Morning journal and courier., 1889-01-22
ART IN SPAIN.
Professor Hopp1n,s Course of

lures At Yale Art School. To Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: The students of the Art school connecte, with Yale university are highly favored thi season with renewal of lectures by Profes sor Hoppin, who has recently returned iron abroad, with many art treasures and mucl valuable information, obtained by persona observation and study in various parts oi Europe, but especially in Spain.
 The first lecture of the course was giver last Tuesday and was upon Spanish art.
 Professor Hoppin began by stating tha the art of nation is reflection of it's spirit. ual life. The art of Greece was not under. stood hundred years ago, and was only comprehended when it was studied on iss natural soil. Great teachers, as 8 general thing, can only be comprehended in their own home. Therefore, to the better under standing of Spanish art, the lecturer gave Spanish art. The nature of the Spanish people gives the only key to it's art. Ii sprang up without any mixture of Protest antism. There is in the scenery of Spain 6 monotonous dreariness, mountains rising there thousands of feet, enclosing valleys green with the olive and vine. All is fenced in and each province from every other. A TuOo duO uoI0y 6lO poCul1HE IdC6 must be nurtured in such regions. The Spanish temperament is 8 mixture of cold reserve and volcanic pss- sions. The lecturer here referred, with in- teresting detail, to the historic facts connect ed with Spanish vicissitudes. The land WAS first opened to the ancients by the Carthe- gians and Romans. The North was uncon- quered, and remains 80 to this day. Gothic dominion lasted till the inroads of the Moors from Africa. Then came the con- quest by the Christians. The Roman Catho- lie faith laid it's grasp upon proud and narrow-minded race. In graphic language reference was here made to Cardinal Xima- nes, the Inquisitin, and the fact that the Renaissance did not shake off the power of ance. Often the only alternatives were death and exile, in the worthless reigns of Ferdi- nand VII. and Isabella II. It was thus shown that the peculiar circumstances of this country; it's isolation, the ecclesiastic rule and the like, gave rigid character to it's art.
 In Spain there was 8 cowled monk stand- ing behind every painter directing his brush. The precise color of the Virgins robe was prescribed and no painting of her feet was allowed.
 This religious rigidity perhaps added some thing to the strength of Spanish art. Muril- To is the peoples favorite. The speaker had seen the beggar boys, etc., there now just ss Murillo painted them so long ago. Spain for the artist remains the land of enchantment. There are the great pictures of the Spanish school, fully as realistic as the Dutch; and there is also to be seen the freshness of true art Professor Hoppin then gave a fine word picture of the cathedral where the paintings are not only works of art but of religion. The great Spanish artists are but few in number. With rapid but %<>C Ir53 ov,l Valencia, the speaker showed that all the styles of Spanish art run into each other and there is the same monotonous religious tone in all. No marks to separate one school from another In the Madrid gallery all schools are represented. Spanish art has concen- trated itself in the works of few artists. In a series of fine paradoxes the speaker showed the value of two Spanish artists. eff all Greek art were lost but the works of Phidias and Praxiteles, all would be saved; if all the writings of the Christian fathers were lost but those of Chrysostem and Augustine, all would be saved. and 80 if all works ot Span ish art were lost but those of Velasques and Minillo, all would be saved" Spanish art Is not appreciated because not well known. The Madrid gallery holds the first place. It has 65 paintings by VilasGues 46 by Minillo, 10 by Raphael, g by Van Dyke, 24 by Paul Verenese and 30 by Tintoretto. These col- lections were mostly made by Charles V. and Philip II.
 The speaker here gave list of some of the valuable paintings in the Madrid gallery and called attention to some engraved copies con- veniently arranged by the janltor for exami- nation.
 The speaker also spoke of understanding light as the great secret of painting. Each painter was his own school. A missal was described by the speaker, which he had seen in the library of Madrid, that belonged to the tenth century, and he saw picture in the cathedral which is said to be the earliest painting, and 8 fresco of ten bearded monks in the Alhambra painted by Spsnish or Moorish artist before the conquest of Gre nada.
 Gothic architecture preceded painting in Spain, therefore frescoes were done by Flor entine artists. Spanish painting up to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was of for eign growth. Art in Spain at first was timid- ly initiative of other styles and had not struck into Spanish soil. The Escurial was mentioned as "stone, stone, stone, hardly 8 green thing about it." It has few fine paintings in it, but most of it's paintings are in the Madrid gallery True Spanish art began to show itself in the sixteenth cen. tary.
 Reference was discriminatory made to a painting as being nobly grave and pathetic, but conventially melancholy. The austere dignity of Spanish character went into the1l paintings. Those paintings have in most cases rarely been retouched; you see them aa age has mellowed them. The lecture closed by reference to the golden age of Spanish art as beginning with the seventeenth century and by giving due credit to the emperor wht lost the Armada but successfully gathered Spanish works of art.