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ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENT


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^p ti)c ^amc author

The Works of James McNeill Whistler. Illustrated withMany Reproductions of Etchings, Lithographs, Pastels and Paint-ings, 6f X 9I Inches. Boxed, $4.cx3 Net. (Postage 32 cents.)

A study of Whistler and his works, including etchings, lithographs, pastels,water-colors, paintings, landscapes. Also a chapter on Wfiistler's " Theoryof Art."

The Same. Limited Edition de Luxe. The Limited Editionof the Above Work, Illustrated with Additional Exampleson Japan and India Paper. Printed on Van Gelder Hand-made Paper, with Wide Margins. Limited to 250 Numberedand Signed Copies, of which a few are left unsold. Boxed,$15.00 Net. (Postage Extra.)

The Art of William Blake. Uniquely and Elaborately Illus-trated. Size 7jxioJ Inches. Wide Margins. Boxed, $3.50Net. (Postage 25 cents.)

A volume of great distinction, discussing the art of Blake in several un-usual phases, and dwelling importantly upon his Manuscript Sketch Book,to which the author has had free access, and from wfiich the publishers havedrawn freely for illustrations, many of which have never been pubUshedbefore.


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RYASTOR, LENOX AMDTILOEN FOUNDATIONS.


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Dans la LogeFrom a painting by Mary Cassati


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Artists Past and PresentRANDOM STUDIES

BYELISABETH LUTHER GARY

Author of " The Art of William Blake;' " Whistler;^ Etc.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORKMOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY

IQOC


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Copyright, 1909, by

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANYNEW YORKAll rights reserved

Published, September, 1909

THE NEW YORKPUBLIC LIBRARY459400ASTOn L^NOX AN

TIUDE o^Hi.R L

The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. US.A


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CONTENTS

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I. Antoine Louis BaryeII. The Art of Mary Cassatt . ,

III. Max Klinger ....IV. Alfred Stevens ....V. A Sketch in Outline of Jacques Callot

VI. Carlo Crivelli ....VII. The Cassel GalleryVIII. Fantin-Latour ....IX. Carl Larsson ....X. Jan Steen ....XI. One Side of Modern German Painting

XII. Two Spanish Painters .

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37

496i

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95109

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131

143

165


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSDans la Loge Frontispiece

From a painting by Mary Cassatt FacingPage

Portrait of Antoine Louis Barye 2From a painting by J. F. Millet

Lion devouring a Doe 6Bull thrown to Earth by a Bear 6

From a bronze by BaryeA Lioness 8

From a bronze by BaryeThe Prancing Bull lo

From a bronze by Barye

Panther seizing a Deer I2From a bronze by BaryeThe Lion and the Serpent i6

From a bronze by BaryeAsian Elephant crushing Tiger , . 20

From a bronze by BaryeChild Resting 28

From an etching by Mary CassattOn the Balcony 32

From a painting by Mary Cassatt


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viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSFacingPageWoman with a Fan 34

From a painting by Mary CassattBeethoven 38

From a statue in colored marble by Max KlingerCassandra 44

From a statue in colored marble by Max KlingerL'Atelier 52From a painting by Alfred StevensPortrait of Jacques Callot 68

Engraved by Vosterman after the painting of Fan DyckSt. Dominic 84

From a panel by Carlo CrivelliSt. George 86

From a panel by Carlo CrivelliPlETA 88

From a panel by Carlo CrivelliA Panel by Carlo Crivelli {a) goA Panel by Carlo Crivelli {b) 92Saskia g8

From a portrait by RembrandtNicholas Bruyningh 102

From a portrait by Rembrandt

Portrait of Mme. Maitre 112From a painting by Fanttn-LatourMy Family 120

From a painting by Carl LarssonA Painting by Carl Larsson 126


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ixFacingPagePeasant Women of Dachauer .... 148

From a painting by LeiblFiddling Death 154

From a portrait by Arnold BoecklinThe Swimmers 166

From a painting by SorollaThe Bath Javea 168

From a painting by SorollaThe Sorceresses of San Milan 170

From a painting by ZuloagaThe Old Boulevardier 172

From a painting by ZuloagaMercedes 174

From a painting by Zuloaga


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ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTAntoine Louis Barye

AT the Metropolitan Museum of Art are two picturesby the Florentine painter of the fifteenth centurycalled Piero di Cosimo, They represent hunting scenes,and the figures are those of men, women, fauns, satyrs,centaurs, and beasts of the forests, fiercely struggling to-gether. As we observe the lion fastening his teeth in theflesh of the boar, the bear grappHng with his human slayer,and the energy and determination of the creatures atbay, our thought involuntarily bridges a chasm of fourcenturies and calls up the image of the Barye bronzesin which are displayed the same detachment of vision,the same absence of sentimentaHty, the same vigor andintensity if not quite the same strangeness of imagination.It is manifestly unwise to carry the parallel very far, yetthere is still another touch of similarity in the beautifulsurfaces. Piero's fine, dehcate handling of pigment isin the same manner of expression as Barye's exquisitemanipulation of his metal after the casting, his beautifulthin patines that do not suppress but reveal sensitive


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2 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTline and subtle modulation. We know little enough ofPiero beyond what his canvases tell us. Of Barye wenaturally know more, although everything save what hiswork confides of his character and temperament is ofsecondary importance, and he is interesting to moderns,especially as the father of modern animal sculpture, andnot for the events of his quiet life.

Antoine Louis Barye, born at Paris September 15,1796, died June 25, 1875, in the same year with Corotand at the same age. The circumstances under whichhe began his career have been told in detail by more thanone biographer, but it would be difficult rightly to esti-mate the importance and singularity of his work withoutsome review of them. His father was a jeweler of Lyons,who settled in Paris before Antoine was born, and whoseidea of education for his son was to pla/ze him at less thanfourteen with an engraver of mihtary equipments fromwhom he learned to engrave on steel and other metals,and later with a jeweler from whom he learned to makesteel matrixes for molding reliefs from thin metals. A cer-tain stress has been laid on this lack of schooling in the con-ventional sense of the word, but it is difficult to see thatit did much harm, since Barye, though he was not a cor-rect writer of French, was a great reader, keenly intelli-gent in his analysis of the knowledge he gained from books,and with extraordinary power of turning it to his own


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From the collection of the late Cyrus J. Lawrence, EsqPortrait of Antoine Louis Barye

From a painting by J. F. Millet


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YORKRYA3TOR, LENOX AMDTILOEN FOUNDATIONS.


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ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE 3uses. Such a mind does not seriously miss the advan-tages offered by a formal training, and it might fairly beargued that the manual skill developed at the work-benchwas in the long run more valuable to him than the abstractknowledge which he might have acquired in school couldpossibly have been. Be that as it may, up to the time ofhis marriage in 1823 ^^ ^^^ ^ varied apprenticeship.At sixteen he was drawn as a conscript and was firstassigned to the department where maps in relief aremodeled. Before he was twenty-one he was workingwith a sculptor called Bosio, and also in the studio of thepainter, Baron Gros. He studied Lamarck, Cuvier andBuffon. He competed five times for the Prix de Romeat the Salon, once in the section of medals and four timesin the section of sculpture, succeeding once (in the firstcompetition) in gaining a second prize. He then wentback to the jeweler's bench for eight years, varying themonotony of his work by modeling independently smallreliefs of Eagle and Serpent, Eagle and Antelope, Leopard,Panther, and other animals.

In 1 83 1 he sent to the Salon of that year the Tiger de-vouring a Gavial of the Ganges, a beautiful little bronze,seven and a half inches high, which won a Second Medaland was bought by the Government for the Luxembourg.This was the beginning of his true career. In the sameSalon was exhibited his Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, but


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4 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTthe powerful realism and energy of the animal grouprepresented what henceforth was to be Barye's char-acteristic achievement, the realization, that is, of whatthe Chinese call the "movement of life;" the strangereality of appearance that is never produced by imitationof nature and that makes the greatness of art. The tigerclutches its victim with great gaunt paws, its eyes arefixed upon the prey, its body is drawn together withtense muscles, its tail is curled, the serpent is coiled aboutthe massive neck of its destroyer with large undulatingcurves. The touch is everywhere certain, the compo-sition is dignified, and the group as an exhibition ofextraordinary knowledge is noteworthy.A lithograph portrait of Barye by Gigoux, made at

about this time, shows a fine head, interested eyes, a firmmouth and a determined chin. His chief qualities wereperseverance, scientific curiosity, modesty and pride, andthat indomitable desire for perfection so rarely encoun-tered and so precious an element in the artist's equipment.He was little of a talker, little of a writer, infinitely studi-ous, somewhat reserved and cold in manner, yet fond ofgood company and not averse to good dinners. Guil-laume said of him that he had the genius of great scienceand of high morality, which is the best possible definitionin a single phrase of his artistic faculty. He had thekind of sensitiveness, or self-esteem, if you will, that fre-


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ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE 5quently goes with a mind confident of its merits, but notindifferent to criticism or sufficiently elevated and aloofto dispense with resentment. In 1832 he sent to theSalon his Lion Crushing a Serpent^ and in 1833 he senta dozen animal sculptures, a group of medallions andsix water-colors. That year he was made chevalier ofthe Legion of Honour, but the following year nine groupsmade for the Duke of Orleans were rejected by the Salonjury, and again in 1836 several small pieces were rejected,although the Seated Lion, later bought by the govern-ment, was accepted. The reasons for the rejections arenot entirely clear, but Barye was an innovator, and in thefield of art the way of the innovator is far harder thanthat of the transgressor. Charges of commercialism wereamong those made against him, and he the least com-mercial of men took them deeply to heart. His bitter-ness assumed a self-respecting but an inconvenient andunprofitable form, as he made up his mind to exhibitthereafter only in his own workshop, a resolution to whichhe held for thirteen years. After the rejection of hisgroups in 1834 he happened to meet Jules Dupre, whoexpressed his disgust with the decision. "It is quiteeasy to understand," Barye replied, "I have too manyfriends on the jury." This touch of cynicism indicatesthe ease with which he was wounded, but it was equallycharacteristic of him that in planning his simple revenge


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6 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENThe hurt only himself. He did indeed refrain from send-ing his bronzes to the Salon and he did act as his ownsalesman, and the result was the incurrence of a heavydebt. To meet this he was obliged to sell all his warpsto a founder who wanted them for the purpose of repeatingthem in debased reproductions. His own care in obtain-ing the best possible results in each article that he pro-duced, his reluctance to sell anything of the second class,and his perfectly natural dislike to parting with an es-pecially beautiful piece under any circumstances, did not,of course, work to his business advantage, although theamateurs who have bought the bronzes that came fromhis own refining hand have profited by it immensely.It would be a mistake, however, to think of him as acrushed or even a deeply misfortunate man. He simplywas poor and not appreciated by the general publicaccording to his merits. After 1850, however, he hadenough orders from connoisseurs, many of them Ameri-cans, and also from the French government to make itplain that his importance as an artist was firmly estab-lished at least in the minds of a few. He sold his workat low prices which since his death have been trebled andquadrupled, in fact, some of his proofs have increasedfifty-fold, but the fact that he was not overwhelmed withorders gave him that precious leisure to spend upon theperfecting of his work which, we may fairly assume, wasworth more to him than money.


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ASTOR, LENOX AMDTILDEN FOUNDATIONS. |


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u^S2 1 4^' \9^^^HP^ ^^H

'^^^*^^--Fiddling Death

From a portrait by Arnold Boeckhn


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71

ASTOft, LENOX AMDTILON FOUNDATIONS.


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ONE SIDE OF MODERN GERMAN PAINTING 155of space and mass raises him to a much higher place as anartist than he can be said to occupy as a painter.Franz von Stuck is Boeckhn's most distinguished fol-

lower. When we turn from the examples of Boecklin'swork, by no means the most impressive examples, ex-hibited in America, to Stuck's "Inferno" we perceiveboth the influence of Boecklin and the powerful indi-viduality that mingles with it.There is Boecklin's insistence upon the symbol, and

upon the bodying forth of things unseen, there is the soHdviolence of color, there is the pompous statement of thehalf-discerned truths which more sensitive artists are con-tent to whisper. But there is also a splendid arabesqueof line and a deeper reading of the spiritual content of thesubject.

If we compare Stuck with William Blake whose fancyalso was haunted by Dantesque conceptions, we see howmuch more impressive Blake's visions of the unreal worldare and we find the reason in their swift energy of concep-tion and in the artist's tenacity in holding his conception.With both Boecklin and Stuck we feel that the manner ofrendering the conception becomes more important thanthe initial conception, and this seldom, if ever, is true ofBlake. In spite of Boecklin's superb restraint in the dis-position of his masses, when it comes to color he is atthe mercy of the material pigment and permits it to


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156 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTobliterate where it should enhance and reveal. His forms,also, and even more than Stack's, lose vitality under theweight of significance forced upon them, while Blake'semerge from the blank panel clean and strong and un-encumbered. We feel that Blake, with all his struggleto utter truth by means of symbol, never allows his mindto lose the idea that "Living form is eternal existence,"but in Boeckhn's pictures "living form" is often buriedbeneath his colored clays.Thus we see that it cannot truly be said of him and his

followers that the idea is of first importance to them. Itis their material that is of first importance, otherwise theywould learn so to subordinate their material as to supportand disclose their idea. This is the more obvious thattheir idea is emotional and therefore perfectly suited toexpression through the medium of art. Liebermann'sideas although they are intellectual are not of a kind thatcannot appropriately be translated into pictures, and hisrespect for them leads him to fit his manner of expressionclosely to their requirements. Like Leibl he is a painterand a thinker in one, and the faculties of the two workin complete coordination.

Painters of Boeckhn's type, on the other hand, wish toproduce in the observer a strong emotion, but they becomeslaves to their medium because their own emotion is notsufficiently powerful to conquer their minds, which be-


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ONE SIDE OF MODERN GERMAN PAINTING 157come diverted by the colors and forms they produce. Oneof Blake's swift upward soaring lines has more power tocarry the imagination heavenward than all the versionsof Boecklin's "Island of Death."

Against BoeckHn's followers, whose minds are more orless befogged by their lack of appreciation of paint as ameans to an end, we must place Wilhelm Truebner whois a clear thinker and a great. painter, with more warmththan Liebermann and with a reticent color sense, a feehngfor expressive form, a love of reality, and no apparentdesire to re-invent the grotesque. His elegance of line initself sets him apart from most of his compatriots, andhis knowledge of how to extract from his color schemeits essential beauty is greater than that of most modernpainters, whatever their nationality. His blacks havethe depth and luster without unctiousness characteris-tic of black as the great colorists use it, and in histouches of pale refined color enlivening a black and whitecomposition, we have the delightful effect so often givenby Manet, as of a bunch of bright flowers thrown into ashadowy corner.

If young Germany were content to follow in Truebner'sfootsteps we should soon have a revival of the ancientcraftsmanship and conscience that animated Holbein andDiirer. Young Germany, however, has other plans. Tolearn of them the reader is referred to Meier-Graefe's


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158 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTcomprehensive and stimulating volume on modern art.The only representation of the painters of the immediatepresent given in the American exhibition vv^as confined tothe Scholle School, which, however, indicates clearly thecreative impulse that is stirring in the younger painters."A warlike state," Blake wrote, "never can produce Art.It will Rob and Plunder and accumulate into one placeand Translate and Copy and Buy and Sell and Criticize,but not Make." This has been true of the Germans, butthe present generation is bent upon making and it isnatural that the strongest impulse toward originalityshould come to the Munich painters rather than to thecosmopolitan Berlin men.The Scholle is a Munich association consisting of a

group of young men who, taking the humble and fecundearth as their symbol, as the title of the society implies,seek to get into their painting the vigor and intensity oflife and force which devotion to the healthy joys providedby our mother Earth is supposed to engender.They are like the giant Antaeus whose strength was

invincible so long as he remained in contact with the earth,but who easily was strangled when lifted into the upperair. Their strength also melts into helplessness whenconfronted by problems of atmosphere and the delicateveils of tone which enwrap the material world for theAmerican painter.


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ONE SIDE OF MODERN GERMAN PAINTING 159But the energy of these young Germans in their own

field is something at which to wonder. They remind oneof their critics of a band of lusty peasant boys journeyingin rank from their University to the nearest beer garden,singing loud songs by the way. Leo Putz, Adolf Muenzer,Fritz Erler, are the leaders of the group, although AlexSalzmann and Ferdinand Spiegel were Erler's collabora-tors in the famous Wiesbaden frescoes which offendedthe taste of the Kaiser. These young men are entirelycapable of offending a less conventional taste than theKaiser's, but they all are doing something which has notbeen done in Germany for many a long year; they arebusying themselves with the visible world and paintingfrankly what they see. It does not matter in the least thatin their decorative work they give rein to their fancy andproduce such symbolism as we find in Erler's " Pestilence,"or that in the illustrations for Jugend they tell a story withkeen appreciation of its literary significance. Their eyesare open upon the aspect of material things and theypaint flesh that is palpitating with life, forms that liveand move, and color that vibrates.Here again as with Liebermann and Truebner the idea

and the execution are in harmony, but with the Schollepainters the idea is apt to be a very simple one, dependingupon straightforward representation for its impressive-ness. Above all it reflects the national temper of mind,


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i6o ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTfor all these individualists are German to the core and notto be mistaken for any other race.One characteristic of this national temper is directness.Not necessarily simplicity, of course, since the Germanpainter as well as the German writer has frequently com-plex thoughts to express and uses corresponding elabora-tions of expression. But he does not often say one thingwhile seeming to say another; he does not often give doubleand contradictory meanings to the same subject. Hedoes not present for your contemplation the dishearten-ing spectacle of sophistication masquerading as innocence,or duplicity masquerading as frankness. To that extenthe is an optimist, however deep his native pessimism maygo in other directions.There is, for example, a picture by the French artist

Jacques Blanche, entitled "Louise of Montmartre," andknown to many Americans, in which the girl to whomParis irresistibly calls is shown in her boyish blouse andcollar, her youthful hat and plainly dressed hair, in anonchalant attitude, pretty and plebeian, with honest eyes,yet revealing in every line of her frank and fresh youngface the potentiality of response to all the appeals madeby the ruthless spirit of the city. It is impossible to dis-cern at what points the artist has betrayed that artlessphysiognomy in order to reveal the secrets of temperament,but the thing is done.


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ONE SIDE OF MODERN GERMAN PAINTING i6iIt is not what the German is interested in doing. His

imagination works subjectively, giving form to his ownconceptions, rather than objectively or as an interpreterof others. Hence the downright, and, in a sense, confidingaspect of so much of this brave art. Hence, also, itsaffinity with the American spirit, for the American stillbends a rather unsuspecting gaze upon life and acceptscharacter and temperament as they choose to presentthemselves. The German, however, is articulate andratiocinating where we are more purely instinctive. Weare not inclined to reason about our moods and weseldom are able to express them in our literature. Inour art, on the other hand, especially in our landscapeart, we manage to translate our subtlest emotion. Weare able to suggest what is too delicate for analysis,and in this we stand almost alone in the painting ofthe present day.


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TWO SPANISH PAINTERS


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XIITwo Spanish Painters

IV /| ODERN art, particularly American art, owesmuch to Velasquez and something to Goya, and

modern painters have been prompt to acknowledge theirindebtedness. But there has been a prevailing impres-sion that with Goya's rich and unique achievementSpanish art stopped in its own country so completelyas to be incapable of revival. The impression was dis-turbed in this country by the appearance in the galleriesof the Hispanic Museum in New York, and also in Buffaloand in Boston, of the work of two modern Spaniards, onea painter who demonstrated by his methods and choiceof subjects that the old Spanish traditions and ideals hadnot been forgotten, the other a singularly isolated indi-vidual who illumined for us a side of Spanish life whichart previously had ignored. Both spoke a racy idiomand conveyed a sense of quickened vitality by freedomof gesture, imhackneyed arrangement, intensity of color,reality of type, yet in their influence upon the publicthey were as far as might be asunder.

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1 66 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTJoaquin Sorolla y Bastida was born at Valencia, Spain,

in 1863, and began seriously to study art at the age offifteen. He studied at the Academy of his birthplacefor several years and won there a scholarship entitlinghim to a period of study in Italy. He visited Paris also,where he was profoundly impressed, it is said, by twoexhibitions in the French capital, one of the work ofBastien LePage, the other of the work of the GermanMenzel. The modern note is clearly felt in all his laterpainting, but certainly not the influence of either BastienLePage or Menzel. The painter to whom he bears themost marked resemblance is Botticelli. The spirituallanguor, the melancholy sentiment, the mystical tendency,the curiosity and interest in the unseen which are impor-tant characteristics of the Florentine who read his Danteto such good purpose do not appear in the work of thisfrank and lusty Valencian, but where else in modernpainting do we find the gracile forms, the supple muscles,the buoyancy of carriage, the light impetuosity of move-ment, and the draperies blown into the shapes of wingsand sails, which meet us here as in the pagan composi-tions of Botticelli ?

If we glance at Sorolla's young girls and young boysracing along the hot beach, or his bathers exulting intheir "water joy," we recall at the same moment the"Primavera" with its swift-stepping nymphs, the wind


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TWO SPANISH PAINTERS 167gods in the "Birth of Venus," or the "Judith" with hermaid moving rapidly along a flower-strewn path. Thisjoy of motion and this continual suggestion of youth andvitality form the link that binds together the so dissimilarideals of the old and the modern master. Sorolla'sinspiration is by far the simpler. His art reflects thebrilliant sunshine of the Mediterranean coast, the tonicquality of the fresh air, and the unconventionality of lifeby the sea. All his people use natural gestures andexpress in their activity the untrammeled energy of primi-tive life. In looking at these children, and there ishardly a figure that has not the naivete of childhood, wethink less of the individuals portrayed than of the out-door freshness of which they are a part. They are muchmore spirits of nature than the dryads and nereids andmermaids conceived by the Germans to express in symbolthe natural forces. Nothing suggests the use of models,all has the look of spontaneity as though the artist hadmade his notes in passing, without the slightest regard toproducing a picture, with only the idea of reproducinglife. Life, however, appears in his canvases in a sufli-ciently decorative form, although not in the carefullyconsidered patterns of those artists with whom the decora-tive instinct is supreme.

Observe, for example, the painting entitled "SeaIdyl." Two children are stretched on the beach, their


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1 68 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTbright bodies wet and glistening and casting blue shadowson the sands. They are lying so close to the water'sedge that the waves lap over them, the boy's skin shineslike polished marble under the wet film just passingacross it, and the girl's drenched garments cling withsharp chiseled folds to the form beneath like the dra-peries of some young Greek goddess just risen from thesea. The insolence of laughing eyes, the idle fumblingof young hands in the wet sand, the tinghng life inthe clean-cut limbs, the buoyancy of the waves that liftthem slightly and hold them above the earth, allare seen with unwearied eyes, and reproduced withenergy.The management of the pigment in this picture as in

many of the others can be called neither learned norsubtle. Apparently the artist had in mind two inten-tions, the one to represent motion, the other to representlight, and he set about his task in the simplest way pos-sible, with such simplicity, indeed, that the extraordinarycharacter of the result would easily be missed by a pedant.It has not been missed by the public, who have enteredwith enthusiasm into the painter's mood, perceived theoriginality of his vision and the joyousness of his art, andhave radiated their own appreciation of this vitalized,healthful world of happy people until they have increasedthe distrust of the pedant for an art so helplessly popular.


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TWO SPANISH PAINTERS 1 69The distrust is not unnatural. To follow the popular

taste would lead us into strange errors in our judgmentsof art, and only rarely would produce a predilectioncapable of lasting over a generation. How is it, then, thatwe fearlessly may range ourselves on the side of thepublic in admiration of Sorolla's art ? Because the painterhas cast off the slavery of the conventional vision. Hesees for himself, the rarest of gifts, and thus can wellafford to paint like others. He spends, apparently, butlittle thought upon his execution, letting it flow easilyaccording to his instinct for the appropriate. It is not asafe example to follow for painters who do not see withunusual directness. Often in searching out refinementsof execution the eye discovers refinements of fact in thescene to be portrayed and makes its selection with greaterdistinction than would be possible at first sight. ButSorolla's prompt selective vision flies to its goal like a beeto a honey-bearing flower. He takes what he wants andleaves the rest with the dew still on it. His forces areneither scattered nor spent. His freshness is over-mastering, and with our eyes on his creations we havethat curious sense of possessing youth and health andfreedom which we get sometimes from the sight of boysat their games. We are cheated into forgetfulness ofthe world's great age and our own lassitudes and physicalineflPectiveness. This illusion is agreeable to the most


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170 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTof us, hence our unreserved liking for Sorolla's art whichproduces it.The art of Ignacio Zuloaga, on the contrary, produces

the opposite impression of complete sophistication. Inplace of adolescent exultations and ebullient physicalactivities, we find in it the strange sorceries of a guilefulcivilization. There are smiling women with narrowedeyelids and powdered faces, old men practising dolorousrejuvenations, laughter that conceals more than it ex-presses, motions that are as calculated as those of thedance, serpentine forms, fervid passions, and underneaththe sophistries a violent primeval temper. In spite ofthe flowerlike gaiety of the color in rich costumes, theglint of silver, the sweet cool blues, the pale violets,in the painter's versions of the typical toreador of Spainthe types are bold, cruel, and sullen. In spite of thefragility and elegance of the women on balconies undersoft laces the prevailing note is that of undisciplinedferocity of emotion. This too is Spain, but not the Spainof the beach and sea life.The rather numerous examples of what Mr. Christian

Brinton has called Zuloaga's "growing diabolic tendency"make it clear that his art holds no place for spontaneityand the innocence due to ignorance, but where he keepsto Spanish subjects his work remains healthy. Thereis the picture entitled "The Sorceresses of San Milan"


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Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America.

The Sorceresses of San MilanFrom a painting by Zuloaga


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TWO SPANISH PAINTERS 171in which three old women are seen against a dramaticlandscape. These haggard jests of nature bring beforeus a Spain from which the American finds it impossiblenot to shrink with horror, but they are rich in dramaticquality and recall the power of Goya to endow the abnor-mal with imaginative splendor while holding to essentialtruth. They are diabolic, if you will, but not Mephis-tophelian. There is the abstract horror in them whichwe associate with unknown powers of darkness, but notthe guile with which we endow a personal devil. Instriking contrast to this group are the balcony pictures inwhich women of ripe aggressive beauty lounge gracefullyin the open-air rooms with the same freedom of pose aswithin doors, haughty yet frank, opulent, languid yet ani-mated, flowers that could have bloomed nowhere elsethan under a scorching sun.Then there is the group of dancers and actors and

singers in each of which we find the adroit mingling ofthe artificial with the real, and the appreciation of the factthat with the people of the stage much that is artificial toothers becomes their reality. The most vivid of themall is Mile. Lucienne Breval as "Carmen." The sinuousfigure is wrapped in a shawl apparently of a thousandcolors; actually, a strong combination of yellow, green,and red. The skirt which the singer gathers in one handand lifts sufficiently to show the small foot in its red slip-


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172 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTper has a dark vermilion ground on which is a patternof large flowers of paler vermilion, boldly outlined withblue.Over it droops the dark fringe of the shawl. A crim-

son flower is in the dark hair, and the footlights cast anartificial amber glow on the face. This tawny harmonyis seen against a background of slightly acid green; atthe other side of the canvas is a little table with two menseated at it. They look "made up," in the theatricalsense, and the table looks rather light and rickety; thereis one solid natural stage property, the yellow jug on thetable with its dull blue figure. The whole life and realityof the picture are in the Carmen smiHng and muffled inthe curious shawl, as if she were about to move in a fierydance in which her brilliant wrappings would take a partas animated and vital as her own. No one but a Spaniardcould invest a garment with such expressiveness.

"Paulette as Danseuse" is another stage figure. Hereagain the costume speaks with extraordinary eloquence.The colors are green and pink, and play delicately withina narrow range of varied tones. Under the short greenjacket the low-cut bodice shows a finely modeled throatand a chest that seems almost to rise and fall with thebreath, so palpitating with life is the fleshlike surface.The poise of the figure suggests that the dance has thatmoment ended, and the eyes and mouth are slightly


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The Old BoulevardierFrom a painting by Zuloaga


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TWO SPANISH PAINTERS 173arched. The undulating line of the draperies, nowtightly drawn about the figure, and again billowing intoampler curves, suggests the rhythm of the dance.

In another canvas we see Paulette once more, this timein walking costume, standing with her hands on her hipsin a daintily awkward pose. Her lips, in the first pictureupturned at the corners, mouselike, have widened in afrank smile, her eyes have lost their formal archness andlook with detached interest upon the passing show, shestill is supple, clear cut, with a flexible silhouette, but hergown would find it impossible to dance, and, as before,she and her gown are one.

In "The Actress Pilar Soler," on the other hand,Zuloaga dispenses as far as possible with definite aids toexpression. The costume is undefined; the half-lengthfigure, draped in black and placed high on the canvas, isseen against a dark greenish-blue background. The massof the silhouette, unbroken as in an Egyptian statue, butwith tremulous contours suggesting the fluttering of fifein the dimly defined body, is sufficiently considered anddistinguished; but it is the modeUng of the face that holdsthe attention, a mere blur of tone, yet with all the planesunderstood and with a certain material richness of im-pasto that contributes to the look of solid flesh, the darkof the eyebrows making the only pronounced accent a face that becomes more and more vital as you look at


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174 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTit, with that indestructible vitality of which, among theFrenchmen, Carriere was master.

In several other canvases, notably in the first versionof "My Cousin Esperanza," and the second version of"Women in a Balcony," Zuloaga has caught this effectof vague fleeting values, changes in surface so subtle asto be felt rather than seen, a kind of floating modehngthat suggests form rather than insists upon it. And hehas done this in the most difficult manner. Whistler longago taught us to appreciate the eflPect, but he worked withthin layers of pigment, a sensitive surface upon whichthe slightest accent made an impresssion. Zuloaga, onthe contrary, works with a full brush, and consequentlya more unmanageable surface. He attains his successas a sculptor does against the odds of his material, but heseems better to suggest his special types in this way.

Often he makes his modeling with the sweep of hisbrush in one direction and another. "Candida Laugh-ing" shows this method, and so does the "Village Judge,"in which the pigment is still more freely swept about thebone of the cheek and the setting of the eye, telling itsstory of the way the human face is built up in the frankestand briefest manner. With the lovely "Mercedes," afragile figure, elegant in type, the workmanship becomesagain less outspoken. The haughty, graceful carriage,and the intense refinement of the features that glow with


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f


Mercedes


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L ASTOR, LENOX AMDTILDEN FOUNDATION8.


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TWO SPANISH PAINTERS 1 75a pale light beneath the fine lace of the scarf, demandand receive a daintier, more fastidious interpretation.In the portrait of Mrs. F., Jr., there is a fresher manner,a breezier, crisper feeling throughout. The color har-mony of gray and green is cool and lively, the poise of thefigure lacks the touch of languor that is present in thefieriest of the typical Spaniards. We seem to have passedinto another and cooler air.The composition of this picture, too, is especially

admirable. The subject stands, bending forward a little,the left hand resting on the hip, the other fingering a stringof pearls, a gauzy scarf is about the shoulder and floatsaway from the figure at the hips, the sky is atmosphericand there is a background of trees, river, and bridge.At the left of the canvas an iron balustrade, bent into free,graceful curves, comes into the composition, beautifullydrawn and painted in a just value, adding in the happiestmanner to the decorative effect.This is the class of pictures in which Zuloaga is at his

best. The types offer him adequate opportunity forexercising the faculty of astute discrimination with whichhe is gifted, without calling into play the ironic temperthat broods with cold amusement over such a canvas as"The Old Boulevardier" than which cynicism can gobut little farther. It might reasonably be argued thatit is only in subjects which call forth as many evidences


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176 ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENTas possible of the artist's temperament and characterthat we can, fully measure his force. The impulse, how-ever, that turns his gaze toward those physiognomiesthat offer the richest reward to the investigating scrutinyis a part of his force, as also his choice of subjects aboutwhich he can talk, as one of his French critics has put itin his own language.


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Artists Past Prese 00 Cary

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