Six Centuries of Painting Part 8

After recording his life from the time when he left his master Pacheco to enter the service of Philip IV. to the day that he died in it, we shall find that only a bare percentage of his work was not commissioned by the king; and in all his pictures which were not simply portraits there is little if anything to be found which is not as literal and truthful a presentment of the model in front of him as the life-like representations of Philip and those about his Court, of which the supreme quality is that of living resemblance, or to put it in more general terms, vivid realism. Gifted as he must have been with an extraordinary vision and a still rarer, if not unique, ability to put down on canvas what he saw, he confined himself entirely within the limits of actuality, and thereby attained to heights which his great contemporaries Rubens and Rembrandt in their n.o.blest flights of imagination never reached.

Velasquez was baptised on the 6th of June 1599, in the church of S.

Peter at Seville. He was the son of well-to-do parents; his father, a native of Seville, was named Juan Rodriguez de Silva, his mother Geronima Velasquez. At thirteen years old he had displayed so strong an inclination towards painting that he was put to study under Francisco de Herrera, then the most considerable painter in Spain (his son, also Francisco, was the painter of the _Christ Disputing with the Doctors_, in the National Gallery), but owing to Herrera's violent temper Velasquez was shortly transferred to the studio of Francisco Pacheco, whose daughter he eventually married.

Pacheco who was, besides being an accomplished artist, a man of literary tastes, and much sought after in Seville by the more intellectual cla.s.s of society, was exceedingly proud of his pupil, and said of him that he was induced to bestow the hand of his daughter upon him "by the rect.i.tude of his conduct, the purity of his morals, and his great talents, and from the high expectation he entertained of his natural abilities and transcendent genius," adding that the honour of having been his instructor was far greater than that of being his father-in-law, and that he felt it no demerit to be surpa.s.sed by so brilliant a pupil.

In 1649 Pacheco published a book on painting, in which we are told that the first attempts of Velasquez were studies in still life, or simple compositions of actual figures, called _bodegones_ in Spanish, of which we have a fair example at the National Gallery in the _Christ at the House of Martha_. Sir Frederick Cook, at Richmond, has another, an _Old Woman Frying Eggs_, and the Duke of Wellington two more, of which _The Water Carrier of Seville_ is probably the summit of the young painter's achievement before he left Seville, in 1623, and entered the service of Philip IV. as Court painter.

His first portrait of the king was the magnificent whole length in the Prado Gallery, now numbered 1182, standing in front of a table with a letter in his right hand. No. 1183 is the head of the same portrait, possibly done as a study for it. Philip was so pleased with this that he ordered all existing portraits of himself to be removed from the palace, and appointed Velasquez exclusively as his painter.

Another of his earliest successes at Court was the whole length portrait of the king's brother, Don Carlos, holding a glove in his right hand; and the picture now in the Museum at Rouen of _A Geographer_ is probably of this date.

In 1628, when Velasquez was still quite young, and had fallen under no influence save that of Pacheco and the school of Seville, he was charged by the king to entertain Rubens, who came to the Spanish Court on a diplomatic mission, and show him all the treasures in the palace. If any one could influence Velasquez, we might suppose it would have been Rubens, who was not only a great painter, but a man of the most captivating manners and disposition, ever ready to help younger artists.

But not only did he have no perceptible effect on the style of Velasquez, but in the picture of _The Topers_, which must have been painted while Rubens was at Madrid, or very shortly after he left, we can almost see a determination not to be influenced by him; for the subject was a favourite one of Rubens's, and yet there is nothing in this most realistic presentment of

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XVIII.--VELAZQUEZ

THE INFANTE PHILIP PROSPER

_Imperial Gallery, Vienna_]

actual figures under the t.i.tle of Bacchus and his votaries which has anything at all in common with the florid and imaginative compositions of the Flemish painter. Velasquez had begun as a realist, and a realist he was to continue till the end of his days.

Shortly after painting this picture he left his native country for the first time, and visited Venice and Rome. At Venice he made copies of Tintoretto's _Last Supper_ and _Crucifixion_; but little if any of Tintoretto's influence is to be seen in the two pictures he painted in Rome--_The Forge of Vulcan_ and _Joseph's Coat_, both of which are still as realistic as ever in treatment, though showing great advances in technical skill. Soon after his return to Spain in 1631, he probably painted the magnificent whole length _Philip IV._ in the National Gallery, which compares so well, on examination with the more popular and showy _Admiral Pulido Pareja_ purchased some years ago from Longford Castle. Senor Beruete, who has studied the work of Velasquez more closely and more intelligently than any one else, considers that whereas there is not a single touch upon the former that is not from the brush of Velasquez, the latter cannot be properly attributed to him at all--any more than can another popular favourite, the _Alexandro del Borro_ in the Berlin Gallery, now given to Bernard Strozzi.

To this period may be also a.s.signed the _Christ at the Column_ in the National Gallery, a picture which though not at first sight attractive, is nevertheless as fine in technique, and in sentiment, as any other picture in the Spanish room, and deserves far more attention than is usually given to it. Its simple realism and its pathetic sweetness are qualities which are wanting in many a more showy or sensational composition, and the more it is studied the nearer we find we are getting to the real excellences that distinguish Velasquez from any painter who has ever lived. The _Crucifixion_ at the Prado is perhaps more wonderful, but the familiar subject helps the imagination of the spectator to admire it, whereas the unfamiliar setting of our picture is apt at first sight to repel.

The most important composition undertaken by Velasquez in this middle period of his career--that is to say between his two visits to Italy in 1629 and 1649--is the famous _Surrender of Breda_, or, as it is sometimes called, _The Lances_. Soon after his arrival in Madrid he had once painted an historical subject, _The Expulsion of the Moors_, in compet.i.tion with his rivals who had a.s.serted that he could paint nothing but heads. In this compet.i.tion the prize was awarded to him, but as the picture has perished we are unable to judge of its merits for ourselves.

But apart from this, and such unimportant groups of figures as we have mentioned, he had been occupied wholly in painting single portraits, and it is a marvellous proof of his genius that he should produce such a masterpiece of composition as _The Lances_ with so little practice in this branch of his art. Here, at least, we might have expected to trace the influence of Rubens, but there is actually no sign of it; and if he sought any inspiration at all from other painters, it was from what he recalled of Tintoretto's work which he had seen and studied in Venice.

In the king's eldest boy, _Baltazar Carlos_, who was born in 1629, Velasquez found a model for two or three of his most charming pictures.

One is at Castle Howard; a second the equestrian portrait, on a galloping pony, at the Prado; and a third the full length hunting portrait, also at the Prado, in which we see the little prince standing under a tree, gun in hand, with an enormous dog lying beside him.

Another is at Vienna, representing him as of about eleven years old, full length, with his hand resting on the back of a chair. All of these owe some of their charm to the youth and attractive personality of the subject; but if we want to see the power of Velasquez without any outside element to help us to appreciate it, there is the portrait of the sculptor _Martinez Montanes_ at the Prado. "The head is wonderful in its colour and its modelling," writes Senor Beruete; "and what a lesson in technique! The eyes, lightly touched with colour, are set deep in their sockets, and surmounted by a strongly marked forehead. The high lights are of a rich _impasto_, manipulated with extraordinary skill; the greyer tones of the flesh, so true and so delicate, are painted in a way that brings out with marvellous truth, both the soft parts of the cheeks and the harder structure of the face, under which one can follow the bones of the nose and forehead.... Everything in the picture is spontaneous, and one can see that it is a pledge of friendship given by one artist to another; there is nothing here of that artificial arrangement that spoils commissioned portraits even when they are the work of a painter as independent as Velasquez was. One feels here the a.s.surance of an artist who knows that his work will be understood by his friend in the spirit in which it was executed." M. Lefort, the French critic, is even more enthusiastic. "Ah! these redoubtable neighbours,"

he exclaims, seeing it surrounded by the works of other painters at the Prado. "This canvas makes them look like mere imitations--dead conventional likenesses. Van Dyck is dull, Rubens oily, Tintoret yellow; it is Velasquez alone who can give us the illusion of life in all its fulness!"

In 1649 Velasquez paid his second visit to Rome, where he painted the famous portrait of His Holiness, _Pope Innocent X._ which is now in the Doria palace. This is exceptional in treatment, inasmuch as it is the only portrait by Velasquez in which the subject is seated--excepting of course equestrian portraits--and instead of the usual quiet tones of grey and brown which he was so fond of employing, the picture of the Pope is a radiant harmony of rose red and white. In its realism it is even more surprising than most of the other portraits, considering how ugly the face had to be made to resemble nature, although the sitter was of a still higher rank than Velasquez's royal master.

Returning to Madrid in 1651, Velasquez never again left Spain, and the remaining twenty years of his life may be considered the third period of his artistic development, inasmuch as no special influence was exerted upon him outside the ordinary and somewhat tedious course of his employment at the Court. To this period are a.s.signed twenty-six pictures--Senor Beruete only admits the authenticity of eighty-three in all, it may be mentioned--twelve of which are royal portraits, seven those of buffoons and dwarfs, three mythological and two sacred subjects, and the two famous pieces of real life, _Las Meninas_ and _Las Hilanderas_.

Of the royal portraits those of the _Infanta Margarita_ are among the most fascinating, no less from their technical excellence than on account of the youthful charm of the little Princess. The one at Vienna represents her as about three years old, dressed in red, standing by a little table. Of this, Senor Beruete says that it is "one of the most beautiful inspirations of Velasquez, and perhaps one that reveals better than any other his power as a colourist; it is a flower, perfumed with every infantine grace." Another standing portrait, though only a half length, when she was not many years older, is that in the Salon Carre at the Louvre, which is more familiar to us being nearer home and more often reproduced. M. de Wyczewa praises it thus:--"The perfect _chefs-d'oeuvre_ collected in this glorious salon pale in the presence of this child portrait; not one of them can bear comparison with this simple yet powerful painting, which seems to aim only at external resemblance and without other effort to attain a mysterious beauty of form and colour." At Frankfort again is a charming picture of the little Princess, whole length, at the age of six or seven--a replica of which is at Vienna. She is dressed in greyish white with tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of black, and her hoop skirt is so enormous that her arms have to be stretched out straight to allow her hands to reach the edge of her coat.

Of the three mythological subjects two are in the Prado, namely the _Mars_ and the _Mercury and Argus_, while the third and most beautiful is the _Venus at the Mirror_ recently purchased for our national collection. These were all of them painted for the decoration of the royal palaces, and we may therefore suppose that the artist was not entirely at liberty either in the choice of his subject or in his method of treating it. Certainly he does not seem to have been fond of painting the nude, unless with men, and it is noticeable that he has posed his model in this case with more modesty and reserve than is to be observed in the pictures of Rubens and t.i.tian. The Holy Church was sternly averse to this cla.s.s of painting, in which, accordingly, none of the Spanish school indulged; but at the same time the royal galleries did not exclude the most exuberant fancies of Rubens, t.i.tian, Tintoretto, and others, and Velasquez was in all probability commissioned by Philip to paint this Venus--and another which has perished--along with the Mars and Mercury without regard to the ecclesiastical authorities. But it is hardly surprising if Velasquez availed himself less fully of the privilege than a Flemish or Italian painter would no doubt have done, and has given us so chaste and beautiful a realisation of the G.o.ddess.

Having regard to the scepticism with which this masterpiece was received in England at the time of its purchase for the nation it is worth quoting Senor Beruete's remarks upon it in that connection. "The authenticity of this work," he writes "has found numerous doubters in Spain, less on account of its subject--being the only nude female figure in the whole _oeuvre_ of Velasquez--than because so few people ever suspected its existence; but after it was exhibited at Manchester in 1857 and in London in 1890, it was recognised that its attribution to Velasquez was well founded. At the sight of the canvas all doubt vanishes. There, indeed, is the style, the inimitable technique of Velasquez."

This, from the connoisseur who has devoted years of study to the work of the master, and who rejects such well established examples as the Dulwich _Philip IV._ and the _Admiral Pulido Pareja_, is surely more conclusive than the academic pedantry of ignorance masquerading as authority.

BARTOLOMe ESTeBAN MURILLO (1617-1682) has always been accounted the most popular of the Spanish painters, and it is only in recent times that his popularity has faded into comparative insignificance on the fuller recognition and understanding of the genius of Velasquez. The intensely Anglican feeling in this country during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XIX.--VELAZQUEZ

THE ROKEBY VENUS

_National Gallery, London_]

seems to have found peculiar relief in the sentimental aspirations of the followers of Raphael in the rendering of religious subjects from the Romish point of view. At the present time we are readier to estimate Murillo's justly high place in the annals of painting by such a picture as his own portrait, lent by Lord Spencer to the recent Exhibition, than to allow it on the strength of our recollection of the Madonnas and Holy Families, Immaculate Conceptions and a.s.sumptions, of which there exist so many copies in the dining rooms of country rectories. The _Boy Drinking_, which is here reproduced, if it is the least "important" of the four examples in the National Gallery, is certainly not the least excellent.

From the miserable state into which Spain had fallen by the end of the seventeenth century, it could hardly be expected that anything further in the nature of art would result, and it was not until towards the end of the eighteenth that another genius arose, in the person of FRANCISCO GOYA (1746-1828). Of this extraordinary phenomenon in the firmament of art it is impossible to say more than a very few words in this place.

Like a meteor, he is rather to be pointed at than talked about, when there are so many stars and planets whose regular courses have to be observed and recorded. He was like a sharp knife drawn across the face of Spain, gashing it here and there, but for the most part just touching it lightly enough to sting and to leave a mark. As a Court painter he was an unqualified success, his salary under Charles IV. rising in ten years from 15,000 to 50,000 reals; but his official productions are not the less devoid of interest on that account, and are sometimes the more satirical from the necessity for concealment. In his more outspoken works, such as the _Disasters of War_, and the series of prints called _Los Caprichos_ and _Tauromachia_, he is too brutal not to affect the ordinary observer's judgment upon his artistic qualities. Velasquez himself could scarcely stop short enough, when painting dwarfs and idiots and cripples, to let us admire his genius unhampered by shivers of repulsion. Goya, being exactly the opposite of Velasquez in temperament, had no scruples about expressing the utmost of his subject; and even in decorating a church was reproved for "falling short of the standard of chast.i.ty" required. But between the extremes of brutality and conventionalism there is such a wide expanse of pure joy of painting that nothing can diminish the reputation of Goya, however much it is likely to be enhanced. To the modern Spanish painter he is probably as fixed a beacon as Velasquez.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XX.--MURILLO

A BOY DRINKING

_National Gallery, London_]

_FLEMISH SCHOOL_

I

HUBERT AND JAN VAN EYCK

In 1383, on the death of Louis de Maele, his son-in-law Philip the Hardy, Duke of Burgundy, a.s.sumed the government of Flanders. In the same year Philip founded the Carthusian Convent at Dijon and employed a Flemish painter named Melchin Broederlam to embellish two great shrines within it. To the strong-handed policy of Philip and his successors during the ensuing century may be attributed the rise of Netherlandish art which, though existing before their time, required their vigorous repression of intestine feuds to give it an opportunity of developing.

Under Louis and his predecessors Flanders and its cities had risen to great commercial importance, but its rulers had neither the strength nor the prestige to keep the turbulent spirit of their subjects in due bounds. The school of painting which now arose so rapidly to perfection under the Dukes of Burgundy thus owed a portion of its progress to the wealth and independence of the commercial cla.s.ses. The taste, power, and cultivation of a Court gave it an additional spur; and the clergy throwing in their weight, added their support in aid of art.

Two wings of one of the Dijon shrines are still preserved in the museum there, and in these Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle observe the characteristics of much that was to follow:--"Although Melchior's style was founded on the study of the painters of the Rhine, his composition was similar to the later productions of the Flemish school. A tendency to realism already marks this early Fleming, and is the distinctive feature of a manner in which the painter strives to imitate nature in its most material forms. Idealism and n.o.ble forms are lacking, but Broederlam is a fair imitator of the truth. Distinctive combination and choice of colours in draperies, and vigorous tone, characterise him as they do the early works at Bruges and other cities of the Netherlands which may be judged by his standard." And again, "the painter evidently struggled between the desire to give a material imitation, and the inspirations of graceful teachers like those of Cologne.... Penetrated with similar ideas the early Flemings might under similar circ.u.mstances have risen to a sweet and dignified conception of nature; and if we fail to discover that they attained this aim we must attribute the failure to causes peculiar to Flanders. Amongst these we may cla.s.s the social status of the Flemish painters, whose positions in the household of princes subjected them perhaps to caprices unfavourable to the development of high aspirations, or the contemplation and free communion with self which are the soul of art."

It is interesting to compare these observations, so far as they refer to the realism which characterises Netherlandish painting, with those of Dr Waagen, who it will be seen explains it on the broader grounds of national temperament. "Early Netherlandish painting," he contends, "in its freedom from all foreign influence, exhibits the contrast between the natural feeling of the Greek and the German races respectively in the department of art--these two races being the chief representatives of the cultivation of the ancient and the modern world. In this circ.u.mstance consists the high significance of this school when considered in reference to the general history of art. While it is characteristic of the Greek feeling--from which was derived the Italian--to idealise,--and to idealise, be it observed, not only the conceptions of the ideal world but even such material objects as portraits,--by the simplification of forms and the prominence given to the more important parts of a work of art, the early Netherlanders, on the other hand, conferred a portrait-like character upon the most ideal personifications of the Virgin, the Apostles, Prophets, and Martyrs, and in actual portraiture aimed at rendering even the most accidental peculiarities of nature, like warts and wrinkles, with excruciating fidelity.

"While the Greeks expressed the various features of outward nature--such as rivers, fountains, hills, trees, etc.--under abstract human forms, the Netherlanders endeavoured to express them as they had seen them in nature, and with a truth which extended to the smallest details.

"In opposition to the ideal, and what may be called the personifying tendency of the Greeks, the Netherlanders developed a purely realistic and landscape school.

"In this respect the other Teutonic nations are found to approach them most nearly, the Germans first, and then the English."

But whatever may have been the causes which produced the distinguishing features of Netherlandish painting, we have still to enquire the origin from which the practice of painting in northern Europe proceeded. For in taking Melchior Broederlam as a starting-point we are only going as far back--with the exception of certain rude wall paintings--as the earliest examples take us; and having seen how in Italy the whole history of the art is traceable to Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto, through the Byzantines, at least a century before Broederlam comes under our notice, we might naturally conclude that it was from Italy that it spread to Cologne, and from Cologne to the Netherlands. So far as is known, however, this was not the case, and we must look elsewhere than to Italy for the influences which formed this school. Nevertheless it was a collateral branch of the same stock--Byzantine art--and the family resemblance comes out none the less strongly from the two branches having developed under different circ.u.mstances. In Italy, as we have seen, the Byzantine seed, sown in such fertile soil, attained suddenly a great luxuriance. In the north, transplanted by Charlemagne to Aix-la-Chapelle in the ninth century, it grew slowly and more timidly, but none the less surely, under the cover of Monasticism, in the ma.n.u.scripts illuminated with miniatures; and thus when it did burst forth into fuller blossom, the boldness of the Italian masters, who worked at large in fresco, was wanting, and a detailed and almost meticulous realism was its chief characteristic. Another point worth noticing is that though primarily introduced for religious purposes, as in Italy, namely the decoration of the cathedral erected by Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, the paintings in his palace showed forth events in his own life, such as his campaigns in Spain, seiges of towns and feats of arms by Frankish warriors. At Upper Ingelheim, likewise, his chapel was adorned with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, while the banqueting hall exhibited on one wall the deeds of great Pagan rulers, such as Cyrus, Hannibal, and Alexander, and on the other those of Constantine and Theodosius, the seizure of Acquitaine by Pepin, and Charlemagne's own conquest over the Saxons and finally himself enthroned as conqueror. Although no trace remains of these paintings, contemporary ma.n.u.scripts executed by his order are still in existence in the libraries of Paris, Treves, and elsewhere from which we can form some idea of the style in which they were rendered and of the source from which they were derived.

Of these we need only mention the Vulgate decorated by JOHN OF BRUGES, painter to King Charles V. of France, in 1371, which contains a portrait of the king in profile with a figure kneeling before him, and a few small historical subjects. From these it is evident that the art of painting, at any rate in little, had made considerable progress in the Netherlands at that date, and the express designation of _pictor_ applied to John of Bruges, while the ordinary miniaturist was called _illuminator_, shows the probability of his having painted pictures on a larger scale. The high development of realistic feeling as it first appears to us in the pictures of Hubert and Jan van Eyck is thus partly accounted for, especially when we also consider the wholesale destruction of larger works of art that took place in the disturbed condition of the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. The main points, however, to be borne in mind is that whereas Cimabue and Duccio started painting on walls under the influence of Byzantine teachers, Hubert van Eyck, a century later, began painting on wooden panels under that of illuminators and painters in books.

To these, nevertheless, there must be added another scarcely less important, namely, that the early Italians were ignorant of the use of what we now call oil paints, and worked entirely in tempera--that is to say, there was no admixture of oil or varnish with their pigments. To Hubert van Eyck is attributed the invention of the modern practice, as Vasari relates with more colour than historic truth in his life of Antonello da Messina, who is supposed to have carried it into Italy. Be that as it may, the works of the van Eycks and their successors are all in oils, and there is no doubt that the employment of this medium from the first considerably influenced the style, colour, and execution of all the works of this school.