CHAPTER XV.

PAINTING IN SPAIN.

THE Spanish school of painting, so restricted both in its artistic and geographical limits, so intense in its expression, and so peculiar and national in its characteristics, ranks next to the Italian and German in point of time, and vies with the German in importance. Fortunately for the public, the only two of its painters extensively known are the very two who give us the essence of Spanish genius; so that Murillo and Velasquez can well interpret to those who have never visited Madrid or Seville the art of a country where romance and asceticism meet in a strange embrace. No school of painting is so distinctly recognizable, because so uniform, as that of Spain. Its grand features are religious enthusiasm and passionate sensuousness, combined with a singular realism. As Taine observes: "The Spanish painters put before our eyes the type of their race; a dry, nervous animal, with firmly-knit muscles, hardened by his burning suns, and the north wind of his sierras; dark, austere ; boiling with suppressed passions, and ardent with interior fire."

Classic art has ever been a stranger in the land. Studies from real life, either in the portraits of its grandees or its

picturesque peasantry, have been almost the only variations from severe or poetic religious representations. The Church has held full sway over the art of Spain, and her power has been exercised with a rigorous hand. Nor could this power have left such universal impress, had not the hearts of the people seconded its authority. Most of the painters were fervent to fanaticism. A state of inspired ecstasy was their highest personal aspiration, as well as a fitting subject for the brush. Their pictures are suggestive of auto-da-fés, and still exhale an aroma of the Inquisition. For the Inquisition, which regulated the domestic as well as the public concerns of the Spaniards, had its own idea of the mission and limits of art, and most actively took it upon itself to see that such mission should be fulfilled. The proper instruction of the masses was considered its first object. "For the learned and the lettered," says an author in the reign of Philip IV., "written knowledge may suffice; but for the ignorant what master is like painting? They may read their duty in a picture, although they cannot search for it in books." For this reason scenes from the life of Christ and of the saints, but more especially of the Virgin, were multiplied. Praying and ecstatic monks, in every stage of devotion and rapture, were displayed in sombre yet glowing colors to popular admiration. All this was to be done with the most rigid decorum and modesty. No loosely-robed Madonnas or unclad Magdalenes were ever allowed to profane the public eye. Every scrap of nudity was strictly forbidden. Even the feet of the Virgin could not be naked; and Murillo himself dared not sin against such a rule. While avoiding the unpoetical attribute of shoes, he has always contrived to conceal the

feet in clouds or drapery. The penalty for disobedience in such matters was excommunication, a fine of fifteen hundred ducats, and a year's exile; though a slighter punishment was inflicted upon an indiscreet student who had depicted the Virgin in a wide-hooped petticoat! As may be inferred from such restrictions, the knowledge of anatomy was limited in the extreme, but a special grace and facility in painting drapery became a characteristic of the school. Numerous artistic questions were gravely considered by the Inquisition, pondered by the painter, and finally decided by a celestial communication to some artist or saint. The problem, for instance, whether the devil should be represented with horns, could only be settled on the authority of a vision of St. Teresa! A tail was allowed him, on the theory of general probabilities. Sometimes the Virgin herself appeared, and directed in what dress she should be painted. The blue and white which have become her traditional colors, through the usage of Murillo and painters of similar subjects, were revealed as her own chosen robes to Donna Beatrice de Silva, a Portuguese nun, who founded the Order of the Immaculate Conception.

The early art of Spain shows us no such clear and gradual dawn as we may trace in Italy. Up to the thirteenth century, only a very few MSS. reward the search of the investigator. One of these, a missal of the tenth century, is in the Library of Madrid, "adorned with illuminations and rude portraits of ancient kings." Another, preserved in England, and dating from the twelfth century, is an illumination of some of the writings of St. Jerome. On one of its pages is a representation of the rich man Dives, holding two cornu

copias as symbols of abundance. A blue Beelzebub, spotted with green, and another violet-colored demon, are harpooning him, while two serpents bite his arms, and two toads his feet. Mention is made of some ancient wall-paintings, said to have existed in 1600, in the church of St. Peter, in the city of Cordova, and supposed to have been executed before the invasion of the country by the Mohammedans. In a convent of Seville is preserved a portrait of St. Ferdinand III., of the early part of the thirteenth century, "dark and dingy in color, and ornamented with gilding." About the middle of that century, a Spanish painter, named Pedro, appears to have migrated to England, where he attached himself to the court of Henry III., at the moderate wages of sixpence a day; while in the year 1291 a certain Rodrigo Estéban is recorded as painter to King Sancho IV.

From this time to the sixteenth century, Cean Bermudez, the Spanish art historian, gives a list of twenty-five painters, the most skillful of whom, however, was an Italian named Starnina, born in 1354, and a pupil of Antonio Veneziano. About 1390 the Archbishop of Toledo caused the cathedral cloisters "to be painted in the style of Giotto," with groups of burning heretics particularly specified among the subjects. But these were all effaced a hundred years ago, to make room for modern frescoes.

In the fifteenth century distinct schools of painting began to be known in Spain. Toledo took the lead; then followed Seville, Madrid, and Valencia. But the school of Toledo was afterward merged in that of Madrid, and Valencia in that of Seville. At Seville appeared, in 1454, Sanchez de Castro, who painted a gigantic "St. Christopher," in the church

of St. Julian; and, in a convent near Seville, an Annunciation," where the Virgin held in her hand a rosary and a pair of spectacles. But his works may be considered as extinct. The sixteenth century was the heroic age of Spain. The reign of Charles V. opened both Italy and Flanders to his subjects, and the wonderful creations of Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and Raphael, were to be seen in primeval freshness. Spanish artists flocked to Rome to study under its eminent masters; and painters from Italy and the Netherlands, attracted by tales of royal munificence, brought their pictures and their pencils to the Spanish court. Among them was Pedro Campaña, a Fleming, whose "Descent from the Cross," at Seville, so impressed Murillo that he desired to be buried before it.

At this time, the native schools began to assume character and importance. Luis de Vargas, born about 1502, in Seville, was the first artist of merit in that city of whose labors posterity is able to judge. He was peculiarly austere and devout in his life, and kept by his bedside a coffin in which he was wont to lie down and meditate on death. Being of this disposition, it naturally followed that he gave his entire attention to sacred subjects. He spent twenty-eight years in Italy, and has the credit of being one of the first to teach his countrymen the true method of oil and fresco painting; but his knowledge of such artistic secrets could not have been very thorough, for the frescoes which he executed with great industry, and which gained him at the time much reputation, were so little able to withstand the attacks of decay that they are now almost entirely obliterated. His few remaining works must be studied in the cathedral of Seville.

The