The Story of Seville Part 13

Upon the same wall as the Santa Ana are the works of Juan de Valdes Leal. They are of uneven merit, and traces of hurry and lack of careful completion may be discerned in almost all of them. One of the most interesting is, La Virgen, las tres Marias y San Juan, en busca (search) de Jesus. The figures convey the idea of motion, while eager expectancy finds expression in look and gesture. The series of pictures ill.u.s.trative of the life of San Jeronimo are also interesting, notwithstanding the lack of harmony which mars several of the compositions. Entirely distinct are, La Concepcion, and La Asuncion.

They are poor, both in drawing and colour; distinctly mannered, and devoid of simplicity and deep religious feeling.

The works of Francisco de Zurbaran are collected in the old convent choir. In the centre is, La Apoteosis de Santo Tomas de Aquino, considered by some critics the masterpiece of Zurbaran. It is a triple altar-piece, allegorically representing the death of the patron of the College of St. Thomas. The saint is ascending to heaven to join the blessed Trinity, the Virgin, St. Paul, and the hosts of glory. Below sit the venerable figures of the Doctors of the Church; on the right kneels the Bishop Diego de Dega, the founder of the college, while the Emperor, Charles V., with a train of ecclesiastics, stands upon the left. The dark, mild face of the figure immediately behind the Emperor is supposed to be the portrait of Zurbaran. As a work of art the picture is defective; it lacks charm, and the literary interest of the composition is too diffused. The execution is excellent, the colour, though sombre, is rich with a splendid mellowness of tone, while each of the heads bears the imprint of being a separate study.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROAD TO CALVARY

_Valdes Leal_]

The three studies of Carthusian monks amply manifest the charm which this allegorical composition lacks. La Virgen de las Cuevas, and San Hugo en el refectorio will be found on either side of the choir, while the third of the series, Confrencia de San Bruno con Urban II. hangs close to the St. Thomas. The genius of Zurbaran is disclosed in these scenes of monastic life. All three pictures are executed with remarkable fidelity, but the finest of the three is St. Hugo visiting the monks in their refectory. It is painted with realistic and individual truth. The monks, clad in the white robes of the Carthusians, sit around a table at their mid-day repast. In the foreground stands the aged figure of St.

Hugo, attended by a young page. The saint has come to reprove the order for unlawfully dining upon flesh meat. His purple vestments supply an effect of fine colour, which contrasts with the dull white cowls and frocks of the brothers. What cold, pa.s.sionless faces! Zurbaran has embodied the very spirit of asceticism. Each monk is a portrait, probably drawn from life. It is a perfect realisation of a monastic scene from the life of ancient Spain.

We can only touch briefly upon the remaining pictures of Zurbaran. They are all worthy of study. Signs of weak drawing can often be detected, but the effort after truthful expression, and the entire absence of a desire to please by any special trick of manner will commend his work to every student. Note the simple, yet powerful, sincerity of his Crucifixion. Consider the manner in which he has depicted the boy Jesus in the picture, El Nino Jesus. A boy clad in a simple gown of darkest grey; no halo surrounds his head, and upon his knees rests a twisted crown of thorns. One of the p.r.i.c.kly spines has pierced the boy's finger, and with the verity of life Zurbaran depicts him pressing the finger to extract the thorn. The drawing of the figure is faulty and the execution of the little sketch is not equal to many of the other pictures, but the mode of treatment ill.u.s.trates very convincingly the sincerity of the artist's purpose. Many of the studies of monkish figures are very fine. San Luis Beltran is a work of wonderful power.

The careful painting of the hands, and the way in which every detail of the picture is subordinated to the whole effect deserve high praise.

To turn from the works of Zurbaran to the pictures of Francisco Pacheco and Juan de Castillo is somewhat difficult. The hard, flat, lifeless portraits of the one, and the dull, faultily drawn, religious composition of the other, offer little inducement to linger. Were it not for the interest which attaches to these artists from the ill.u.s.trious fame of their pupils, their very names would hardly be remembered.

Equally disappointing are the majority of the remaining canvases, which hang in the nave of the Museo. The modern pictures appear out of place.

The chief idea they convey is one of intense crudity of colour. Among the numerous pupils and imitators of Murillo not one is worthy of attention. The work of the pupils of Zurbaran reaches a somewhat higher level. The pictures of the Apostles, by the brothers Miguel and Francisco Polancos are good studies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAINT HUGO IN THE REFECTORY

_Zurbaran_]

In the nave are two pictures, both good and one of fine merit, executed by artists not belonging to the Sevillian school. La Sagrada Cena (The Last Supper), by Pablo de Cespedes, the artist of Cordoba, 1538-1608, hangs upon the end wall of the nave, near to the Martyrdom of St.

Andrew. The colour is good, there is a slight confusion of detail, but the picture is not without charm. The portrait of himself, by Domenico Theotocopuli,[F] 1548-1625, better known as El Greco, the genius of Toledo, will be found near the door. It is a magnificent study and testifies to the power of the hand which executed it. Composition and technique alike, are above praise. The portrait is life-like in its reality; we grow to know the dark face of the artist, as he stands, with his brush and palette in his hand.

Three other rooms, of small size, complete the Museo. The pictures they contain are not of great importance, but there are a few interesting canvases in the old sacristy, leading from the south transept of the Salon. Among them are several compositions of the early fifteenth century, cla.s.sified as belonging to the _Escuela Flamenca_, by artists whose names have not been preserved. The tones in many of these antique pictures are wonderful, and they are all painted with a nave simplicity. The colour in the two compositions, El Senor Coronado de espinas (thorns), and La Anunciacion de Nuestra Senora is especially good. The long lean figures and conventional grief depicted in El enterramiento del Senor, strongly resemble the similar picture by Sanchez de Castro, in the house of Murillo.

The works of Francisco Frutet will be found in this room. The finest, a grand triptych, ent.i.tled, Jesus en el camino (road) del Calvario, is a work of much beauty. The central picture of the Crucifixion is finely conceived, and Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell thinks that several of the figures bear a resemblance to the Spasimo de Sicilia of Raphael.

El Juicio Final, by Martin Vos, a Flemish painter, who worked in Seville during the early years of the sixteenth century, is a quaintly-conceived allegorical picture. This finest portion represents the hosts of the wicked. The drawing of the figures is good, but the canvas is much crowded.

_The Statuary in the Museo._

Before studying Spanish statuary, it is well to remember that this branch of art never attained to the same level in the Peninsula as the sister art of painting. The reason of this lack of development is not difficult to appreciate, when we remember that statuary was executed, almost without exception, for the religious uses of the Catholic Church.

The images were needed to increase the pious fervour of the populace; they were carried in the religious processions, and often they were credited with miracle-working powers. The one necessity for a Spanish statue was that it should be an exact imitation of life. The more realistic the illusion, the greater was the power of the statue to conform to the requirements of the Church.

It will readily be seen that marble--the substance most fitting for the artistic rendering of form, would not comply with these demands. Thus, in Spain, the cla.s.sic marble was discarded, while wood and plaster were employed in its place. These substances could be readily coloured, or even covered with a canvas, like a skin, and then painted to counterfeit life. This barbaric custom--a relic of heathen days, did much to seal the doom of the art of sculpture in Spain. In seeking to imitate life the artists frequently rendered their statues grotesque. The ambition of art is not to be a deceptive imitation of nature. The true purpose of sculpture is to depict pure form; when it departs from this limitation it loses its distinguishing motive, the representation of repose, and becomes a degraded intermingling of the two arts of sculpture and painting.

Yet, in spite of these limitations, there are several Spanish sculptors whose works deserve praise, and two of the most famous lived and worked in Seville.

Pietro Torriggiano, of Florence, a roving soldier-sculptor, came to Spain, in the year 1520. He had journeyed in many lands, and to his skill we owe the fine tomb of Henry VII., in Westminster Abbey. He settled in Seville, and soon completed his great work, San Jeronimo penitente, now in the north transept of the Museo.

It is impossible to rightly estimate the value of this work in its present position. The bright colours of the modern picture, which forms its background, are entirely unharmonious. The penitent saint, with his sinewy, attenuated form, frowning brow and s.h.a.ggy locks, needs to be seen alone. Its original home was a lonely grotto in the gardens of the Jeronimite Convent; and in such a place of quiet solitude we must picture it, before we can appraise its worth. Cean Bermudez twice visited it in company with Francisco Goya. It excited their unbounded admiration, and Goya p.r.o.nounced it 'the finest piece of work of modern sculpture in Spain, and perhaps in the world.' Torriggiano fell under the ban of the Inquisition, and died in the prison of the Holy Office.

Facing the San Jeronimo, in the south transept, rests the Santo Domingo, of Martinez Montanes, the most eminent sculptor of Seville, if not of the whole of Spain. The date of his birth is not recorded, but we know he was working in Seville in the year 1607; he died in 1649. Like its companion work of art the Santo Domingo suffers from its situation. Such works are utterly unsuited to the crowded gallery; they need the silent cloister, or quiet corner in some convent church. The saint kneels and scourges himself. The figure is of wood and of great dignity. The colouring is subdued, so as not to interfere with the fineness of the conception. The statue is a powerful study of asceticism.

Finer than the Santo Domingo is the Crucifixion, by Montanes, in the _Sacristia de los Calices_, in the Cathedral. It is unrivalled among the statues of Spain. The anatomy is excellent, the sufferings of the Christ are portrayed with powerful reality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CRUCIFIXION

_Montanes_]

CHAPTER XI

_The Churches of the City_

'The different provinces of Spain differ from each other in their architecture, as in their history; some of the buildings are purely Moorish, others have a mixture of that style....' J. H. Parker, _The Study of Gothic Architecture_.

In order to appreciate the Andalusian character, it is essential that one should take into account the vast sway exerted by the Church in Spain. Devotion to piety has ever been one of the cardinal traits of the true Spaniard, and uncompromising faith in prelatical absolutism is considered one of the first virtues. In the long crusade against Saracen infidels, Arians, Jews, Protestants and apostates, men of high birth and wealth abandoned a life of ease to fight under the standard of Rome. To serve one's country as a priest or a soldier was the chief duty of the Christian.

The wars of the country were fought to preserve the traditional faith.

As early as the seventeenth century, the clergy possessed more power in Spain than in any other European country; and the sovereigns were pledged to protect the faith. The bishops were the king-makers, the predominant rulers of the nation. During the forty years' reign of Carlos V., the main object of the State was to suppress heresy, and this had been the ambition of all the rulers since Fernando the Saint.

In the seventeenth century, the Church secured even greater power in temporal affairs; but this power began to wane when Florida Blanca, the new Minister, made a determined effort to lessen the dominance of the Church, in 1780. For diplomatic reasons, Blanca signed treaties with Turkey, Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis, thus exhibiting amity towards the very infidels, 'whom, in the opinion of the Spanish Church, it was the first duty of a Christian government to make war upon, and, if possible, to extirpate' (Buckle). The expulsion of the Jesuits was a part of the same policy. And now, for the first time for centuries, the secular authority gained supremacy over the spiritual cla.s.s.

The cathedrals and churches of Spain remain as instructive monuments of the powerful religious fervour of the Middle Ages. They were built by men of profound faith, by devotees who were ready to die for their creeds. Those who endowed the buildings gave ungrudgingly; rich and poor were liberal in contributing the means, and clerics sometimes yielded half of their stipends to a.s.sist in the cost of beautifying the venerated piles. One and all, those who subsidised the labour, the architects, masons, artists and carvers, were inspired by a deep faith.

Such was the enthusiasm that produced the rich designs of rose windows like that of San Pedro in Avila, the doors of Toledo Cathedral, the marvellous architecture of Burgos Cathedral, and that of Leon and many other sacred buildings in the Peninsula. When surveying with delight these examples of aesthetic inspiration, we must remember that the artists worked not only to charm men, but to show reverence to their G.o.d. Every curve, tracery and adornment was conceived in a spirit of pious homage and of religious duty.

It is only when faith is enfeebled that we may observe the touch of indifference in the hand of the ecclesiastical builder and artist. There is nothing 'cheap,' nothing hasty, nothing paltry in the scheme and construction of the temples dedicated by mediaeval believers to the worship of G.o.d and the Holy Virgin Mother. We may have outgrown the taste in certain forms of decoration, but the work will not strike us as ill-considered and commonplace. It stands as a testimony to the influence of faith and devotion upon the imagination and the artistic spirit.

If the modern churches of Spain disappoint us, we must remember that in these days men have, to a marked extent, lost that tenacity of belief, which once urged them to expend a great share of their wealth upon the founding of splendid houses of worship. 'The temples made by hands' are to-day less beautiful than those of the age when creed ranked before country, and was the absorbing subject and the profoundest conviction of the Spanish mind.

But the ancient cathedrals and churches endure as solemn memorials.

Atmospheric influences do not cause crumbling and speedy decay in this land of dry winds and sunshine. The edifices were built to stand, and they have stood well the wear and tear of the centuries.

Most of the Seville churches exhibit the art itself, or at least the artistic influence, of the Moorish designer. The reconciled and converted Morisco had to live among his conquerors. Why should he not set his hand to the building of their temples? The Christians were pleased to borrow from his designs, to imitate his half-orange cupolas, his graceful arches, his glazed tiles, ribbon decorations and _ajimez_ windows. Why should he refuse to design churches, and erect and adorn them, for the good pay that the Christians offered? The _Mudejares_, or 'reconciled' Moors, became, therefore, the chief and most lavishly-remunerated artisans of Seville. In building the churches and mansions of the city, they no doubt experienced a compensation for their subjection in the thought that they were permitted to labour with a free hand, and to design and embellish sacred or secular buildings after the manner of their own nation. They had no faith to inspire them; the religion foisted upon them was repugnant to their consciences and minds. But they possessed a potent stimulus to good execution--the love of art for art's sake. This was their inspiration, and we may see its effect in many details of ecclesiastic architecture in the Sevillian churches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Minaret of San Marcos.]

_San Marcos._--This church is of exceptional interest on account of its tower, a fine example of Morisco architecture, and its beautiful _Mudejar_ portal. The tower is in the minaret form, and was no doubt built in imitation of the Giralda, which it resembles in miniature. It is seventy-five feet in height, and ten feet wide, the loftiest tower in the city, except, of course, the stupendous Giralda, which is reared over all other edifices. The church is of Gothic design, and dates from 1478, though the much older tower and the chief portal are Arabian. The interior is not of much importance. It is said that the love-sick Miguel Cervantes used to ascend the tower of San Marcos to gaze around for one Isabel, a Sevillian beauty, who had entranced him. The church of San Marcos is approached from the Feria by the Calle de Castellar.

_The Church of the Convent of Santa Paula_ is behind San Marcos, and within a few steps of that church. The _azulejos_ covering the walls are fine examples of sixteenth-century workmanship from the potteries of Triana. The reliefs of saints on the Gothic portal of the nunnery are from the design of Pedro Millan, a famous sculptor, and are the work of Niculoso of Pisa. From the convent we may retrace our steps to San Marcos, turn to the right, and follow the Calle San Luis to

_Santa Marina._ The handsome Gothic portal of this church has some notable sculptures. It is said that the tower and the chapels are the remains of a mosque.

_San Gil_ is on the left-hand side of San Luis, close to the Church of Santa Marina. It was originally a Moorish _mezquita_. The doorways are Gothic. The effigies of the Saviour and the Virgin within the church are attributed to Roldan, one of the pupils of Montanez.

_Omnium Sanctorum_ is in the Plaza de la Feria. This church stands on the former site of a Roman temple, and it was built by Pedro the Cruel in 1356. It exhibits a mingling of Gothic and _Mudejar_ architecture.

There are three naves and three doors. On the tower are some noteworthy frescoes. Francisco de Rioja, the poet, lived in this parish.

_Santa Catalina_ is situated in the _calle_ of that name. This church was also built on the ground once occupied by a Roman fane, and afterwards by a Mohommedan mosque. The facade is another instance of the survival of Moorish art, while the princ.i.p.al chapel is Gothic. Within are three remarkable paintings by Pedro de Campana, a Flemish artist, who is claimed as one of the Sevillian school. These masterpieces of early Andalusian art are described in the chapter on the painters of Seville.