Nanoparticle Assemblies and Superstructures 1st Edition Nicholas A. Kotov
Nanoparticle Assemblies and Superstructures 1st Edition Nicholas A. Kotov
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Nanoparticle Assemblies and Superstructures 1st Edition Nicholas A. Kotov
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50. and lastly came Mengs, bringing with him a spirit wholly distinct from that
of the French, a style erudite and academic which was not sufficiently
powerful to create an artistic output of any importance in Spain, but which
possessed much destructive power, although that was limited as regards time
to about a century, during which period the national production was weak,
despite the number of artists, of whom those most worthy to be mentioned
are Maella, the Bayeus and Paret.
Such was the condition of Spanish painting when, without precedent, reason
or motive, appeared in the province of Aragon, a region which years
afterwards came to typify the resistance to foreign invasion, a figure of great
significance in Spanish art, and worthy of comparison with the greatest
masters of the preceding centuries—Francisco de Goya.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
The long life of Goya coincides with an epoch which divides two ages. The
critic is somewhat at a loss how to place his work and personality, to
conclude whether he is the last of the old masters or the first of the moderns.
His greatness is so obvious, his performance so vast and its gradual
evolution so manifest, that we may be justified in holding that the first
portion of his effort belongs to the old order of things, while the second must
be associated with the origins of modern painting. In his advance, in the
manner and development of it, it is noticeable—as we have already said in
certain of our works which deal with Goya—that he substituted for the
picturesque, agreeable and suggestive note of his younger days, another
more intense and more embracive. It would seem that the French invasion of
the Peninsula, the horrors of which he experienced and depicted, influenced
him profoundly in the alteration of his style. There is a Goya of the
eighteenth century and a Goya of the nineteenth. But this is not entirely due
to variation in technique, to mere artistic development, it is more justly to be
traced to a change in creative outlook, in character, in view-point, which
underwent a rude and violent transformation. Compare the subjects of his
tapestries or of his festive canvases, joyful and gallant, facile in conception
and at times almost trivial, with the tragic and macabre scenes of his old age,
and with the drawings of this period and the compositions known as “The
Disasters of War.”
51. His spirit was fortified and nourished by the warmth of his imagination, and
assisted by an adequate technique, marvellously suited to the expression of
his ideas, he produced the colossal art of his later years. If his performance is
studied with reference to the vicissitudes and the adventures of which it is
eloquent, the influence upon his works of the times in which they were
created is obvious. The changes in his life, the transference from those gay
and tranquil years to others full of the horrors of blood and fire, of shame
and banishment, tended, without doubt, to discipline his spirit and excite his
intelligence. His natural bias to the fantastic and his tendency to adapt the
world to his visions seized upon the propitious occasion in a time of invasion
and war to exalt itself, or, as he himself expressed it, “the dream of reason
produces prodigies.”
An artist and creator more as regards expression than form, especially in the
second phase of his work, unequal in achievement and at times inaccurate,
he sacrificed much to divest himself of these faults. He deliberately set
himself to discipline his ideas and develop that degree of boldness with
which he longed to infuse them. But he was not quite able to subject himself
to reality, and, as he was forgetful and indolent, that which naturally
dominated him began to show itself in quite other productions of
consummate mastery. This art, imaginative in expression and idea, is more
striking as regards its individual and original qualities, than for any degree of
discipline which it shows.
To follow Goya throughout the vicissitudes of his long life is not a matter of
difficulty. The man to whom modern Spanish art owes its being was born in
the little village of Fuendetodos and lived whilst a child at Saragossa. He
came to Madrid at an early age, and before his thirtieth year went to Rome
with the object of perfecting himself in his art. But he failed to obtain much
direction at the academies in Parma, and having but little enthusiasm for the
Italian masters of that time, returned to Spain, settling at Madrid. Until this
time the artist had not evinced any exceptional gifts. Goya was not
precocious. The first works to assist his reputation were a series of cartoons
for tapestries to be woven at the Royal Factory. They were destined for the
walls of the royal palaces of Aranjuez, the Escurial and the Prado, which
Carlos IV desired to renovate according to the fashion of the time. These
works, which brought fame to Goya, showed two distinctive qualities. One
of them evinces the originality of his subjects, in which appear gallants,
blacksmiths, beggars, labourers, popular types in short, who for the first time
52. appeared in the decoration of Spanish palaces and castles, which, until then,
had known only religious paintings, military scenes, the portraits of the
Royal Family and stately hidalgos. Goya, in this sense, democratized art.
The other note to be observed in his work is a certain distinction of
craftsmanship, the alertness which it reveals, which is, perhaps, due to the
lightness of his colouring. On canvases prepared with tones of a light red
hue, which he retained as the basis of his picture, he sketched his figures and
backgrounds with light brushes and velatures, retaining, where possible, the
tone of the ground. This light touch, rendered necessary by the extensive
character of the design and the rapidity with which it had to be executed,
gave to the artist a freedom and quickness in all he drew, and from it his later
works, much more important than these early essays though they were,
profited not a little.
Already during these earlier years he had commenced to paint portraits
which did much to enhance his reputation, and shortly afterwards he entered
the royal service as first painter to the Court, where he addressed himself to
the execution of that vast collection of works of all kinds which arouse such
interest to-day. The list is interminable and embraces the portraits of Carlos
IV and of the Queen Maria Louisa, those of the members of the Royal
Family, of all the aristocracy, of the Albas, Osunas, Benaventes,
Montellanos, Pignatellis, Fernán-Núñezs, the greatest wits and intellectuals
of the day, especially those of Jovellanos, Moratin, and Meléndez Valdés,
three men who profoundly influenced the thought of Goya in a progressive
and almost revolutionary manner, in spite of his connection with the Court
and the aristocracy. He also painted many portraits of popular persons, both
men and women, among whom may be mentioned La Tirana, the bookseller
of the Calle de Carretas, and that most mysterious and adventurous of
femmes galantes of whom, now clothed, now nude, the artist has bequeathed
to us those souvenirs which hang on the walls of the Prado Museum. In these
the artist has for all time fixed and immortalized the finest physical type of
Spanish womanhood, in which an occasional lack of perfect proportion is
compensated for by elegance, grace, and unexaggerated curve and figure,
without doubt one of the most exquisite feminine types which has been
produced by any race. Besides these, the artist produced many lesser
canvases containing tiny figures full of wonderful grace and gallantry, and
having rural backgrounds, frequently of the banks of the Manzanares, and
others of larger proportions and scope, among the most excellent of which is
53. that of the family of Carlos IV, treasured in the Prado Museum as one of its
most precious jewels. Along with The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (Plate V.)
and Las Meninas (Plate X.), this picture may be regarded as the most
complete and astonishing which Spanish art has given us. It is not a
“picture” in the ordinary sense of the word, but an absolute solution of the
problem of how colour harmonies are to be attained, and a most striking
essay in impressionism, in which an infinity of bold and varied shades and
colours blend in a magnificent symphony.
Goya, triumphant and rejoicing in a life ample and satisfying, received on all
sides the flatteries of the great, and, caressed by reigning beauties, lived in
the tranquil pursuit of his art, which, though intense, was yet graceful and
gallant, and, as we have said, still adhered to the manner of the eighteenth
century, when a profound shock agitated the national life—the war with
Napoleon and the French invasion. The first painter to the Court of Carlos
IV, a fugitive, deaf, and already old, life, as he then experienced it, might
have seemed to him a happy dream with a terrible awakening. His
possessions, his pictures, and his models were dispersed and maltreated; the
Court seemed to have finished its career, for his royal master was banished
by force, many of the nobility were condemned to death, and Countesses,
Duchesses and Maids of Honour vanished like the easy and enjoyable
existence he had known. Above all, Saragossa, that heroic city, beleaguered
on every side, was closed to him; a depleted army defended the strategical
points of the Peninsula, and the people—the people whom Goya loved and
who had so often served him as models for his damsels, his bull-fighters, his
wenches, his little children—were wandering over the length and breadth of
Spain, only to be shot as guerillas and stone-throwers by the soldiers of
Napoleon. It was at this moment that the true development of the artist
began. The painter, like his race, was not to be conquered. The old Goya
remained, strong in the creation of a lofty art. The last twenty years of his
life were full indeed, and represented its most vigorous phase, the most
energetic in the whole course of his achievement. Scenes of war and disaster
occupied almost the whole of this important period, full of a profound
pessimism, which still does not lack a certain graceful style, and displays
unceasingly some of the saddest thoughts which man has ever known. These
works of Goya are not of any party, are not political nor sectarian. They are
simply human. For his greatness is all-embracive and his might enduring.
Typical of his work in this last respect are The Fusiliers, of 1808, and his
54. lesser efforts, those scenes of brigandage, madness, plague and famine
which occur so frequently in his paintings during the years which followed
the war.
We do not mean to make any hard and fast assertion that Goya would not
have developed in intensity of feeling if he had not personally experienced
and suffered the horrors of the invasion, but merely to indicate that it was
this which brought about the revulsion within him and powerfully exalted
him. His last years in Madrid, and afterwards in Bordeaux, where he died,
were always characterized by the note of pessimism, and at times, of horror,
as is shown in the paintings which once decorated his house and are now
preserved in the Prado Museum. Not a few portraits of these years also show
that the artist gained in intensity and in individual style. It is precisely these
works, so advanced for their time and so progressive, that provided
inspiration to painters like Manet, who achieved such progress in the
nineteenth century, and who were enamoured of the visions of Goya, of his
technique and his methods, naturalistic, perhaps, but always replete with
observation and individual expression.
We must not forget to mention that Goya produced a decorative masterpiece
of extraordinary distinction and supreme originality—the mural painting of
the Chapel of St. Antonio of Florida, in Madrid. Nor is it less fitting to
record his fecundity in the art of etching, in which, as in his painting, it is
easy to observe the development of their author from a style gallant and
spirited to an interpretation of deep intensity, such as is to be witnessed in
the collection of “The Caprices” and “The Follies,” if these are compared
with the so-called “Proverbs” and especially with “The Disasters of War.”
The pictures representing Goya at Burlington House were composed of some
twenty works. Among those which belonged to his first period were the
portraits of the Marchioness of Lazan, the Duchess of Alba, lent by the Duke
of Alba, “La Tirana,” from the Academy of St. Fernando, the Countess of
Haro, belonging to the Duchess of San Carlos, four of the smaller paintings
of rural scenes, the property of the Duke of Montellano, and An Amorous
Parley (“Coloquio Galante”), the property of the Marquis de la Romana, the
prototype of the Spanish feeling for gallantry in the eighteenth century. As
representative of the second phase, of that which holds a note intense and
pessimistic, may be taken A Pest House, lent by the Marquis de la Romana,
and those truly dramatic scenes, the property of the Marquis of Villagonzalo.
55. Of portraits of the artist by himself two were exhibited, one small in size
painted in his youth (Plate XXVI.), in which the full figure is shown, and the
other a head, done in 1815, which gives us a good idea of the expression and
temperament of this extraordinary man.
The influence of the art of Goya was not immediate. A contemporary of his
is to be remembered in Esteve, who assisted him and copied from him.
Later, an artist of considerable talent, Leonardo Alenza, who died very
young and had no time to develop his art, was happily inspired by him. With
regard to Lucas, a well-known painter whose production was very large, and
who flourished many years later, and is now known to have followed Goya,
he can scarcely be considered as one of his continuators, but rather as an
imitator—by no means the same thing. For he imitated Goya, as, on other
occasions, he imitated Velázquez and other artists. Lucas is much more
praiseworthy when he follows his own instincts and does original work. His
picture The Auto de Fé, the property of M. Labat, which was shown at the
London exhibition in the room dedicated to artists of the nineteenth century,
is one of the best that we know of from his brush.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
If the eighteenth century was for Spanish painting an epoch of external
influences, the nineteenth century, especially its second half, must be
characterized as one which sought for foreign direction. During this period
the greater number of painters of talent sought for inspiration from foreign
masters. This was a grave mistake, not because in Spain there were artists of
much ability or even good instructors, but because this exodus of Spanish
painters was a sign that they had lost faith and confidence in themselves and
were strangers to that native force which in the end triumphs in painting as
in everything else. First Paris, then Rome, the two most important centres of
the art of this period, were undoubtedly centres of a lamentable distortion of
Spanish art.
The organizing committee did not wish the London exhibition to be lacking
in examples of this period of prolific production, to which they dedicated a
room in which were shown examples of the painters of the nineteenth
century. We mention some of the many artists of talent of the Spain of those
days, and indicate their individual characteristics; but we are unable to allude
56. to their general outlook and the characterization of their schools, which we
do not think existed among them to any great extent.
The most famous painter who succeeded Goya was Vincente López, better
known for his portraits than for his other canvases, a skilful artist with a
perfect knowledge of technique, conscientious, fecund, minute in detail, who
has left us the reflection of a whole generation.
Classicism arrived in Spain with all the lustre of the triumphs of Louis
David, under whose direction José de Madrazo placed himself, the first of
those artists of this type to maintain a position of dignity throughout three
artistic generations. He held an important place among contemporary
painters at a difficult time during which, in consequence of the political
disorder which reigned, the commissions usually given by the churches and
religious communities ceased, private persons acquired few paintings, and
the academies decreased in the number of their students. It was a time in
which art offered but little wherewithal to its votaries.
But this period of paralysis was of short duration. The pictorial
temperament, which inalienably belongs to Spain, and the appearance of
romanticism, with a tendency conformable to the spirit of Spain, and which
had for a long time given a brilliant impulse to her men of letters, revived
painting, which forgot its period of exhaustion. The frigid classicism, ill-
suited to the national genius, now passed away. José de Madrazo was
succeeded in prestige and surpassed in ability by his son Federico de
Madrazo. By his portraits he has bequeathed to us faithful renderings of all
the personages of his day, which compete with those of the greater foreign
portrait painters among his contemporaries.
Studying at first under classical influences, but regarded as romantics in their
later development, were remarkable portrait painters like Esquivel and
Gutiérrez de la Vega, and a landscape painter of especial interest, Pérez
Villamil, who may in a manner be compared to the great English landscape
painter Turner, though he had no opportunities for coming in contact with
him or any knowledge of his work. Both men, each in his own environment,
breathed the same atmosphere; and, although reared in lands remote from
one another, thought in a like manner because they both reflected the period
in which they lived. Becquer and others adequately maintained the
descriptive note which now entered into the making of popular subjects.
57. Such was the condition of painting in Spain when there appeared the fruitful
and extraordinarily popular genre of historical painting. In its origin it was
not Spanish but was introduced from other countries, especially from
France; but its Spanish affinities are manifest in its examples, most of which
are canvases of great size, imposing, dramatic, and, in general, effective.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
In this period culture, which in Spain had formerly been the preserve of a
limited class, now spread itself more widely, and in the sphere of art was
greatly fostered by exhibitions of painting, open to all and sundry, without
distinction of social status. Pictures and sculpture, which in other times had
been dedicated solely to art and to religious piety, the possessions of kings
and grandees, now came into public view, were alluded to in publications of
all kinds, and the people, enthusiastic and critical, were brought face to face
with their native art. Many artists, perceiving this, hoped to gain popular
applause, and consequently worked upon their subjects as seemed most
agreeable to the masses. The historical picture in such circumstances seemed
to offer the greatest possibilities for achieving a popular reputation.
Gisbert painted the popular heroes of the past and was regarded as the
representative of those revolutionary tendencies in art which were to triumph
several years later. Alisal, Mercade, Palmaroli, Luis Alvarez, careful and
excellent artists, painted both historical and genre pictures. From this group
arose a most remarkable figure who died whilst still very young, but who has
left us a most striking example of his workmanship. This was Eduardo
Rosales, the painter of The Death of Isabel the Catholic. Rosales represented
the Spanish tradition in painting. Averse to foreign influences, he studied and
found in the great masters the sources of his art, and his works, both in Spain
and beyond it, excited the greatest interest in his time. The picture above
mentioned, sober and simple in style, though it must be classed as genre
painting, has still many admirable and enduring qualities. The pity is that
this group of artists did not follow him; for, flattered by the public
acclamation, they entered upon the second period of historical painting, less
effective than the first and always conventional, which lasted many years,
indeed almost to the present time. For an atmosphere inimical to the
traditions of Spanish painting arose, in which this type of historical
composition flourished at a time when it had been condemned and forgotten
58. in other countries, where it was forced to give place to those tendencies in
which modern painting had its origin.
Rigurosamente, a contemporary of Rosales, was another exceptional artist of
unusual gifts, likewise Mariano Fortuny, who unfortunately died in his
youth. Fortuny, though he may appear quite otherwise to-day, was in his own
time considered a progressive innovator. When he visited Madrid for the first
time, drawn thither by youthful enthusiasm, he did so with no other idea than
that of copying from Velázquez. But seeing in the Prado Museum the works
of Goya, which were totally new to him, he received a revelation. He copied
from Goya, and later, going to Africa, he painted many studies and pictures
replete with light. Light as a pictorial factor, as an element in a picture, the
study of light, the reflection of it in his own works—that is the progressive
element which we find in Fortuny. The rapid success of his first works, their
triumph in Paris and Rome, was due to an agreeable style, gracious in touch,
suggestive, which appealed to collectors and dealers. At the same time we do
not believe this to have been altogether his ideal, since a few years before his
death, which took place in his thirty-seventh year, we see him betaking
himself to the shores of Italy, where he made new studies of light and air.
Was it reserved to Fortuny to be one of those of whom it will be said that he
assisted the development of the study of atmosphere and light? We firmly
believe this to be so, but the work of the critic has nothing to do with
prophecy, and we must deal only with that which Fortuny has left us, which
is indeed sufficient. It must not be forgotten in judging his work to-day that
its defects, or what seem to be its defects, were those of his time and were
not personal, and that what is personal to him was his good taste, his
mastery, and a series of innovations and bold essays in colour obvious to
those who study his works. Fortuny was not a Spanish painter in the sense
that he did not preserve the traditions of our School. He certainly took the
elements of his palette from Goya, but his traits of manner show no sign of
the typical qualities of Spanish painting.
It is fitting to allude here to artists of different types and talents in some of
the cities of Spain, and others living abroad, who laboured during the last
years of the nineteenth century—the Madrazos, Raimundo and Ricardo, sons
of Don Federico de Madrazo, who studied under the direction of Fortuny;
Plasencia, Domínguez and Ferrán, who distinguished themselves in work of
a decorative character in the Church of Saint Francisca the Great in Madrid;
Pradilla and Villegas, who have obtained the greatest triumphs during a long
59. career; the brothers Mélida, Enrique and Arturo, the first working in Paris for
many years, and the second a famous decorative artist; Egusquiza, painter
and engraver; Moreno Carbonero, who, more a historical and portrait
painter, found a popularity for his pictures inspired by episodes in literature,
especially those of Quixote, in which he has coincided with Jiménez Aranda.
We may also mention a group of artists, all of Valencia, a city which in times
past, as in the present, enjoyed notable artistic prosperity: Sala, Muñoz
Degrain, Pinazo Camarlench, José Benlliure and many others. Nearly all of
them were represented at the Exhibition at Burlington House in the Salon set
apart for the painters of this epoch.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
In the second half of the nineteenth century the study of nature in the form of
landscape arose as a creed, the artist coming face to face with the scene
which he desired to transfer to his canvas. It has been said “what the
landscape is, so is he who praises it.” Until then the landscape had been
nothing but a background for a composition or figure, and those who called
themselves landscape painters, when they undertook to paint a scene used it
as a peg on which to hang poetical ideas, embellishing it, but never treating
it as a true rendering of nature. Now the artist came to the country, felt the
influence of nature, and faithfully copied it. The object of his work was to be
as natural as possible, without embellishing or poetizing his subject, but to
portray it, as one might say. This was a new idea to the painters of the time.
Pérez Villamil, a follower of romanticism in painting, also practised
landscape art in Spain until it underwent the change mentioned above
through the arrival of a Belgian, Charles de Haes, who succeeded Pérez
Villamil as professor of landscape at the School of Painting. Haes broke with
tradition. He would have no conventionalisms, no studied compositions, nor
preconceptions. He took his pupils to the country and there told them to copy
Nature herself, leaving them without any further inspiration than that with
which God had endowed them. To-day the studies of this master and of his
disciples, generally executed in strong contrasts of light, seeking, doubtless,
the effectiveness thus produced, appear to us, although they have a sense of
luminosity, poor in colour, obscure and hard. But what progress is
represented in them in comparison with all former art! And it is clear that
60. they express the tendency which, modern in that time, everywhere governed
the advance of art.
Shortly afterwards a Spanish landscape painter, not a disciple of Haes,
Martín Rico, a companion of Fortuny, but who, having lived longer than he
and reached a more mature age, advanced a further step in the art of
landscape painting. If the chief aim of this painter had not been the rapid
translation of his gifts into money, and had he not striven to please the
public, he might have achieved lasting fame.
Casimiro Saiz, Muñoz Degrain—whom we have mentioned already as a
painter of the figure—Urgell, Gomar and others devoted themselves to
landscape; but the most salient examples of Spanish landscape painting are
to be found in the work of three artists who developed with the rapid
evolution of their time—Beruete, Regoyos and Rusiñol. Of these three
sincere and individual painters, Beruete, in his youth a disciple of Haes, and
later of Rico, evinced a very decided modern tendency. He devoted the years
of his maturity to the making of a large number of pictures of Spanish cities,
especially of Castile, paintings truthful and sincere in character, and
revealing a very personal outlook. Regoyos was influenced by
impressionism, to which he was strongly attracted, and in the North of Spain
he inspired many by his numerous works. Rusiñol is, perhaps, more a poet
than a painter. He still lives and works. He used to find in the gloomy and
deserted gardens of Spain subjects for his pictures. One of the most
remarkable figures in Catalonia to-day, both as a litterateur and painter, he
has also sought inspiration in the scenes and countryside of this, his native
province.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
Spanish painting was completely modernized during the last years of the
nineteenth century. Three great international events took place during that
period—the three exhibitions in Paris of the years 1878, 1889 and 1900. At
these Spanish painting was fully represented. At the first was shown a varied
collection of the works of Fortuny—one of the most famous artists of his
time—who had died shortly before. In the second we experienced a rebuff,
for a number of historical paintings of enormous proportions, full of the
inspiration of the past, were not admitted, nor, indeed, were some of these
worthy to hang in the exhibition. But in the years between 1889 and 1900
61. the development of Spanish painting was most marked, and in the last of the
exhibitions alluded to the Spanish salons revealed a high level of excellence
and a significant modernity. Moreover, there emerged the personality of a
young painter, hitherto unknown, who by unanimous consent was regarded
as well-nigh qualifying for the highest honours. This was a man whose name
shortly afterwards became famous throughout the world—Joaquín Sorolla,
one of those personalities who from time to time arise in Spain quite
unexpectedly.
Sorolla, who was of humble origin, was born in Valencia, and in his youth
was naturally influenced by the paintings of the old masters in his native
city. He went to Madrid, later to Italy, and finally to Paris, where his work of
a wholly realistic character was admired, for actuality was to this painter as
the breath of life. A French advocate of naturalism has said “one rule alone
guides the art of painting, the law of values, the manner in which the light
plays upon an object, in which the light distributes colour over it; the light,
and only the light is that which fixes the position of each object; it is the life
of every scene reproduced in painting.” This statement Sorolla seems to have
taken greatly to heart, even while he was still under the influence of old
traditions and standards of thought.
Possessing a temperament of much forcefulness, and of great productive
exuberance, enthusiastic about the scenery of the Mediterranean, and
especially enamoured of the richness of colour of his native soil, the ruddy
earth planted with orange-trees, the blue sea and the dazzling sky, Sorolla,
oblivious of what he had done before, felt a powerful impulse to paint that
which was rich in colour, so greatly was he moved by the eastern spirit. The
coasts of Valencia, the lives of the fishermen, those children of the sea, the
bullocks drawing the boats, the scenes beneath the cliffs and other analogous
subjects, painted in full sunlight—the sunlight of July and August for
preference—these are the subjects on which Sorolla laboured for several
years, producing canvas after canvas, now famous both in Europe and
America.
We do not say that this outlook is ideal, but the study of light and
atmosphere was a contribution to the history of modern art, and was among
the elements which will be handed down to posterity as the original note of
the painters of the last years of the nineteenth century. Of these Sorolla was
one of the most forceful, and we lay stress upon his work, as in our judgment
62. its importance demands especial notice. We have not alluded to his great
talent as a portrait painter, nor to the decorative works which he has
dedicated to the Hispanic Society of America in New York, and which,
although they are completed, are not yet installed in place. Some few years
after the appearance of Sorolla, there arose almost simultaneously two
Spanish painters of other tendencies, equally noteworthy, and whose names
are universally known—Zuloaga and Anglada. Zuloaga must be regarded in
a very different manner from Sorolla. In no sense does he go to nature
merely to copy it in the manner in which it presents itself to our vision, but
he seeks, both in nature and humanity, for types, for characteristic figures of
a representative and realistic kind. His work has developed with robustness
and force, and attracts the attention of the modern critic eager for
characteristic and singular qualities. To his reception in the universal world
of art it is not necessary to allude here. The reviews and periodicals of all
countries have commented with praise upon the achievements of this master,
who is still busily at work, constantly engaged in the representation of
popular types in the characteristic costume of many regions, especially his
own people, the Basques, and the Castilians, for whom he appears to have a
special predilection.
Those landscapes which he takes for the backgrounds of his pictures also
seem to be inspired by that love of character which animates all his
productions. In his latest phase, too, he has executed numerous portraits of
people of different social categories. In technique it is noticeable that
Zuloaga strives to preserve those tonalities which characterize the Spanish
School; and the study he has made of the works of Velázquez and Goya is
manifested in the lively reminiscences of these masterpieces displayed at
times in his pictures, which exhibit, nevertheless, a relative modernity.
Anglada is, in our view, completely distinct from Sorolla and Zuloaga.
Enamoured of the charm of colour, his work has no connection with schools
or traditions. Aloof from every influence, he aspires to nothing so much as
rich colour-schemes and harmonies, and seeks inspiration in night-bound
gardens, brightly illuminated, in subjects which reflect electric light, and in
figures which appear all the more distinct as the background is often the sea
beneath the radiance of the Mediterranean light. These unusual sources of
inspiration appear strange at first sight; but it is noticeable that they manifest
on the part of the painter always the same idea of seeking for rich colouring.
We must regard Anglada as one of the most remarkable and most original of
63. modern painters. It is a great pity that he was not represented at Burlington
House. His absence, like that of Sert, the great decorative painter, Beltran,
Miguel Nieto and others, was accounted for by the fact that the pictures were
received too late to be included in the Exhibition.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
The salons set apart for modern painting at the London Exhibition seem to
us to have been disposed and arranged with care. There were shown in the
first of these rooms works by Sorolla, his disciple Benedito, one of the most
esteemed portrait painters in Madrid, Zaragoza, Moisés, Carlos Vázquez,
and some landscapes by Rusiñol. The second room was in complete
harmony with the first, and in it we observed the works of artists, some of
whom are still young, but nevertheless masters of strong propensity and
perfect equilibrium; the great composition by Gonzalo Bilbao, The Cigar-
makers (Plate XXXVII.); the striking portraits of Chicharro and Sotomayor;
the unmistakably Spanish canvases of Mezquita and Rodriguez Acosta; and
the picturesque and suggestive note of the Valencian figures by Pinazo
Martinez.
The neighbouring room was dedicated to those who may be called painters
of character, for such was the exclusive note of all the works shown there. It
would not be easy to say who occupied the place of honour here, Zuloaga,
Romero de Torres, an artist of Cordova, who has tried to create a type of
female beauty famous throughout Spain, the brothers Zubiaurre, peculiarly
Basque in feeling, and now well known everywhere, Salaverria, Ortiz
Echagüe, Arrúe, Juan Luis y Arteta, a delicate and emotional painter who has
found on the Basque shores subjects for pictures unusually simple, in which
is displayed a delicacy of technical expression together with the significance
of an idea, inspired, like his subjects, by a simple poetry.
Following these, in still other rooms, were hung works similar in type, but
bolder, perhaps, such as those of Solana, whose three canvases, painted in
low tones, were of great interest and excited much remark in the exhibition;
Vázquez Díaz, so various in his subjects, but always individual; Maeztu, the
consistent exponent of a colossal and decorative style; Castelucho, Urgell,
Guezala; and Astruc y Sancha, who combines caricature of consummate
mastery with the painting of landscapes of manifest originality.
64. In another room were exhibited smaller landscapes. These included
examples of Rusiñol, Beruete, Regoyos, Meifren, Forns, Raurich, Colom,
Grosso and Mir. Among the work of other young painters of promise but as
yet little known, we must mention the seascapes of Verdugo Landi and
Nogue.
The next salon, known as the Lecture Room, formed a kind of overflow for
the last, and contained pictures by Hermoso, Garnelo, Simonet, Morera,
Marin Bagües, Canals, Cardona, Villegas Brieva, Oroz, Madrazo-Ochoa,
Covarsi, Bermejo, and many other artists, a list of whom would be much too
extensive for inclusion here.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
We do not think that the assertion that Spanish painting has been a powerful
factor in the history and development of universal art will be regarded by
anyone as a discovery, nor will such a statement appear as a result of
patriotic enthusiasm. Spanish painting to-day follows its brilliant traditions;
and although we believe this present period to be one of gestation, it
occasionally reveals qualities of splendour and greatness. It is indubitably
lacking in marked and decided outlook, but it is, nevertheless, universally
respected and suffers, at the most, merely from the exigencies of the time.
Moreover, not a few critics of distinction in the Peninsula, who concern
themselves with the study of particular movements, see in it a tendency to
the formation of regional groups. The central one naturally has its focus in
Madrid, and radiates thence over the whole of Spain; but a large output is
always forthcoming from the cities of Seville and Valencia, which appear, by
the light of tradition, as the most brilliant centres of pictorial art. There are,
moreover, two other regions which have produced rich and flourishing art—
Catalonia and the Basque provinces, with their two capital cities, Barcelona
and Bilbao.
Catalan art is no new thing in Spanish tradition, and is in a measure
descended from that which was formerly the art of the Kingdom of Aragon
before the national union. The Catalans have confined it entirely to their
territory, have cultivated it with enthusiasm, and have created a Catalan
school of Spanish Art. It is a great pity that they have not tried to preserve a
more national spirit and have frequently sought inspiration from foreign
65. sources, especially from France. But, this notwithstanding, Catalan
achievement is indeed most worthy of praise.
The artistic production of the Basque provinces is forcible and original. The
Basques, with a scanty pictorial tradition, have shrewdly sought for
inspiration in the Spanish sphere without distinction of locality, and have
produced an art of undoubted interest.
But apart from this there exists at the present time a movement of worldwide
character, which seems to have a literary origin and which may, perhaps, be
called, for want of a better name, the new spirit. Though still in a chaotic
state, this movement, varied in its aspects, may in all lands be identified by
an underlying intention to revolutionize everything, creating a new æsthetic
code and turning its back on the past and on all tradition.
It is not our intention to deal with this movement or to discuss its
importance. Spain does not appear to be the country best fitted to lead it. Its
history seems to show that while it is ready of acceptance, it is not to be
hurried in its advance; nor is it eager to seize upon radical ideas. But this
notwithstanding, it has painters who understand and cultivate art of this kind,
and it must not be forgotten that one of the outstanding figures in the
ultramodern movement is the Spaniard Picasso, who has shown once more
that in all phases of artistic effort the Spanish temperament significantly
reveals itself.
A. de Beruete y Moret.
(Translated by Lewis Spence)
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