Spanish Painting

The exhibition of Spanish Painting held in London in the galleries of the Royal Academy from November to January last, excited a lively interest in the English public and inspired numerous articles on the subject in English journals and reviews. If all of these were not in accord on certain issues and critics adopted various points of view, it may still be said that the crowds of visitors which it attracted and the manifold expressions of opinion it evoked supply the clearest evidence that the exhibition aroused the curiosity of the English public, and consequently may be regarded as a triumph for Spanish art and a success for its promoters.

The reasons underlying the interest which Spanish art awakens to-day in enlightened circles (this is the second exhibition of the kind which Spain has of late witnessed beyond her borders, recalling that of Paris in 1920) are worthy of reflection and may be said to have inspired the Royal Academy’s exhibition.

Spain—her life, history, customs, art—is often regarded subjectively as though enveloped in a haze, or through the medium of legend, which, however accommodating it may be to literary expression, is by no means conformable to the facts of history or present realities. Viewed in this picturesque manner and because of the isolation in which the country remained for generations, and perhaps still remains, it has attracted the attention of writers and poets, and even scientists and philosophers, unfamiliar with their theme and dubious in their assertions. Doubtless the typical, the true native spirit has not been misunderstood by the outside world. Thus in the case of Cervantes and Velázquez, their names are household words in every land. But the kind of knowledge to which we allude is not usually imparted by such lofty spirits, who speak to humanity from the heights, without distinctions of race or frontier. That which they accomplish is only a part of the national achievement. It is the medium in which it is fashioned, the environment in which it comes into being, its artistic matrix, which determines the precise type of racial endeavour. To its national character the new Spain cleaves, and by its light her ideas will be readjusted, her history interpreted, her present respected as in line with her tradition, which, in the sphere of things artistic, Spaniards regard as a potent factor in the advancement of world art.

Spain is familiarly spoken of as a country of distinctive character, and is so not only because of its geographical situation, which has kept it somewhat apart from frequented routes, but because it aspires to such a reputation. At the present time it is incessantly productive of art, its output exhibiting a specific character of its own, obvious and intelligible to those who examine it with sufficient care. Undoubtedly it has been influenced at certain periods by extraneous currents, but during the sixteenth century, when the true Spanish school was created, it was notably independent and unique. Its productions, these national qualities which above all determine that which is called a school, possess a character of their own, a special determinative essence, which can only be explained by metaphysical processes. But at the same time they display external manifestations, an ultimate expression, a speech, an idiom, so to speak, peculiarly national. And this speech in art is quite as fundamental as the spirit which determines the nature of the creation. All-powerful, or at least very great, is the spiritual capacity for creating mighty works in mente. But the various schools of art came into being not only because they enshrined an idea, but because they were able to give it form. The characteristics of the expression, not of the idea, of form, not of essence, these it is to which the critic should address himself in the first instance when he desires to differentiate between the works of one school and another, and when trying to distinguish the work typical of one artist from that of others of the same school, who have been less successful in following a common master. The creative idea, the spirit which animates every work, is distinct, according to the period of its origin, even in the case of the productions of the same race at different periods; but in expression its form is always similar, its ideas the same. As in literature writers of one nationality have to employ a common tongue, so in painting an expression equally conclusive, a palette, a technique, an idiom quite as definitive, determines the compositions typical of each race. If we find scattered throughout a museum where there are examples of all schools, a Saint by Greco, an ascetic figure by Ribera, a portrait by Velázquez, an image by Zurbarán, a visionary subject by Valdes Leal, a Virgin by Murillo, and a woman by Goya, it is probable that these works will contrast with one another too forcibly, or at least will not blend harmoniously. Each of them belongs to an epoch, and possesses a distinct creative and æsthetic spirit. But, even so, we will find that although the works belong to different schools, and variations and dissimilarities abound, all have one speech, one ultimate idiom in common; in a word, all have been painted in Spanish.