well to step into an adjoining gallery, devoted to the works of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. It is true they are not represented here at their best; yet perhaps sufficiently well to suggest the character of their work and certainly its spirit. Particularly in the case of Claude Lorrain it is slighter, shallower than the spirit of Mazo’s corresponding scenes; less reinforced by close observation of nature; or, it may be, inspired by softer influences. For the source of the difference is perhaps the contrast of character of the Spanish as compared with the Italian landscape. Mazo has noted to good purpose the stirring cloud effects that pile high abovethe gaunt sierras, and their grandeur and bigness have inspired his feeling. By comparison, the mellow skies of the French-Italian landscapes, seem trivial, and communicate their slighter feeling to the formal, classically composed foregrounds, so that they seem mannered. In Mazo’s on the other hand, the grandeur of the sky’s suggestion spreads to the mountains, rocks and water, investing the whole with a sense of structural power and therefore of sincerity. In fact, in these romantic, mythological subjects Mazo stands alongside Turner rather than Claude and Poussin.
AMONG the painters who were contemporaries of Velasquez and after his death helped to stem for a little while the decline of the School of Madrid, special notice is due to Juan Carreño de Miranda. He came of a noble family of the province of Asturias, his father being Alcade de los Hijosdalgos or Chief of the Council of Nobles, in the town of Aviles, where Juan was born in 1614. When he was still a boy he accompanied his father to Madrid, and made up his mind to be an artist. His father, at last acquiescing, placed him with Pedro de las Cuevas, who had also been the teacher of José Leonardo and Pereda. Carreño afterwards worked with a painter, Bartolomé Roman; but by the time that he was twenty years old had so distinguished himself that he was entrusted with several important commissions. Velasquez recognised his talent and, thinking he should be employed in the King’s service, commissioned him to paint some frescoes for the royal palace. These were destroyed in the fire of 1734.
In 1669 Carreño was appointed one of the Court Painters, a post which he continued to hold after the succession of the young king, Charles II, when the regency was in the hands of the Queen-Mother, Marianade Austria. In this capacity Carreño executed portraits of the royal family which represent his best work.
Meanwhile his popularity was based upon his decorations and altar-pieces. His decorative ability, which had been recognised, as we have seen, by Velasquez, included a familiarity with the technique of fresco painting, a branch of the art which had few representatives among Spanish painters. The taste for it had been introduced by the Italians summoned to decorate the Escoriál, and perpetuated by other foreigners who were employed in decorating the principal churches and convents. From them Carreño acquired a knowledge of the process. He seems (for I am not acquainted with Carreño’s mural decorations) to have been distinguished in his use of it by a combination of Italian decorative composition with types and motives characteristically Spanish, and by very delicate and spiritual schemes of color.
Perhaps the character and quality of the latter may be discovered in the altar-piece by this artist in the Hispanic Museum, New York. It is aConception; the subject being presented in the usual way prescribed by the Church. But the composition is looser, if one may say so, than Murillo’s in similar pictures, with lines more flowing and masses distributed more gaily. It is the arrangement, in fact, of a painter accustomed to the liberty of decoration on a large surface. It has a sweep and elegance that make it akin to the compositions of Antolinez and particularly of Cerezo, whom we briefly discussed in the fourth chapter. In its color-scheme also, it favors theirs. All these artists, in fact, represent
CHARLES IICARREÑOTHE PRADO
a reaction from the more sober and restricted color-schemes, imposed upon Velasquez and other Court painters. At the same time, they are characteristic of the decline which had already begun. The coloring of thisConceptionof Carreño’s is distinguishably prettified; pearly pinks and blues, soft greys and greens, perilously suggestive of thebonboniérestyle. And the sentiment of the whole is correspondingly suave, almost, if not completely, to insipidity. Similarly sentimental are this artist’sMagdalen in the Desertin the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, and hisSan Sebastianof the Prado. The Magdalen looks like a matured Ariadne, abandoned by her lover. She is posed upon a rocky seat, so that her beautiful arms may be seen to advantage and the long line of her graceful figure duly emphasised. Meanwhile she lifts her tearful gaze to the sky, at a carefully calculated angle that will impress the beauty of her neck upon the sympathetic spectator. As for theSan Sebastian, it should make a gentle lady weep to behold how this tender body has been abused. In fact, the student who has discovered the true sources of greatness in the Spanish School of painting will not take Carreño very seriously when he is in these moods. Fortunately for his present reputation there is a graver and more dignified side to his art.
In his portraits, especially those of the members of the royal family, Carreño shows himself to have absorbed no little of the influence of Velasquez. These portraits of Charles II and his mother, Queen Mariana, vary in quality; for he was called upon to repeat them, and the replicas display a lack of interest and fallingoff in technical distinction. Perhaps the handsomest portrait of the King, painted when he was still a lad of twelve, is the one in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin. The boy, as usual in a black velvet suit, with long blond cavalier locks descending over his shoulders, stands resting his left hand on a marble-topped table, which is supported on a lion and ball pedestal. His face has not yet acquired the expression of settled melancholy and is gracious and lovable. The coloring is rich and luminous, and the concavity behind the figure, full of atmospheric suggestion. The replica of this in the Prado is tighter and drier in treatment, lacking in quality of tone and lighting.
Another portrait of this period, showing the figure at half length is owned by Señor Beruete. Judged by the photograph of it, reproduced in his “School of Madrid,” it is a very superior canvas, distinguished by graciousness and dignity. It is a terrible contrast to turn from the weak yet winning beauty of the boy to the portrait in which Carreño has depicted the man (p. 132). In all the range of portrait-painting can we find a face so degenerate as this? The face droops to an inordinate length, as if the vacuous brain could no longer hold it in position; the mental distortion is reflected in the grotesquely exaggerated features; the expression of the pallid mask is one in which hope and joy of life are extinguished and reasonless fear is habitually present. Such was the last of the proud Hapsburg line of Spanish Sovereigns.
Carreño’s most important work, however, is thePortrait of Queen Mariana of Austria, in the Munich OldPinakothek, of which there is an unsatisfactory replica in the Prado. But the Munich portrait, once seen, impresses itself indelibly on the memory. It is a cold, implacable indictment. The surly sadness of the girl-wife, painted by Velasquez (p. 119), who had our sympathy for the cruel grossness of her lot, has hardened into callous obstinacy and weak self-indulgence. Her widowhood has brought authority without a sense of responsibility, she has betrayed her maternal trust in order that through her child’s feebleness she may hold on to power; she has dallied between her lover and confessor, and is nowdevote. Clothed in black and white weeds that resemble a nun’s garb, she sits squarely at a table, a loveless, forbidding woman. Yet strangely haunting because of Carreño’s analysis and fearless exposition.
THOUGH recognised as the leader of the School of Valencia, José or, as he is sometimes called, Jusepe de Ribera spent most of his life in Naples, where his Spanish pride, combined with his somewhat diminutive stature, procured him the sobriquet,Lo Spagnoletto. He was born in 1588, eleven years senior to Velasquez, in the province of Valencia, in the hill-town of Jativa, the cradle of the Borgia family. Hence the proud title which he often appended to his signature, “Spaniard of Jativa.” His parents, Luis de Ribera and Margarita Gil, took him to Valencia that he might study Latin with a view to becoming a man of letters. But José, even thus early showed his independence by declaring that he would be an artist, and was accordingly placed under the care of Francisco Ribalta. The latter, we recall, was the link of transition from Italian mannerism to the native naturalistic schools of Valencia and Andalusia; at one time producing thinly painted subjects of extravagant sentimentality, at another showing himself quite masterful in naturalistic representation. This blend of naturalism and sentiment, the latter frequently carried too far, distinguishes also the work of Ribera and through his influence many artists of the Andalusian School, Murillo inparticular. The naturalistic tendency is Spanish, common to North and South alike; the sentiment is a bias given to it by the Southern temperament.
While still a youth Ribera made his way to Rome, where his handsome face and evident ability attracted the notice of a cardinal, who took him into his house and would have cared for him that he might pursue his studies in comfort. But José, nothing if not independent, found the restraint irksome and went back to his rags and poverty, declaring that he needed the stimulus of necessity. He made copies of some of the Raphaels and the Caraccis in the Farnese palace, and even found means to visit Parma and Modena and study the works of Correggio. But the pictures which most attracted Ribera were those of Michelangelo Caravaggio, who worked in Naples. So to Naples he went, although he had to leave his coat behind in Rome to pay his boardbill. Whether Ribera actually studied under Caravaggio is uncertain. Anyhow, since the latter died in 1609, the association could not have lasted more than a short time. Meanwhile, even if Ribera never saw Caravaggio in the flesh, he could not escape his spirit. It was a part of the turbulent atmosphere of the Naples of that day, into which with a violence, equal to Caravaggio’s, the independent young Spaniard was quick to fling himself. Fortune favored him, for a rich art dealer gave him some commissions and, discovering his ability, determined to attach him to his own interests. He offered him his daughter’s hand in marriage, and Ribera, having experienced the stimulus of poverty, was now resolved to taste the encouragement of wealth and ease,and accepted it. Soon after his marriage he produced a life-sized picture of theMartyrdom of S. Bartholomew, who was flayed alive. The ghastly scene was represented with such horrible naturalism, that when the picture was exhibited outside of the art-dealer’s shop, a crowd gathered about it. This attracted, as no doubt it was intended that it should, the notice of the Spanish viceroy, the Duke of Ossuna, whose palace window overlooked the spot. Having learned the cause of the excitement he sent for the picture and was so impressed with it that he bought it, appointed Ribera his painter in ordinary, and gave him apartments in the palace. Thus, almost at a bound, Ribera found himself upon the topmost rung of the ladder. He was rich and now courted by the richest and most powerful, who presumed that he had the ear of the viceroy. In artistic circles the young artist had taken the place of Caravaggio and invested it with still greater honor. He was the recognised leader of the naturalists in their war of extinction with the Eclectics.
It is necessary to note the rivalry between these two contemporary schools, since it throws a light on an extraordinary episode in Ribera’s career. With the death of Tintoretto in 1592 the last of the giants of the Renaissance had passed away. They were succeeded by a race of pigmies, who strutted in the mantles of Raphael and Michelangelo. They are called “Mannerists,” differing, however, from the Mannerists of Spain. For while the Spanish imitated the great masters in order to acquire the secrets of their greatness, at the same time, as we have seen, infusing the result with something of theraciness of the Spanish character, the Italian “Mannerists” aped the past in an attempt to galvanize it into continued living.
The “Mannerists” soon become obscured by the “Eclectics,” whose headquarters were in Bologna, the home of the Caracci. For the school grew out of the influence of the five brothers Caracci, especially the three, Annibale, Ludovico and Agostino, who led the way in what was to be a “revival” of art. Its principle was a catholic eclecticism, which should combine the drawing and power of Michelangelo, with the color of Titian, the grace and sentiment of Raphael and the soft dreamy chiaroscuro of Correggio. The movement spread throughout Italy, being variously represented by the Caracci, already mentioned, Domenichino, Guido Reni, Guercino, Sassoferrato, Carlo Dolci and others of more or less merit. Whatever may be thought of these painters individually, it is scarcely to be denied that the principle underlying their art had in it nothing of original growth. It was dishing up the past, instead of providing meat for the present.
Meanwhile, outside of the “Eclectics,” the spirit of the present was asserting itself in a reaction from Classicalism to Naturalism—to use a hackneyed term, in a return to nature. That the stronghold of the Naturalists became Naples, which was under Spanish rule is a significant fact. It was an instance, by no means single, of the Spanish influence reacting upon Italy. The movement however was started by the Italian Caravaggio, a man of impetuous temperament and possibly coarse tastes, who by way of bringing the Bible story intotouch with every day life, peopled his sacred scenes with personages drawn from the slums of Naples. How great a painter he could be upon occasions is shown in that handsome canvas in the Dresden Gallery,The Card Players. However, the style usually associated with his work and that of his followers is one of violent types and exaggerated dramatic energy. The “Naturalists” were also addicted to the use of dark shadows, which gained for them the nickname of “Darklings.” Between them and the “Eclectics” there was perpetual rivalry, waged with that intensity which only Latin peoples can put into an artistic controversy. On the part of the Neapolitan naturalists it was war literally to the knife, for they did not scruple to employ the bravo and his stiletto in their efforts to hold Naples against the enemy. It was to the leadership in a fight of this sort that the young Ribera succeeded, and he went into it with an unscrupulous ferocity that has left on his memory the blot of a very discreditable episode.
The Chapel of St. Januarius in the Cathedral of Naples was to be decorated. A cabal was formed between Ribera, a native Neapolitan, Giambattista Caracciolo, and a painter of Greek birth, Belisario Correnzio. The last named had already made so bitter an attack on Annibale Caracci that the latter had been driven out of Naples. The three now determined to secure for themselves the decorating of the chapel. The commissioners at first assigned the work to one, Cavaliero d’Arpino, who had been Correnzio’s teacher. He was assailed with persecution, and forced to take refuge in the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. Then