S. L. Bensusan

“ Then again Spain was influenced by the Moors, and eastern art is more concerned with harmony than colouring, more concerned to blend neutral tints than present rich tones.
The writer has seen many pictures in the studios of modern Madrid that are inspired directly by the Italians, for nowadays Spanish artists flock to Italy, where they learn to imitate the Venetian colour schemes, and to become third-rate echoes of old masters. There are a few men who paint interesting pictures in Spain to-day—Pradilla and Carbonero are among the best; but Spain does not hold a great artist. ”

“ If Velazquez had been on the same footing as Rubens—had he enjoyed the same position that Goya, with no greater official appointment, was to hold a little more than a century after his death—we may presume that the dwarfs would not have been painted, and that Velazquez' art would have been given to the service of the blue-blooded gentlemen who were making as big a muddle of Spanish interests as their country's worst enemies could desire. ”

“ One hesitates to say that they would have been less interesting sitters, because we know that nobody, however dull and stupid in appearance, could fail to become interesting at the hands of the painter. It is fair to remember, too, in defence of the Spanish attitude, that the years were given not to the arts of peace but to those of war; that leisure was scanty, intrigue unceasing, and the austerity of life was made greater by the strong and merciless grip of the Church. ”

“ Perhaps it would be hard to find more diverse opinions than those that are heard in the studio. Artists see life through the medium of many temperaments, they are notoriously intemperate in their enthusiasms. There are schools of painting to suit every conviction, and the work that one man would give his all to possess would not find hanging space upon the wall controlled by another. But before Velazquez even artists forget their controversies ”

“ There were a few useless and pompous ceremonies associated with his obsequies, and Spain went on with the daily task, the common round, unconscious of her loss. So many material possessions were passing from hands too weak to hold or to administer them that the death of an artist could not be noticed. ”

“ The face, free from even a suggestion of human interest or enthusiasm, has no emotion whatsoever save disillusionment and sadness. The spectator gets a suggestion that life has resolved itself into a long series of formal duties and formal enjoyments, and that neither suffices to make it worth living. Duty to the world at large and to the vast empire slipping from his grasp seems to be all that holds Philip; and when we consider that he had lost his first wife and her promising son, and of his children by his second wife one or two were dead already ”

“ He knew much about contemporary art, encouraged a hopeful outlook upon life, and enjoyed the respect of all men. Moreover his studio was the meeting-place for many of the distinguished folk of the city. In the very early years of their association Pacheco understood that his young pupil was not like other lads, that he possessed an individuality that could not be repressed or directed into the usual channels, and instead of resenting this new element, he sought to direct it wisely and kindly, thereby laying Velazquez under a debt of gratitude that the painter never repudiated. ”

“ Because of gifts lying beyond praise, the painter has preserved seventeenth-century Spain for us as far as court circles represent it; but among the many charges laid to the account of Philip IV. must be added that of limiting the range and crippling the capacity of an artist who cannot be placed second to any man.
When we come to analyse his work we find that its qualities are not of a sensational kind. Velazquez makes no appeal through the medium of brilliant pigment; his great contemporary Rubens used colour in far more striking fashion. ”

“ Men who live lives that are complete in the fullest sense of the term have a natural craving for glowing hues, and may find Velazquez dull if they come to the Prado from the Academy of Venice; but unless their tastes have become wholly vitiated, unless their eyes are suffering from a surfeit of light, they will soon learn to find that their best beloved masters would not bear transplanting. ”

“ It is in no spirit of extravagance that one ventures to say that the life of Velazquez was a long and tragic struggle against surroundings detrimental to the full and natural expression of his genius, nor is it surprising that the people who had followed his career with indifference saw very little matter for comment when he died. ”

“ It is impossible to imagine that Rubens could have painted with the palette that served Velazquez, but the greater of the two men has given the world an invaluable lesson in appreciation, and because Nature is full of exquisite colour harmonies that are quite subdued in tone it is well that we should have been taught to appreciate them. ”

“ Perhaps there are pleasant surprises yet in store for the art world, for many pictures are still untraced. Doubtless some have been destroyed by fire and others are in half-forgotten lumber rooms of palaces and galleries from which they will be gathered in due course. Velazquez owes a large part of his popularity in Spain to-day to the measure of appreciation he has secured beyond the borders. Every second-hand dealer in Madrid or Seville has a "genuine Murillo" to offer the stranger. ”

“ In art the painter has influenced very many moderns. Manet, Courbet, Corot, Millet, Whistler, are among the men whose work shines in the light of the Prado, and the list might be prolonged indefinitely, for all earnest art workers go to Velazquez, confident that whatever their aims and ideals, he will confirm and strengthen what is best in them. ”

“ Cervantes in literature and Velazquez in art seem destined to secure for their country a measure of immortality that throws into the background the memory of such people as Carlos Quinto, Philip II., and those other lesser lights who made the name of Spain respected or detested throughout Europe and South America. ”

“ Although he had a certain quality of delicate imagination, he was a realist, and could not paint without a model; he never acquired a mannerism, or applied to one sitter the treatment that some artists seem to keep for types. Every figure he set upon canvas has its own individuality, and, while Velazquez, like other artists, had manners and methods that belong to fixed periods of his life, it is not easy to set down in cold print an analysis of the causes that make up his effects. ”

“ But no second-hand dealer shows a "genuine Velazquez." He knows that at best it could only appeal to artists, and he knows them for strange folk endowed with much enthusiasm, little money, and an embarrassing measure of knowledge of the methods by which genuine old masters are created to supply a long-felt want. ”

“ There are at least fifty good books upon the subject of Velazquez' life and art, written in three or four languages, and all published in the last half century; there must be many more to come, for every generation sees genius in the light of its own time. ”

“ Under the skilled hands of the artist we are permitted to see the tall, gloomy lad grow up a dull, reserved man, and we read in his face a part at least of the causes of Spain's ultimate downfall.
III VELAZQUEZ IN MADRID
Of the painter's work at court in those early days we hear a little from Pacheco, but the story of the times is more or less obscure. A clever portrait-painter was not a very interesting person in the eyes of a Spanish grandee. He was classed with the court buffoons and dwarfs who existed merely to amuse. ”

“ They know, too, that they may return again and again, and that the rich stores of guidance and encouragement in the pursuit of ideals are as inexhaustible as the barrel of meal that did not waste, and the cruse of oil that did not fail, in the house of the widow of Zarephath. ”

“ PLATE VII.—DONNA MARIANA OF AUSTRIA
This picture was brought from the Escorial to the Prado in 1845. The lady was the second wife of Philip IV., and would have been the wife of Don Balthasar Carlos had he lived.
Fair-minded critics may hesitate to say with Spain's enemies that civilisation ends with the Pyrenees, but it is certain that the Spanish attitude towards life has differed from that of other countries to an extent that has left indelible impressions upon art and literature. ”

“ As he grew up the sense of composition and colour harmony became stronger and stronger, and the faults passed. At the same time, Velazquez was a severe critic of his own work, and a careful examination shows that even those pictures to which no suspicion can attach were retouched and corrected in the making.
In this country one secures little more than a glimpse of the master's work. The National Gallery has nearly a dozen pictures, but there are certain questions about the authenticity of some of them, and the Philip in the Dulwich Gallery is rather more than doubtful. ”

“ This man, known in private life as Don Louis de Hacedo, accompanied Philip on a tour, and he seems to have been a studious person, because the artist has depicted him with book, pen, and paper, and given him a refined expression. The others have little to redeem their ugliness and deformity. The child of Vallecas seems to be the dwarf who figures with Don Balthasar Carlos in the first picture that Velazquez painted of the unfortunate young prince, the one that is now in America. He has grown a little older and a little more ugly in the canvas that is devoted entirely to his portrait ”

“ His genius lay buried in the grave with him, and did not suffer complete resurrection until the nineteenth century was turning towards its successor, though Raphael Mengs had done all he could to make his merits known a hundred years before. Even to-day, we may be said to be in the first stage of our enjoyment of the master's work. ”

“ Velazquez carried a little of the Andalusian sun to Castile, but the heavy cloud that settled upon the Spanish court speedily obscured it. Life for the painter was an affair of constant struggle against financial and social difficulties, of endless work for unresponsive masters ”

“ It is difficult to deal with this matter within limited space because the details are distinctly controversial, but it is as well to remember that some of the portraits attributed to Velazquez in the Prado Gallery are of people who were dead before Velazquez was painting, so they could not have sat for him; and in the days of Philip IV. it was considered no disgrace for a man to repaint another artist's canvases. Moreover, a painter to the court of Spain was not supposed to carry an uneasy conscience about with him. ”

“ One of his latest critics reduces the pictures of Velazquez now in existence to eighty-nine, while acknowledging that some have disappeared from the royal palaces of Spain and cannot be traced. This critic, Señor Don Aureliano de Beruete—a connoisseur, a collector, and a worker in the best interests of art—is perhaps a little too severe. He will not admit to his catalogue a portrait like that of Admiral Adriano Pulido Pareja, which, despite some inferior workmanship, can show considerable claims to be regarded as genuine ”

“ The earliest was painted as soon as Velazquez returned from Italy, and is at present in Boston. The next in date would seem to be the one in the Wallace Collection, and following this comes the well-known picture of Don Balthasar in hunting dress, now in the Prado, the one with the small greyhound seen on the right, just coming into the canvas. Then we have the famous picture of the young prince on his spirited Andalusian pony, which is perhaps the most popular of all; and succeeding that in the order of the painting comes the portrait that, in the writer's opinion, is the best of the series. ”

“ This daughter of Philip IV. became Queen of France. The picture was painted when she was about ten years of age, and consequently belongs to the last period of Velazquez' work. It was hung in the Alcazar until some time in the eighteenth century, when it was transferred to the Prado.
There are pictures by Velazquez to be seen in Madrid outside the Prado, but for the most part they are in private houses, and are not accessible to everybody. Seville boasts half-a-dozen canvases by her greatest painter, and there are a few elsewhere in Spain ”

“ The kind old painter is not remembered to-day by his pictures, or even by his "Book of Portraits of Illustrious Personages," and other quaintly titled works from his pen. He lives because he helped to make Velazquez a great painter, and recorded his impression of his son-in-law's earliest works, the various "Bodegones," of which several may be seen in London to-day. Others are in Berlin and St. ”