Morning journal and courier., 1890-04-25

with even in some respects undue vehemencs | in the bosom of @ certain iracund and tur-
 bulent individual called the elder Herrera, one little commendable as a man, but inter- esting here, not in that, as some would have 1 it, he was the creator of the more modern | Spanish school, but that he mere stoutly, perhaps, than any other resisted the foreign spirit and handed on the old territorial grit and temper. It was, by grim irony of things, in the handiwork of this mans sen that the most extravagant and debased form of pseudo Italian mannerism was reached. Old Herrera is said to have been harsh and brutal parent-let us not forget that he had seen his son's picturesl His real spiritual successor-though, in fact, never his pupil in that in him the true Spanish genius was transmitted, was Zurbsran, a man of whom we have in this country but little knowledge, painter of conspicuously powerful persona alitY, in whom more than in any of his con-
 temporaries the various essential characteris-
 tics of his race were gathered up-its defiant
 beauty, its love of fact. it's imaginative force,
 it's gloomy fervor, it's poetry, in fact, and it's
 prose. Ribera was as an artist an Italian;
 Alonze Cano was an eclectic with @ Spanish
 accent; Murillo the unequal, now entrancing
 us with the fused glory of his tones, now re-
 polling us by harshness and commonplace,
 was truly Spanish, no doubt, but had neither
 the imagination nor the sustained virility of
 style of the son of the peasant from Estre-
 madura, the completest representative in art,
 I think, of the genius of his race. For
 long period Italian painting did not cease to
 enjoy the favor of the court; it ceased, how-
 ever, toward the beginning of the seven
 teenth century to exercise that paralyzing in-
 fuence which had marked fits first adrent;, and the ground was cleared for @ new i'm.
 pulse from within.
 A
 ing genius and fearless initiative was given
 to Spain in the person of Diego Velazquez.
 It may perhaps have surprised you that with
 such name before my mind I should have
 spoken of Zurbaran, man so vastly his in-
 ferior in the painters gift, as perhaps the
 most representative of Spanish artists. I
 have done so because beyond any other artist
 he sums up in himself, as I have pointed out
 to you, all the complex elements of the Span-
 ish genius. In Velazquez, on the other
 hand, Spanish as he is to the finger tips, this
 comprehensiveness is not found. Of Velaz-
 quez all was Spanish, but Zurbaran was all
 Spain. Viewed simply as @ painter, the
 great Sevillian was, as I have just said, vast
 ly the superior of the Estremeno. He was
 in more intimate touch with nature, and
 none, perhaps, have equalled the swift magic
 of his brush. On the other hand, depth of
 feeling, poetry, imagination, were refused to
 him. The painter of the "Lanzas." the
 "Hilanderas," the "Meninas"-works in
 their kind unapproached in art by any other
 man-painted also, be it remembered, the
 Coronation of the Virgin" and the "Mars''
 of the Madrid gallery-types of prosaic
 treatment. In one work, indeed, religion
 seems for moment to have winged his pens
 cil but striking and pathetic as is his fa-
 nous "Crucifxion," it does not equal in
 poignancy and imaginative grasp the pre-
 sentiment of the same subject by Zurbaran in
 Seville. But if we miss in Velazquez the
 higher gifts of the imagination, we find him
 also free from all those blemishes of extrava-
 gance which we have go often noted in this
 land of powerful impulses, unrestrained by
 tact. Whatever gifts may have been re-
 fused to Velszqueh, in his grave simplicity
 he is unsurpassed. If fancy seldom lifts
 him above the level of intimate daily things,
 neither does she obstruct for him with pur-
 pie wings the white light of sober truth.
 In days in which the young Herrera could
 find favor, in country in which Churrigue-
 ra wss possible, and euphuism was applaud
 ed, he never overstepped the modesty of na- ture. nor forgot in art the value of reticent control. have not time here to follow his career, nor the evolvtion of his unique and dazzling genius. Still less need I, before young artists of the present day, dwell on the wizardry and the luscious fascination of the brush of this most modern of the old masters. will only, in conclusio- touch briefly on one or two points that are of in-
 terest, and one that is, perhaps, of warning. First, I would notice the purity and dece- rum of his art, decorum not, l think, due to the characteristically Spanish laws under which the Inquisition visited with heavy penalties every semblance even of impurity in a work of art, but to a spirit dwelling in
 the people itself of which those laws were
 but the somewhat exaggerated expression.
 It may be worth while, also, to note that yet
 another virtue of the Spaniards is, in one of
 his works, reflected in an unexpected man.
 ner-nsnely, their sobriety. It Is curious
 thing that in certain class of Spanish lite- rature peculiar relish is showh in the DOT. traying of moral squalor and the grovelling criminality of social outcasts. In Spanish art, on the other hand, the picturesqueness alone of low life seems to have sought ex- pression. You know what gentle Murillo Again, you saw not long ago upon these walls, in the "Water Carrier of Seville" how at the outset of his career Velazquez turned his thoughts to subjects drawn from humble life, and you know how to the end he dwelt with peculiar gusto on the fantastic physioguomy of the privileged buffoons, dwarfs and hombres de placer who haunted
 the palace in his day. You know, further,
 that one of the most powerful works painted by him before reality of atmospheric effect
 had become his chief preoccupation, and
 when he sought exclusively after truth of character, a picture known as "Los Borra- chos," represents a group of drunkards do- ing homage to Baechus. It is work of the most naked realism; Bacchus. showing in his repulsive vulgsrity what blank to Vel- azquez was the poetic side of classic myths, is surrounded by circle of kneeling rascals,
 rude and ragged enough, and supposed, no doubt, to be carousing.
 But here is the strange peculiarly of this work. In spite of all these accessories of @ revel, and the flash of grinning teeth, we are unable to persuade ourselves that any one of the disreputable crew could ever be drunk. Imagine the subject treated by a Fleming! And now, though I am lonth to touch one
 leaf of the laurels of SO dazzlipg and so great an artist, ! cannot pass in silence a clrcum- stance which must bs weighed in estimating Valezquez as man, and which is not with out bearing on his art. The virtues of his race, as we have seen, purified his work and gave it dignity; Spanish foible, though it could not dim his genius, cramped no doubt ard curtailed it's production-namely, ten- dency to subordinate everything to the pur- suit of royal favor. I said Spanish foible; for a superstitious rendering up of will and conscience to the sovereign, such as is, l 1 believe, without example, had been long a