NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The years went by. Art was at its apogee in England and France, and was awakening once more in Germany, but the genius of painting made no sign in either peninsula. Canova had initiated a revival of sculpture in Italy, yet no painter of merit appeared to suggest what in ages past had there been accomplished by her masters of the brush. The revival came first in Spain.
Spanish Painless: Don Jose Madrazo y Agudo, born in 1781 and died in 1859, was made director of the Madrid Academy in 18i9, and did much to arouse an interest in the pictorial arts. A respectable history and portrait-painter, he has been surpassed by his son, Don Federigo Madrazo y hunt, born at Madrid in 1815, a history-, genre-, and portrait painter. Among the chief works of the latter are II ipnen a/ the Sepulchre, Godfrey de Bouillon proclaimed of Jerusalem, and In her Boudoir. his brother Luis is also favorably known as a Don Raimondo Madrazo, son of Don Federigo, is the most brilliant member of this family of artists, and the one most widely known. He was born in Rome in 1841. His art is less serious than that of his father; he belongs distinctly to the modern Franco-Hispano-Italian school of bril liant painters, who excel in technical qualities and delight in representing surfaces, the beauty of costumes and draperies, and the frivolous beauties of the bull-fight, the green-room, or the Carnival. They look not below the surface; they please the eye—perchance they stimulate the grosser senses—but they paint neither for the mind nor for the heart. The chief emotion which they arouse is amazement at the extraordinary technical dexterity common to all the artists of this school. Let us be just. Great talent is evident in these paintings, but it is not talent of a high order: it is talent that mistakes the means for the end, that magnifies style or technique above thought, above the thing said or suggested. Among the numerous works of Raimondo Madrazo we may mention the Andalusian Singer, End of a Masked Ball, La Soubrette, and Pte during Carnival. We reproduce a copy of his painting entitled A Dish of Tea (p. 66, fig. 2).
Among other well-known Spanish painters of this school (most of whom received their art-education in Paris), perhaps the most notable are Luis and Jose Jiminez y Aranda, Alvarez of Espino, Leon of Escosura—in whose studio are collected draperies and bric-à-brac to the value of sixty thousand dollars—and Vicente Palmaroli (born in 1835). The latter affects subjects somewhat more serious than other contemporary Spanish painters, and his style greatly resembles that of Meissonier—minute and carefully fin ished.
Jose Jiminez y Aranda, born at Seville in 1832, is a staunch adherent of the modern realistic school of genre, and has achieved a distinguished position in the ranks of contemporary Spanish painters. He established
a studio in his native city, from whose every-day life he has mainly drawn his inspirations, a characteristic example of which is An Afternoon in Seville (Al. 65, fig. m). His other compositions deserving of notice are Boutique of Figaro, Old Castilian, Consultation at the Lawyer's, and _Yews from the Scene of War.
Antonio Gisbert, born at Alcoy, has the distinction of following serious historical art, and is undoubtedly a painter of considerable ability. One of his most important paintings is on a subject singular for a Spanish painter to select, The Landing of the Pilgrims in America. It is a composition of much dignity and grandeur, and is certainly the finest representation yet executed of this great historical episode.
Mariano Gisbert stands almost alone among recent Spanish painters, of whom the most celebrated and the ablest was un doubtedly Mariano Fortuny, who was born in 1838 and died in 1874, at the early age of thirty-six. Fortuny studied at Bologna and Rome, devoting himself especially to a most careful study of drawing; this was probably one cause of his astonishing facility in dashing off rapid water-color sketches. When in Madrid, in 1S66, he married the daughter of Don Federigo ladrazo. One of the most important events in the art-career of Funnily x‘as his journey to Morocco; the picturesque effects of that dreamy land fired his fancy and had a decided influence on his style. Sonic of his most celebrated paintings were suggested by this journey, such as his Fantasy and the world-famous painting called the Fortunv surrounded himself with Oriental tapestries, jewelled schn etars, faicnces, rugs, and the like, and painted from the door of a Persian tent. Artists and connoisseurs flocked to his gardens. He was at Madrid \ h a t Raphael was in Rome, but, while each was a genius, how different were the subjects they treated, how widely apart their thought and styles! Raphael was a great epic poet and Fortuny a fiery improvvisatore—bril liant, bewilderingly fascinating, but still an improvvisatore. After his death the auction-sale of the collection in his studio brought one hun dred and sixty thousand dollars. Fortune worked with such ease and facility that he left a great number of sketches and paintings in oil, aquarelle, and black and white, some carefully finished, others done with a few effective touches, but all suggestive of genius. Among his import ant works may be mentioned of Seville, The Carnival, and the celebrated Spanish The (fil. 66, fig. 3), from an etching of a water-color sketch, is an example of the style of this celebrated artist.