Artists Past and Present Part 7

In several other canvases, notably in the first version of "My Cousin Esperanza," and the second version of "Women in a Balcony," Zuloaga has caught this effect of vague fleeting values, changes in surface so subtle as to be felt rather than seen, a kind of floating modeling that suggests form rather than insists upon it. And he has done this in the most difficult manner. Whistler long ago taught us to appreciate the effect, but he worked with thin layers of pigment, a sensitive surface upon which the slightest accent made an impression. Zuloaga, on the contrary, works with a full brush, and consequently a more unmanageable surface. He attains his success as a sculptor does against the odds of his material, but he seems better to suggest his special types in this way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America.

MERCEDeS

_From a painting by Zuloaga_]

Often he makes his modeling with the sweep of his brush in one direction and another. "Candida Laughing" shows this method, and so does the "Village Judge," in which the pigment is still more freely swept about the bone of the cheek and the setting of the eye, telling its story of the way the human face is built up in the frankest and briefest manner.

With the lovely "Mercedes," a fragile figure, elegant in type, the workmanship becomes again less outspoken. The haughty, graceful carriage, and the intense refinement of the features that glow with a pale light beneath the fine lace of the scarf, demand and receive a daintier, more fastidious interpretation. In the portrait of Mrs. F., Jr., there is a fresher manner, a breezier, crisper feeling throughout. The color harmony of gray and green is cool and lively, the poise of the figure lacks the touch of languor that is present in the fieriest of the typical Spaniards. We seem to have pa.s.sed into another and cooler air.

The composition of this picture too, is especially admirable. The subject stands, bending forward a little, the left hand resting on the hip, the other fingering a string of pearls, a gauzy scarf is about the shoulder and floats away from the figure at the hips, the sky is atmospheric and there is a background of trees, river, and bridge. At the left of the canvas an iron bal.u.s.trade, bent into free, graceful curves, comes into the composition, beautifully drawn and painted in a just value, adding in the happiest manner to the decorative effect.

This is the cla.s.s of pictures in which Zuloaga is at his best. The types offer him adequate opportunity for exercising the faculty of astute discrimination with which he is gifted, without calling into play the ironic temper that broods with cold amus.e.m.e.nt over such a canvas as "The Old Boulevardier" than which cynicism can go but little farther. It might reasonably be argued that it is only in subjects which call forth as many evidences as possible of the artist's temperament and character that we can fully measure his force. The impulse, however, that turns his gaze toward those physiognomies that offer the richest reward to the investigating scrutiny is a part of his force, as also his choice of subjects about which he can talk, as one of his French critics has put it in his own language.