The Story of Seville

More individuality is revealed in the works of Pedro Villegas Marmolego, 1520-1597, an artist whose pictures are extremely rare. The Virgin visiting Elizabeth, which hangs over the Altar de la Visitación in the Cathedral, is a good example of his work, and displays his charm as a colourist. The garments of both the Virgin and Elizabeth are beautiful with radiant harmony. The works of Francesco Frutet – like Campaña a Flemish artist trained in Italy, who came to Seville, about the year 1548 – will be noticed in the account of the Museo.

Another foreigner, who worked in Seville during this period, was Sturmio, probably a German, who, in 1554, painted nine pictures on panel for the Cap de los Evangelistas, in the Cathedral. These studies are important, for they afford the earliest instance of the fine brown tones distinctive of the Sevillian school. The central picture depicts St. Gregory saying Mass, while around him are grouped the fourteen evangelists, and the saints of the city. Santas Justa and Rufina, the holy maids, frequently portrayed by the artists of Seville, are among the best.

The work of all these artists, who may be classified as the early Italian mannerists, reveals a distinctive personality. The individuality of the artist constantly breaks forth, through the strong Italian bias, while traces are often revealed of the truthful expression of the early Hispano-Flemish mode.

As the sixteenth century drew to its close, the tendency to adopt a style of affected mannerism was largely augmented in the work of the artists of Andalusia, the result being a corresponding loss of national individuality. All that was essentially Spanish was for the time forgotten, submerged in an imported Italianism. The pictures of these later mannerists are dreary and almost entirely without interest. Their work may be readily identified by the conventional conceptions, the flat tones, the dry, hard colours, and the utter lack of that element of charm, so essential to all works of art.

Juan del Castillo, 1584-1640, and Francisco Pacheco, 1571-1654, may be regarded as types of this phase in the record of Andalusian art. Their reputation rests largely upon the renown of their pupils. Juan del Castillo was the master of Murillo and Alonso Cano, and the chief interests incited by the study of his work, rests in tracing the influence he may have exercised in moulding the work of the Sevillian favourite. His best picture is the Assumption, in the Museo, in which the figure of the Virgin has some merit.

Francisco Pacheco, the father-in-law and devoted teacher of Diego Velazquez, claims our attention as an individual, rather than as an artist. He painted innumerable pictures, which may still be viewed in the Cathedral, the churches and the Museo, but none rise above the level of mediocrity. They are carefully executed and rarely offend the rules of drawing, but they are all hopelessly 'mannered,' and entirely devoid of individual imagination.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Pacheco for his Arte de la Pintura, a treatise upon the principles of art, and the lives of the artists of Spain, published in Seville in 1649. In style the work is pompous and prolix, and often very tedious, but as a record of the lives of the Sevillian artists it possesses great value. Pacheco was the Inquisitor of Art, or Familiar of the Inquisition. His authority under the Holy Office was great, and it was his duty to see that no indecorous or indecent pictures found their way into the churches. Here is a copy of the commission which was granted to him: 'We give him commission and charge him henceforward that he take particular care to inspect and visit all sacred subjects which may stand in shops or in public places; if he finds anything to object to in these he is to take the picture before the Lords, the Inquisitors.'

The degraded Italian taste was carried to its uttermost limits by Herrera El Mozo (the younger), 1622-1625, who, by a strange anomaly, was the son of the man, who was the first to break completely away from the trammels of the pseudo-Italian manner. His works may be viewed in the Cathedral and the Museo; they instance the degradation which had been brought upon the art of Seville, by the unintelligent adoption of an alien style.

It is a relief to revert to the work of those men, whose sturdy Spanish spirits refused to bend beneath the yoke of conventional tradition. The work of the cleric, Juan de la Roelas, 1560-1625, bears little, or no, trace of the degenerate pseudo-Italianism, although his pictures are not exempt from foreign influence. They are Venetian in colour, soft, yet free, in their drawing. They exhibit many of the features, afterwards amplified in the work of Murillo. His finest composition is the Death of San Isidore, in the parish church, dedicated to that saint. The theme of the picture is the transit of the holy man, Archbishop of Seville, during Gothic days. Many figures fill the canvas, but with true artistic unity, the interest is centralised upon the dying saint, who rests upon the ground, clad in dark mantle and finely-painted pontifical robes. Subtle discernment is manifested in the grouping of the figures. The aged fathers are thrown into distinct relief, by the youthful bloom of the children who kneel beside them. The shadowy forms of the worshippers, as they kneel in the receding aisles of the church, lend atmosphere to the study. The heavens are depicted above, and in the midst of a blaze of glowing light, the Virgin awaits with Christ, the coming of the saint.

San Santiago, destroying the Moors in the battle of Clavigo, which hangs in the Cathedral, affords another fine instance of the work of Roelas. Three more of his pictures may be seen in the University – The Holy Family, The Nativity, and the Adoration of the Shepherds, while several hang in the Museo. A figure of a black-robed kneeling saint, in the Holy Family, is said to be the portrait of Roelas.

Francisco de Herrera, 1575-1656, termed, el Viego (the Elder) to distinguish him from his son, possessed a character of unusual vigour. The traditions which have survived, reveal the temper of the man. His methods were eccentric. He worked with a dashing pencil, and it was his custom to employ any implement, which presented itself as convenient. It is reported that upon one occasion, when short of a brush, he painted a picture with a spoon. His fame induced numerous artists – the young Velazquez being among them – to seek his studio; but his irascibility was so great that few of them remained. He broke many a maul-stick across their shoulders, and frequently he was left without a single pupil to execute his mandates.

It is said that one day, when this had occurred, he rushed into the kitchen, and insisted upon the serving-maid becoming his attendant; and amidst oaths and blows, he forced the trembling girl to prepare a canvas for the composition he desired to execute. His turbulent spirit led him into difficulties, and he was accused – whether falsely or not it is now impossible to say – of coining money. To escape punishment he sought sanctuary in the College of the Jesuits, where he painted the Legend of St. Hermingild, now in the Museo. In the year 1624 Philip III. came to Seville, and visited the college. In common with all the house of Austria, the King had a fine appreciation of art, and when he saw the work of Herrera, he at once recognised its merits, and desired to see the artist. Herrera knelt at the King's feet, and told the reason of his confinement in the convent. 'What need of silver and gold has a man gifted with a talent like yours? Go, you are free,' was the answer of the King.

Such was the nature of the man, whose cogent individuality re-established a national Spanish style. His pictures are distinguished for their vigorous force. Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell calls him 'the most remarkable of the painters, who learnt their art solely in Andalusia'; while Palomino, often termed the Spanish Vasari, says that the boldness of his manner conveys to his figures the appearance of being painted in relief. Several of his pictures are now in the Museo; the Cathedral possesses none, but there is one in the Church of San Bernardo, which, in spite of dirt and dim lighting, affords a fine instance of the power of Herrera. In the upper portion the Lord is shown with a band of attendant angels, while below St. Michael divides the sinful from the righteous. The canvas is overcrowded; a fault in which the majority of the compositions of Herrera share, and the form of St. Michael is somewhat uncouth, but the picture is full of power, and many of the figures, especially among the hosts of the wicked, are drawn with a fine freedom of handling.

Francisco de Zurbaran, a peasant, born in Estremadura, in the year 1598, was the veritable follower of Herrera. His work more fully than that of any other artist typifies the genius of Spain. Lord Leighton speaks of him 'as a man of powerful personality, in whom more than any of his contemporaries, the various essential characteristics of his race were gathered up – its defiant temper, its dramatic bent, its indifference to beauty, its love of fact, its imaginative force, its gloomy fervour, its poetry, in fact, and its prose.'

He was the pupil of Juan de las Roelas, but his work soon eclipsed that of his master. From the very first he cast from him all mannered tradition, and determined unflinchingly to follow natural methods. He copied all objects directly from Nature, and while still a lad working in the studio of Roelas, he refused to paint drapery, without having it placed upon a lay figure to represent the living model. He has been termed the Spanish Caravaggio from his strict adherence to Nature, and his delight in breadth and strong contrasts of light and shadow. As he saw Nature thus he painted her, without desire to soften or to idealise. His one purpose was to portray conscientiously the exact impression of the objects he beheld. And for this reason he may be designated the herald of Velazquez. His pictures lack the facility, the charm and the impelling force of the great master; but in their adherence to Nature and strict nationality of style they are in nowise inferior. The Adoration of the Shepherds, the fine picture in our National Gallery, formerly ascribed to Velazquez, is now held to be the work of Zurbaran. His colour is above all praise; his tints, although sombre, have at times, as Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell justly remarks, 'the depth and brilliancy of Rembrandt.'

His earliest work was a series of pictures, illustrative of the life of the Apostle Peter, which he painted for the Chapter of the Cathedral. They may still be inspected in the Cap de San Pedro, but unfortunately the deficiency of light renders it well-nigh impossible to see them.

The celebrated Death of St. Thomas Aquinas, and the remarkable series of pictures, painted for the Chartreuse monks of Santa Maria de las Cuevas, are now in the Museo.

For the Church of the Hospital del Sangre he painted eight small pictures of female saints. They are portraits of the beauties who reigned in the city during the life of Zurbaran, and are among the most charming of the pictures of women to be found in Seville. Especially mark Santa Matilda in her crimson robe, embroidered with gold and pearls, Santa Dorotea in lilac, and Santa Iñes in purple, and bearing a lamb in her arms.

The fame of Zurbaran was overshadowed by Murillo, who became the central figure in the artistic life of Seville, during the latter half of the seventeenth century.

The position Murillo occupies in the record of Andalusian art is so significant, that it appears fitting to notice his work, and that of his brilliant contemporary Velazquez, in a separate chapter; and to conclude this brief chronicle of the Sevillian artist with two names – Alonso Cano and Juan de Valdés Leal, the last painters of Andalusia, whose work is worthy of special note.

Alonso Cano, 1601-1667, was not born in Seville, but came to the city, when quite young, to receive instruction from Pacheco and Juan de Castillo. He painted pictures for the Carthusians, and the other convents and churches, but a duel, fought with a brother artist, in 1639, drove him from the city. The finest instance of his work in Seville is Our Lady of Bethlehem, in the Cathedral. It was painted in Malaga for Señor D. Andres Cascentes, who presented it to Seville. The light is dim, and it can only be seen by the glow from the tapers which burn upon the altar. It is somewhat conventional in treatment, and bears distinct traces of Italian mannerism. Yet the picture is not without charm, and the Spanish national note is not entirely absent. The hands and feet are painted with extreme care, and the crimson robe and dark-blue mantle of the Virgin are exquisite in colour. The picture may be regarded as typical of his work. One of his chief faults was repetition, and he was frequently accused by his contemporaries of copying from the works of other masters; a charge which he is said to have challenged, with the following answer: 'Do the same thing, with the same effect as I do, and all the world will pardon you.' His power as an artist has been somewhat over-estimated, and his claim to be called 'the Michelangelo of Spain' rests solely upon the fact that he was sculptor and architect as well as painter.

Juan de Valdés Leal, 1630-1691, lived until the time when Andalusian art was fast approaching its decline. His early life was embittered by jealousy of Murillo, and much of his energy was expended in useless quarrels with his brother artists. His pictures are mannered, but the best are vigorous, and their main defects are due to hasty execution. He appears to have had no power to finish his work; when he tried to be careful he became weak. The Museo contains many of his pictures. The Virgin bestowing the Chasuble on San Ildefonso in the Cap de San Francisco, in the Cathedral, is one of his finest works. The two pictures in the Hospital de la Caridad were painted to illustrate the vanity of worldly grandeur. They are theatrical, and have little 'literary' attraction, but the execution exhibits a certain power. In one of them a hand holds a pair of scales, in which the sins of the world – represented by bats, peacocks, serpents and other objects – are weighed against the emblems of Christ's Passion; in the other, which is the finer composition, Death, with a coffin under one arm, extinguishes a taper, which lights a table spread with crowns, jewels and all the gewgaws of earthly pomp. The words In Ictu Oculi circle the gleaming light of the taper, while upon the ground rests an open coffin, dimly revealing the corpse within.

It was this picture which caused Murillo to remark that it was something to be looked at with the nostrils closed. To which rather uncertain praise Leal is reported to have replied, 'Ah, my compeer, it is not my fault, you have taken all the sweet fruit out of the basket and left me only the rotten.'

With the death of Valdés Leal, at the close of the seventeenth century, the long chain of artists, who had made the name of Seville famous, terminates. He left behind him no painter of specific merit. The artists who remained were dreary conventionalists, without originality, mere copyists of those who had preceded them. The study of their work yields neither pleasure nor profit. It is better to leave the record of the artists of Seville, while the memory of her greatest masters is still vivid, than to trace the slow decay of her art into feeble mediocrity.

Note.– In order to facilitate the finding of the works of the artists mentioned in this chapter, this list is appended, naming their chief pictures, and the places where they may be found.

CHAPTER IX

Velazquez and Murillo

'The more the artist studies Nature, the nearer he approaches to the true and perfect idea of art.' – Sir J. Reynolds.

ON the 15th of June, in the year 1599, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez was born in Seville. Eighteen years later affords the record of birth of Murillo. Contemporary, or nearly so, they began their lives in the same environment, yet from their earliest youth they tended to develop upon divergent lines. The young Velazquez, at the age of thirteen, became the pupil of the vigorous Herrera, while Murillo entered the school of the academic Juan de Castillo.

It was reserved for Velazquez to break away from the traditional limitations of the Sevillian school, while the work of Murillo was to develop them to their fairest fruition.

The national manner, begun by Herrera and developed by Zurbaran, was, by the genius of Velazquez, carried to perfect fulfilment.

The grave and truthful simplicity of his pictures is unsurpassed among the artistic records of any nation. His supreme effort was directed to the portrayal of Nature. With unerring judgment he selected the essential details of a composition, and painted them with unflinching fidelity. He depicted each colour precisely as the lighting of his canvas revealed it to him. He is the master of chiaroscuro, by the perfect unity of his tones. His style is wholly personal, his pictures bear pre-eminently the mark of individual expression. From his earliest youth this was his method of work. 'He kept,' Pacheco tells us, in the account he gives of his pupil and son-in-law, in his Arte de la Pintura, 'a peasant lad, as an apprentice, who served him as a study in different actions and postures – sometimes crying, sometimes laughing – till he had grappled with every difficulty of expression; and from him he executed an infinite variety of heads, in charcoal and chalk on blue paper, by which he arrived at certainty in taking likeness.' In this way did Velazquez train his power; and we are able to comprehend the wonderful portraits, which have rendered the House of Austria familiar to the world, when we picture the youth drawing his slave, again and yet again, in different attitudes and ever varied changes of expression.

This, then, was the divergence between the methods of Velazquez and Murillo. The one painted Nature as she was; the other depicted men and women as they never could be, but in the guise of saints, according to the desires of the Catholic Church. It is in this dis-similarity of their aims, that we shall find the explanation of the fact, which cannot fail to impress the visitor to Seville, that, while the city abounds in the works of Murillo, no single picture from the hand of Velazquez is to be found in Cathedral, Church or Museo. The city of his birth is destitute of any commemoration of his genius, if we exclude a few pictures, of very doubtful authenticity, to be found in some of the private collections.

The art of Seville was maintained by the munificence of the Church. Painting was the handmaid of the Catholic religion. Pictures were painted for the glory of God; they were valued as aids in the due performance of religious observance rather than as works of art. For the artist whose supreme desire was to follow truth Seville was no home. Realism was opposed to the very essence of the Catholic mind. The mediæval spirit did not exist in Velazquez, the most modern of all the old masters; he yearned for a freer and wider scope for the development of his genius.

In March, 1621, Philip III. died, and was succeeded by his young son, Philip IV., who at once began to collect about the throne the literary and artistic genius of the day.

Accompanied by Pacheco, Velazquez went to Madrid and craved an audience of the King. The favour was denied, and after some months of waiting, the young artist returned to Seville. Next year he again sought the metropolis. One of the Canons of Seville Cathedral, Don Juan Fonseca, had obtained a post in the King's service; Velazquez painted his portrait. It was carried to the palace before it was dry, and in an hour the whole court had seen it. 'It excited the admiration of the capital,' writes Pacheco, exulting in the success of his favourite, 'and the envy of those of the profession, of which I can bear witness.' Velazquez's position was assured. He was formally received into the King's service, and became a member of the royal household. His genius was lost to Seville. He is classed among the artists of Castile, and to study his works it is necessary to visit, not Seville, but the Prado Museo, at Madrid.

Of the pictures he painted in his youth none remain in Seville. The most famous are The Water Carrier, or Aguador, now in the collection of the Duke of Wellington, at Apsley House; The Omelet belonging to the late Sir Francis Cook; St. John in Patmos and The Woman and the Dragon, the property of Sir Bartle Frere; The Epiphany in the Prado Museo; and The Adoration of the Shepherds in the National Gallery.

The Water Carrier and The Omelet are studies of street life, finished with great care; a class of picture known as bodegones, often painted by the Spanish artists. The former is the finer work. It is a magnificent instance of Velazquez's power during his student days.

Either a study for this picture, executed by Velazquez himself, or a copy by one of his pupils, can be seen in the house of Murillo. The courteous owner, Señor Don López Cepero, is always willing to show his valuable collection of pictures. He believes the work to be a genuine Velazquez, and it is just possible that it may be so, and in any case it is a study of much interest. The Corsican water-seller, clad in his brown frock, a well-known figure in the streets of Seville, hands a glass of water to a boy, while in the distance another figure is dimly discerned, with his face buried in an earthenware mug. The background is very dark; the figures alone stand in the light. There is no scenery, and the accessories are painted with absolute truth.

While the art of Velazquez was unsuited to the city of his birth, the works of Murillo breathed the very spirit of the life around him. His pictures represent the religious emotion of his period; they may fittingly be termed, 'the embodied expression of Spanish Catholicism, during the seventeenth century.'

This fact in a large measure accounts for the popularity of Murillo, and the rapid recognition which his merits received at the hands of his countrymen. His art appealed pointedly to the hearts of the people; the expression of his genius was comprehensible to them all. He speedily became the favourite artist in Spain, and his fame gradually extended throughout Europe.

Murillo's artistic career may be divided into four periods. During the first he was needy and unrecognised, gaining a precarious livelihood by painting rude pictures for the Feria, a weekly fair, held every Thursday at the northern end of the Old Alameda, in front of the Church of All Saints. The artistic training he had received was slight. Juan de Castillo, who, as a relative of the family, had taught the boy free of charge, left Seville, and the young Murillo was too poor to enter the schools of Herrera, Pacheco, or Zurbaran. He was obliged to toil with strenuous effort to support himself and his sister, who was dependent upon him.

We can picture the future genius of Seville, standing in the market of the Feria, exposing his pictures for sale. He would often paint them while he waited, or would alter each composition to suit the fancy of an intending purchaser. Ambitious dreams fired his imagination. Pedro de Moya, an artist friend, had been to Rome, and had returned imbued with the glories of the metropolis of art. Murillo aspired to visit Italy, and with this hope he toiled, until he had saved a sufficient sum to take him to Madrid. He at once sought the counsel and protection of his old friend Velazquez. The court artist received him with the utmost kindness. He gave him lodging in his own apartments, and obtained permission for him to work in the Royal Galleries. A new world was revealed to the young Murillo. For two years he worked, then Velazquez advised him to go to Italy, to continue his studies in Rome, or Florence. He offered him letters of introduction, and did all in his power to induce him to undertake the journey, but for some reason Murillo declined his offer and returned to Seville.

His earliest work was to paint a series of studies of the Legend of St. Francis, for the Franciscan Convent, formerly situated behind the Casa del Ayuntamiento. They at once assured his fame; the unknown artist became the most popular painter in opulent Seville. The only person who failed to acknowledge his genius was Francisco Pacheco. Jealous for the fame of Velazquez, and unable to forgive the lack of appreciation which Seville had tended to his favourite, he makes no mention of Murillo or his works, in his Arte de la Pintura; a curious omission only to be accounted for by private enmity.