VOL. XXIX. THE TUFTONIAN NOVEMBER, 1903 NOTES IN SPANISH S. GRISWOLD MORLEY No. 2 It is in accord with the general character of things Spanish that he who would see pictures must go a-hunting for them. The beauties of Spanish art and literature are not obtrusive, but it often happens that they possess great fascination for their discoverer. Is not one more likely to remember distinctly a painting which he has pursued half across a city, and found isolated in an obscure corner, than one hanging in the midst of others of equal value in a crowded gallery? And is not a description proffered by a ragged sacristan more memorable than the succinct remarks of Baedeker, badly translated from the German? Outside of Madrid, Spanish paintings are housed in careless fashion wherever they have drifted in the storms of war and revolution. Sometimes they remain in situ, where first ordered from the painter; more often a provincial museum, transformed from a chapel or warehouse, has gathered in the artistic remains of its local celebrities. Doubtless many works of value, which escaped the skilled rapacity of Marshal Soult, are still hidden in obscure homes. Gautier said that the poorest shopkeeper, the leanest priest, in Seville possessed at least 300 Murillos of the best period. Possibly some of them are authentic. In Cadiz the visitor naturally goes to the old Capuchin convent, now a mad-house. He pulls the large bell handle several times, and is at last greeted by a maid, who in turn fetches a portly priest, who escorts him to the chapel, where hangs a famous Murillo, the "Betrothal of St. Catharine." This is the picture in painting which the artist suffered his fatal fall from the scaffold; it was finished by a pupil. As usual, it is hung so far away, and the lighting is so poor, that one can distinguish only that the coloring is rich and the composition well-balanced; in spection of details is out of the question. The other repository of Gaditanian art-products is the Academy of Fine Arts,-comprehensive name,-the promise of which is fulfilled in a small, but interesting, picture gallery. Here are girls copying, whose lively interest in the visiting stranger is a pleasant reminder of the fair students at the Boston Art Museum. The gallery contains an excellent "Ecce Homo," by Murillo; but its interest centres in the series of works by Zurbaran, a name hardly known outside of Spain, but of importance in its artistic history. He took especial delight in painting monks, and that without a trace of the Spanish mystic spirit. His workmanship seems crude when compared with that of Murillo and Velazquez, though he lived in their day; but it portrays with adequate realism the monk as human being, lean and hungry, or well-fed and sensual; robes cover his body, but do not hide his nature of old Adam, exposed as pitilessly to our gaze as in the pages of Boccacio. In Cordova, the "white and calcined skeleton" of a once great city, there are no art remains of note save the great mosque. I set out one morning to find the church of the Carmen, said to contain a good altar-piece by Valdes Leal. The church is located at the east end of the city, and after walking nearly an hour in the terrific furnace heat of a Spanish mid-summer morning, I emerged upon the plain at the north side. It is hopeless to attempt to find one's way about the aimless, endless, white-washed streets of a typical Moresco-Spanish city like Cordova or Toledo, aided solely by a map. A guide is indispensable. The church. proved to be closed, after all. Further search in another quarter of the city brought to light the Museum, entered through an obscure back door, and opened only upon request. The custodian accompanied me through the single small room, puffing a pipe the while. The place contains some paintings, the best one by Ribera, and a heterogeneous collection of bits of stone, pottery, and bronze, modern and antique. Few would ever visit Cordova in search of paintings, and no one would spend a night there who was at liberty to board a train. Seville was the cradle of the two greatest masters in Spanish art, Murillo and Velazquez; it still contains more examples of the former's best work than any other single city. Some of these canvases remain where they were first hung, in the Cathedral and in the Charity Hospital. The latter institution owns a famous series in Murillo's latest style, painted for it more than 200 years ago. My visit there was rather unsuccessful. Of the six paintings said to be on exhibition, four were nowhere to be seen, and the sister of charity who served as escort denied their existence. She evidently made a mental reservation, of the kind advocated by the disciples of Loyola. Those on view were the two large works, immense horizontal panels twenty feet long, "Moses Smiting the Rock," and "Christ Feeding the Five Thousand." According to Baedeker, "the two large works are hung high and very properly, as their sketchy and broad treatment is calculated for being seen at a distance." Behold, then, that for my visit they are not hung at all, but placed diagonally on the floor, in rooms just big enough to hold them. One room serves also as an office to a man seated at a desk, who, if he should rise in haste, would be in danger of wrecking the canvas. One can retire at most five feet to obtain an ensemble view, and to see the whole one must walk back and forth with nose glued to the surface, like an urchin at a ball game. An expert would very likely be glad of the opportunity to study brush-work. The Provincial Museum of Seville contains probably the most satisfactory single collection of Murillos. It is an old convent, and not an ideal gallery. The paintings are hung mostly in the chapel, and the dim religious light, admirably suited to the Catholic ritual, is not favorable to the masterpieces of a colorist. Here is a wonderful series of works which only a skilled critic could adequately describe, and which, indeed, photographs and description together fall far short of reproducing. Murillo seems to lose more than any one in a photograph, his coloring is so soft and harmonious, his outlines blend so gradually. And Spanish reproductions are unsatisfactory, quite unequal to those of Braun and Hanfstaengel. Here is the fine "St. Francis at the Cross," a powerful presentation of the enraptured mystic, who casts away the goods of this world to gain honor and happiness above. Here the "St. Felix of Cantalicio," so popular in this country through photographs, which, indeed, show the exalted expression of the saint, but hardly indicate the rich, soft brown and the glow of light, at once brilliant and mild, which were Murillo's secret. Here are four examples of a favorite subject, the "Immaculate Conception." One, in particular, is a splendid bodying-forth of an idea full of appeal and charm. The Virgin is represented, not as a woman grown, but as an innocent child of fifteen; the mother-feeling suddenly awakened in her startles and awes her; almost bursting into tears, she gazes up for succor in her unexpected straits. It is the modern fashion in this age of materialism and practicality, and perhaps especially here in Yankeedom, slightingly to charge Murillo with "sentimentality." Who is found guilty in art or literature of sentimentality, let him not hope for salvation in the twentieth century. No crudeness, brutality, or vulgarity is so damning. Beauties of composition, drawing, and coloring fade out of sight before this offense against modernity. I have heard even Murillo's street-boys-harmless urchins thoughtlessly devouring grapes-accused of sentimentality; and who dare plead for an ecstatic saint, rapt in contemplation of a vision disclosed to him alone? or for a Virgin imaging in her face and figure all the sacred sentiments felt by generations of mothers? At most might one hint that good painting is good painting yet, and that there might even be more merit in suggesting the unseen than in making, camera-like, a reproduction of the visible. Another attraction of the Provincial Museum is the polychrome statuary. Spain seems to have perfected more than any other nation that peculiar department of art devoted to statues carved from wood, painted, and even gilded. The effect is not so incongruous as might be supposed; the colors are not obtrusive, but helpful, and a remarkable force of expression is at times obtained, as here in a statue of St. Dominick, by Montanes. The cathedral of Seville, the largest Gothic church in the world, but by no means the most attractive, is a huge gallery in itself. The numberless minor paintings which adorn its many chapels would furnish a critic abundant material for study. "The cathedrals are the true museums of Spain." In a niche by the main door of the west facade hangs a Murillo, entitled "The Guardian Angel," so poorly lighted that it is absolutely invisible except in late afternoon, and then only when the great door is thrown open. The baptistery is the Mecca of all visitors, since it contains the famous "St. Anthony of Padua," also badly lighted, but yet resplendent in its richness of coloring. It is one of the best-known of Murillo's pictures, and is admired alike by casual tourists and art critics. It happened that a less celebrated and less obvious work made a more intimate appeal to me. The Chapter Hall in the southeast corner of the cathedral is one of the most beautiful rooms in Spain-a long oval in shape, with pure white marble pavement, marble medallions upon the walls, and a few paintings. The over-decoration so common in Spain is not apparent in it, and the general effect is of chaste refinement and purity. The entrance is in one end of the oval, and just at the opposite end, hung high above the moulding, is an "Immaculate Conception" of Murillo, in oval frame. The figure here is of a grown woman, imbued with a saintliness and humility hard to describe. The wonderful harmony of the warm, brown background and deep blue of the mantle, the perfect setting, give the picture an almost ethereal appearance. The good old sacristan who held the keys to this remarkable room never tired of descanting on the beauties of his pet painting, and was always eager to return there with me-I believe even that his good will was independent of the fee. He had been connected with the cathedral nine years, he said, and never wearied of looking at that picture. Many persons preferred it to the "Conception" at Paris; one Frenchman, in particular, had come six days in succession to view it, and would gladly have given a million francs for it, had it been for sale. (Let us hope that no American millionaire will ever scheme to obtain it; it could never be so well placed elsewhere.) "There are," he continued, "only eight authentic 'Conceptions' by Murillo in existence; no more; four in the Museum, one at the Prado in Madrid, one in Paris, one in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the one here." The good man was mistaken, for the Prado possesses four; but I will bear him witness that, barring the Mexican possession, an unknown quantity, his gem is surpassed by none, and equalled only by the great "Purisima" in the Prado. This in the Chapter Hall is unique in that its reproduction, even by photograph, has never been permitted. |