sessing a national gallery, which depends for its ultimate establishment on a scale worthy of this great nation, more on the knowledge and taste which guide the purchase of pictures than on the sums spent in their acquisition, it is not only desirable, but necessary, that we should possess in our language a work which would enable our connoisseurs to act with discrimination and real knowledge in regard to the Spanish paintings which chance or search might throw in our way. Without knowing the acknowledged and recorded works of Murillo and Velasquez, and without understanding those characteristics which would distinguish a copy from an original, neither the curators of our national collection, nor the professional men, whose guidance they follow, will be able to enrich this department of our gallery without a considerable risk of failure. Until very lately, however, there was no work in the English, or, indeed, in any language, which was likely to supply the necessary information. It is not surprising, therefore, that a feeling of the necessity should have suggested the undertaking of such a work to two different writers, unacquainted, as it appears, with one another, and viewing the requirements of their task from different sides. The first in order of completion and publication, though not, as it would seem, in origination and commencement, was the Handbook of Sir Edmund W. Head, who has combined, sub jugo aheno, that is, in the same red cover, the very different subjects of French and Spanish art -a proceeding which, as a contemporary remarks, is not altogether unlike the Montpensier marriage. Sir E. W. Head, who was well known as a scholar at Oxford, and who, besides translating Kugler's book, has contributed to various periodical essays on art in general, which prove his profound and intimate acquaintance with the subject, was obliged, by the nature of his undertaking, to use selection rather than collection, and to bestow his care upon the works of art rather than upon the artists who painted them. His book is such a manual as we should have expected from the practical judgment of an elegant and accomplished scholar, a most valuable accompaniment to catalogues, an indispensable guide to public galleries. But it hardly falls within the reviewer's province to analyse a work which is itself a mere analysis. Mr. Stirling, who is a member of the University of Cambridge, is not, like Sir E. Head, known by his public position, by his college distinctions, or by his previous contributions to the history of art. Indeed, with the exception of some anonymous poetry, which, we understand, is attributed to him, we are not aware that he has ever attempted authorship before. But we are bound to say of the splendid volumes before us, that they deserve a place among the most elaborate and carefully-written books which have appeared in this country for many years. For though, in reference to the higher questions of art, there are deficiencies, to which we will advert by and by, there is no English work, excepting Mr. Ford's Handbook, which contains so much information on the subject referred to at the beginning of this article-the history of Spain, literary, artistic, and political. The work is a lively and pleasant one to read; it is pervaded by a spirit of humor which the author takes no pains to conceal, but which is sustained by his equally conspicuous shrewdness and good sense; and though there is here and there a frigid conceit, or an undue levity of tone (e. g. in pp. 205, 957, 1154), we can gather that the author is an agreeable and accomplished persona man sound in head and heart, with whom we would gladly travel to Seville, or take as our helpmate in an attack on Montanches ham and Amontillado sherry at home. There is one merit, and it appears to us a great one, which we must especially concede to Mr. Stirling-that he is an honest, pains-taking, and conscientious workman. In these days of second and third-hand compilation, it is no slight satisfaction to be assured that you have not to deal with a man who is the echo of statements which he has not sifted and examined for himself, but that you have before you the industrious and scrupulous verifier of every reference, the critical scrutineer of every fact which he adduces, the accurate citer of every authority to which he appeals. This diligence and care were the more necessary in the present case, as those who had written on this subject previously to the appearance of Sir E. Head's manual, were too content with any reference, whether they had or had not the means of verifying it, and in some instances, to which Mr. Stirling has adverted, laid claim to an originality of labor where they had merely transcribed, abridged, or translated from some earlier compilation. We have already said that Mr. Stirling's work is, in our opinion, deficient in high and philosophical views of art in general. There are many, no doubt, to whom his freedom from transcendentalism will appear as a merit rather than as a fault; and we have certainly no reason to complain if he has abstained from introducing into the history of a particular school of painting the heavy and obscure lore of German æsthetics, or a fantastic ingenuity of speculation, such as that in which Lord Lindsay revels. But without insisting on dulness, or calling for the exertion of an unprofitable fancy, there are readers who will expect in a work so elaborate as that which we have before us some groundwork of general principles, some regulative and pervading idea, or at least some scientific grouping of facts. Now this is, more or less, wanting in Mr. Stirling's Annals. He has given us a genial, entertaining, accurate, and, in a certain sense, learned work. But he has left it to others to philosophize on the subject. He has got together a goodly array of details and anecdotes; but he has not attempted any conquests in the higher domain of thought, and has neither generalized for himself nor brought the generalizations of others to bear upon his own deductions. Now and then he seems to have had a latent consciousness of what he might have done in this way. Thus he has very clearly stated in his Introduction (p. 15 et seq.) the religious character of Spanish art, and the limitations with which it saddled the genius of the artist. He has not failed to notice the influence of certain social peculiarities on the subjects allowed to the painter, and on his mode of treating them; for example, in the case of female portraits, he has shown how the selfish jealousy of the Spanish husband grudged any pictorial promulgation of the charms of his wife.-P. 33 et seq. But our author ought not, we think, to have stopped here. These are the points on which he ought to have dwelt, for it is from them and other phenomena that we may derive the true theory of art in its most important application; namely, as a clue to the genius of a nation and the spirit of an age. In general, art may be defined as that method or agency by which we give an outward expression to our intellectual conceptions; and the warmest admirer of the fine arts must admit that, in proportion as this outward expression is felt to be necessary, in the same proportion is the free exercise of thought cramped and impeded. In every domain which art usurps to itself, some function of the understanding is superseded or suspended; and realism, with all its mischievous consequences, is to the same extent established or supported. Practically, art, considered under this aspect, is found in many nations and at many epochs in successful revolt against spiritual religion and literary freedom-two manifestations of the intellect which are more intimately connected than most people are willing to believe or admit. In its opposition to religion, art, as a form of realism, always leads to some species of idolatry: in its opposition to literature, art is sure to encourage those romantic retrospects which render literary progress impossible. The triumph of literature over art is generally followed by a triumph of spiritual religion over idolatrous realism. And then, at last, the purified and expanded intellect becomes capable of winnowing the chaff from the wheat, the symbol from the thing signified; and art, whether architecture, sculpture, or paintingwhich had embodied and concealed some true but latent idea- becomes valuable as a record of the past, as a newly-interpreted hieroglyph, as an embalmed residuum of the thoughts for which it had been a substitute. This view is particularly applicable to the case of Spanish art. If Mr. Stirling had followed up the pregnant observation which he makes in p. 16, he would have been led to the truth. He says, The great Bible, chained in the days of Edward VI. to the parish lectern, silenced for us the eloquence of the altar-piece; but to the simple Catholic of Spain the music of his choir, and the pictures of his ancient shrines, stood in the place of the theological dogmas which whetted and vexed the intellect of the Protestant peasant of the north. No one will venture to deny that, in regard to religious enlightenment, Spain is far behind the rest of Europe, and that her literature has ceased to exist. Nay, more: that, even when it was most flourishing, Spanish literature was, like Spanish art, subject to the domineering symbolism of a narrow religion, and that its freest utterances were delivered under a disguise which no writer assumes, unless he wishes to be misunderstood by one half of his readers, or, like the Pythoness, to fall back upon a second meaning which his words might have conveyed. The religious plays of Calderon are religious pictures; and the humoristic writings of Cervantes and Quevedo, are among the only specimens furnished by Spanish literature of a tendency towards freedom of speech, which was never a fait accompli in the Peninsula. We think that, in writing the history of Spanish art, it is important to have these considerations before us. We should not, with Mr. Stirling, speak of Spanish art and Spanish literature, as rising and falling from the same causes. But we should recollect that Spanish literature was never really developed, and that Spanish art dwindled into insignificance because the religious Symbolism, which gave birth to it and regulated its operations, remained stationary, and required no fresh pabulum. This was not a case like the ceci tuera cela, the prospect of which alarmed the Archdeacon Claude Frollo; the printed book did not destroy the edifice; but the edifice and the picture kept their places as the sole substitutes for the printed book; the Escurial built in the shape of St. Lorenzo's gridiron, and pictures of saints, martyrs, virgins, and demons, were sufficient for the religious reading of a nation, which is still so ignorant and illiterate, that, to mention a fact which has fallen within our personal cognizance, a Polish lieutenant of artillery was, about four years ago, engaged to give lessons in the Greek language to a Regius Professor in a Spanish university, with no better qualifications on his own part than a smattering of modern Greek which he had picked up in the Morea! the Philip IV. is one of those potentates who is more fortunate in his painters than in his biographers, and whose face is, therefore, better known fair hair, heavy lip, and sleepy, gray eyes; his than his history. His pale, Flemish complexion, long, curled mustachios, dark dress, and collar of the Golden Fleece, have been made familiar to all the world by the pencils of Rubens and Velasquez. Charles I., with his melancholy brow, pointed beard, and jewelled star, as painted by Vandyck, is not better known to the frequenters of galleries; nor the pompous, benign countederness of wig, amongst the silken braveries nance of Louis XIV., shining forth from a wilwhich delighted Mignard or Rigaud, or on his prancing pied charger, like a holiday soldier as he was, in the foreground of some pageant battle, by Vandermeulen. Fond as were these sovereigns of perpetuating themselves on can Armed and mounted on his sprightly Andalusian, glittering in crimson and gold gala, clad in black velvet for the council, or in russet and buff for the boar-hunt, under all these different aspects did Philip submit himself to the quick eye and cunning hand of Velasquez. And, not content with multiplications of his own likeness in these ordinary attitudes and employments, he caused the same great artist to paint him at prayers— riously portrayed as their Spanish contemporary. But we have not taken up Mr. Stirling's work so much with a view of criticising or supplying its defects as a complete treatise on Spanish art, which it was not intended to be, as for purpose of selecting one of two of the graph-vass, they have not been so frequently or so vaic descriptions and interesting biographical details with which these volumes abound. Moreover, it is so recently that the lovers of art in this country have paid to the Spanish painters that attention which they have long bestowed on the masters of Italy and Holland, that we must take this opportunity of giving a brief account of those two with whose works we are most familiar-Velasquez and Murillo. The latter in particular requires some special mention, if it were only on account of the gross ignorance of most Englishmen respecting him. The costumes of the portraits painted by Velasquez, and the historical celebrity of many of the personages whom he depicted, have fixed his epoch in our memories; we can all speak of him as a Spanish Vandyck: but how many of those who linger before the bread-and-butter boys at Dulwich have the slightest idea whether Murillo was a contemporary of Rafael, of Tizian, or of Rubens ? Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez and Bartolomé Estevan Murillo were both born at Seville, the former in 1599," the same year in which Vandyck saw the light at Antwerp," the latter some eighteen years after; consequently, the period of their activity and distinction as artists falls within the long reign of Philip IV. The introduction of this monarch, both as prince and king, in the adventures of Gil Blas, has made him as familiar to the English reader as the most distinguished of his predecessors. And, little as we generally know or care to know about the history of Spain in the seventeenth century, there are few of us who have not heard of the Count-Duke of Olivarez, or of Charles the First's romantic journey to Madrid. Mr. Stirling's description of the person of Philip IV. may be here cited as a favorable specimen of the suggestive and lively style in which this book is written (p. 526 et seq.):— "To take him in the purging of his soul”— as he knelt amongst the embroidered cushions of his oratory. In all these various portraits we find the same cold, phlegmatic expression, which gives his face the appearance of a mask, and agrees so well with the pen and ink sketches of for dead silence and marble immobility,-talents contemporary writers, who celebrate his talents hereditary, indeed, in his house, but in his case so highly improved, that he could sit out a comedy without stirring hand or foot, and conduct an audience without movement of a muscle, except those of his lips and tongue. He handled his fowling piece, quatted his sober cup of cinnamon water, and performed his devotions, with the his steed with a solemnity that would have besame undisturbed gravity of mien, and reined come him in pronouncing or receiving sentence of death. To maintain a grave and majestic demeanor in public was, in his opinion, one of the most sacred duties of a sovereign. He was never known to smile but three times in his life; and it was doubtless his desire to go down to posterity as a model of regal deportment. Yet the very personification of etiquette, possessed a this stately Austrian, whose outward man seems rich vein of humor, which, on fitting occasions, he indulged with Cervantes' serious air; he trod the primrose paths of dalliance, acted in private theatricals, and bandied pleasantries with Calderon himself. Although he was not remarkable for beauty of feature, his figure was tall and well turned; and he was, on the whole, better entitled the Great, the style which Olivarez absurdly to be called Philip the Handsome, than Philip persuaded him to assume. When at Lisbon in his early youth, as Prince of Asturias, he stood increasing popularity, and in the greatest intimacy and favor with his sovereign. His portrait of the admiral, Don Adrian Pulido Pareja, which he painted at this time, was taken for the original by no less a person than the king himself. The admiral's portrait being finished, and set aside in an obscure corner of the artist's painting room, was taken by Philip IV., in one of his morning lounges there, for the bold officer himself. "Still here!" cried the king, in some displeasure at finding the admiral, who ought to have been ploughing the main, still lurking about the palace. why are you not gone?" No excuse being of Having received your orders, fered for the delay, the royal disciplinarian discovered his mistake, and turning to Velasquez, said, "I assure you I was taken in."-p. 621. to Italy, in 1648, was undertaken by the king's The second journey which Velasquez made orders, and he was a sort of commissioner for * the purchase of paintings. In spite of the monarch's impatience for his return, he did not get back to Spain until 1651, when he was raised to the post of aposentador-mayor with a salary of three thousand ducats a-year. This was a sort of mixture of the offices of chamberlain and maître des spectacles, and gained for the painter an omnipotent key of office and the cross of Santiago, with which he is represented in the portrait given by Mr. Stirling. It was this official position which obliged him to superintend the stately pageants of the Pheasants' Isle in 1660, by which the peace and alliance between France and Spain were duly celebrated. It was in the second year of this monarch's reign that Velasquez paid his first visit to Madrid. Up to the age of twenty-three, he had lived in his native Andalusia. Originally a pupil of the rough but clever Herrera, he had passed into the gentler and feebler school of Pacheco; and after five years spent in the laborious study of his art, had followed the example of Hogarth's and other good apprentices, by marrying his master's daughter. The first visit of Velasquez to the seat of monarchy and Castilian art, produced no important effects; but soon after his return to Seville, he was again summoned to Madrid, through the interest of his countryman, Fonseca, with the minister Olivarez. His portrait of Fonseca was shewn to the king, who immediately took Velasquez into his service; and an equestrian portrait of Philip himself at once established the young artist in court favor and general reputation. Velasquez was formally appointed painter-in-ordinary to the king, on the 31st of October, 1623, and was lodged, with his whole family, Pacheco included, in the treasurychambers at Madrid. His success in a pictorial commemoration of the expulsion of the Moors by Philip III., when he competed for the prize with Carducho, Caxes, and Nardi, obtained for him the post of usher of the chamber, and pensions and appointments were lavished on him and his father. Rubens, on bis visit to Madrid in 1628, found Velasquez there, and formed an intimacy with him. And the advice of the great Flemish painter stimulated Velasquez to the fulfilment of an intention which he had long formed, of visiting Italy. The king acceded to his wishes, and gave him leave of absence for two years, to gether with a present of four hundred ducats, to meet his travelling expenses. His first object was Venice, where he found his favorite specimens of Italian art. Indeed, he did not hesitate to tell Salvator Rosa, during his second visit to the country, that he thought little of Rafael, and placed Tizian at the head of all the painters of Italy. From Venice he went by Ferrara and Bologna to Rome, where he There were Philip IV., forty years a king, was laid up with a severe attack of fever. with his proud and regal port, which neither But he was able to pay a visit of a few weeks infirmity, nor grief, nor misfortune, had been to Naples, and still returned to Madrid within *Mr. Stirling expresses it (vol. i. p. 167) as "quarthe covenanted two years. Here he lived inter-master-general of the royal household." The incessant labors and anxieties of the aposentador, in a work which might have been performed by a very inferior genius, led to the fever which carried him off on the 6th August, 1660. Although we may regret that court-duties on the Bidassoa shortened the life of one of the most illustrious painters, this circumstance has, at any rate, given Mr. Stirling an excellent opportunity of depicting, as he does with his usual felicity, the contrasted courts of France and Spain, which met together on this occasion. Our readers will thank us for an extract from this description of the last public appearance of Velasquez : During the week which the Courts of Spain and France passed on the frontier of the kingdoms, the banks of the Bidassoa furnished scenes worthy of the pencil of Titian, and the pen of Scott, and its island pavilion, historical groups such as romance has rarely assembled. able to subdue; and Louis XIV., in the dawn | Medina de las Torres wore the value of forty of his fame and the flower of his beauty. There thousand ducats on their backs.-P. 663 et seq. were two queens, both daughters of Austria in whom also gray experience was contrasted with the innocence of youth, and whose lives exemplify the vicissitudes of high place; Anne, by turns a neglected consort, an imperious regent, and a forgotten exile; and Maria Teresa, the most amiable of Austrian princesses, who, though eclipsed in her own court, and in her husband's affections, aspired in an age of universal gallantry to no higher praise than the name of a loving mother and a true and gentle wife. The Italian cardinal was there, upon whom the mantle of Richelieu had fallen, with his broken form but keen eye, that read in the new alliance the future glory of France and Mazarin; the cool, wily Haro, in his new honors as Prince of Peace! a title which so well became the ablest minister and worst captain of Castile; Turenne, fresh from his great victory at the Dunes; the old Maréchal de Villeroy, and the young Duke of Crequi; Medina de las Torres, the model and mirror of grandees; young Guiche, with his romantic air, the future hero of a hundred amours and of the passage of the Rhine; Monterey and Heliche; and a noble throng of Des Noailles and D'Harcourts, Guzmans, and Toledos. There, too, was the aposentador and painter of the King of Spain, Diego Velasquez. Although no longer young, he was distinguished, even in that proud assemblage, by his fine person and tasteful attire. Over a dress richly laced with silver he wore the usual Castilian ruff, and a short cloak embroidered with the red cross of Santiago; the badge of the order sparkling with brilliants, was suspended from his neck by a gold chain; and the scabbard and hilt of his sword were of silver, exquisitely chased, and of Italian workmanship. The rejoicings which celebrated this royal marriage were worthy of the two most sumptuous courts in Europe, now vieing with each other in pomp and magnificence. To tell the glory of the feast each day, The mornings were dedicated to the exchange of visits and compliments; the evenings to brilliant revelry. The hills reechoed the roar of cannon from Fuentarabia and St. Jean de Luz; gay cavalcades swept along the green meadows beneath the poplar-crowned brow of Irun; and gilded barges, and bands of music, floated all day on the bosom of the Bidassoa. The Spaniards marvelled at the vivid attire of the French gallants, and at the short tails of their horses. The Frenchmen, on their side, shrugged their shoulders at the sad-colored suits of the Spaniards, and envied the profusion and splendor of their jewels. But if the grandees were outdone by the seigneurs in brilliancy of costume, the lacqueys of Madrid out-blazed their brethren of Paris: on each of the three great days they appeared in fresh liveries; and the servants of The other great artist of Seville neither spent nor lost his life in ministering to the wearisome and splendid gaieties of a court. After a few years passed in comparative retirement at Madrid, whither he had travelled as to a first and important halting-place on his projected journey to Flanders or Italy, and where he was hospitably entertained and greeted with encouragement by his great Murillo retownsman, the court painterturned, in 1645, to his provincial obscurity; and even a special invitation from King Charles II. of Spain, in 1670, failed to tempt him from his retirement. His final settlement at Seville, after his journey to Madrid, was rapidly followed by his successful establishment in popular favor in his own district. In 1648, he married a rich and noble lady, bearing a name most unpleasant to Lord Palmerston-Beatriz de Cabrera y Sotomayor. His nuptials very appropriately mark the change from his first or cold (frio) style, to the more warm (calido) and genial manner, which marks the middle period of his pictorial life. This, perhaps the best, though not in this country the best-known style of Murillo, was maintained by him for some twenty years, when he fell into his third manner-the misty (vaporoso) as it is called-which is seen in many of the specimens from ordinary life, so common in this country. Murillo is, however, emphatically a religious painter. His earliest patrons were Franciscan monks; his favorite subjects were virgins and angels; especially those representations of the immaculate conception, in which the devout Catholics of southern Spain chiefly delight. He met with his death in 1682, from an injury which he sustained while mounting a scaffolding to finish the upper part of a large altar-piece, representing the espousals of St. Catharine, designed for a church of Capuchin Friars at Cadiz; and though he did not exactly die on the scaffold, he fell a martyr to the requirements of the religious art of his country. For our present purpose this brief biography of the two greatest artists of Spain will be sufficient. Those who wish to enter more at length on the subject cannot do better than refer to the full and accurate pages of Mr. Stirling, who has also been at the pains to draw up a complete catalogue of the works of Velasquez and Murillo, with an indication of the locality and ownership of each painting. In the catalogue of Murillo's works we are able to supply an interesting particular, which has escaped the researches of Mr. Stirling. |