DOI issue:
No. 79 (September 1903)
DOI article:Frantz, Henri: A modern Spanish painter: Ignacio Zuloaga
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26229#0241
71%<?
by Muther, by Paul
Kurth (of the "Neue
FreiePresse"),byArsene
Alexandre, and by Gus-
tave Gelfroy—if, like his
predecessors — I mean
those who preceded Goya,
and not those of the
nineteenth century — he
did not show himself
devoted to honesty and
sincerity in art, fond of
contrasts, and a passion-
ate observer of character ?
In Zuloaga's art there is
all this, and therefore he
may justly be associated
with the great Spanish
masters, whom, once
more, he does not copy.
Another point of ana-
logy there is between
Zuloaga and them—I re-
fer to his representation of
certain types, certain faces,
also to be found among
the old painters. But it
seems hardly necessary to
insist that he found these
faces, not in pictures ex-
hibited in the galleries,
but in the real world
Mound him. Inhisown
PORTRAIT
countryside, which has
retained its old attractive
characteristics, he has been able to re-find, at
every step, the forms and the costumes which
enchanted his masters.
Let it not be forgotten that the personages repre-
sented to-day by the artist with so keen a sense of
reality, are the grand-children of those who live in
the galleries; they resemble one another strongly,
just as the Venuses and the Dogaresses of Titian
and of Veronese resemble the women of modern
Venice, or as the women of the humbler quarters
of Amsterdam resemble, say, the portrait of Saskia
by Rembrandt. But while Zuloaga's figures have
certain affinities with those I have mentioned, they
too, as I shall endeavour to show, live of them-
selves, quite independently. In the picture which
appeared in the Salon of 1903, styled by the
painter 27^ Afh/ Vz'yzr<?72/, we notice a peasant's
head very like one of the faces of the Z?C7*7*ar/%M. The
explanation is that Zuloaga actually met his model
BY 1. ZULOAGA
in the fields of Seville; and when he paints his
women, admirably draped with their mantillas,
just as in Goya's day; when he represents the
flower of the ZL7M, the Sevillian Bohemia; when
his brush " fixes" that funny world of tattered
starvelings, the ySm27w, the dwarfs, the maimed and
the deformed; or when he depicts the emaciated
ascetics, after the manner of Zurbaran, or the
haughty nobles, like those of Le Greco; or when he
enters the brilliant variegated circle peopled by
and toreadors, he remains true to the absolute
reality, to the sheer impression of the things he has
seen.
When Zuloaga announced to his family that he
intended to become a painter, he was met at first
with the most determined resistance. But, resolved
to succeed in spite of everything, he went to Paris
to try to make for himself a place in the art world
there. For years he had to struggle against the
165
by Muther, by Paul
Kurth (of the "Neue
FreiePresse"),byArsene
Alexandre, and by Gus-
tave Gelfroy—if, like his
predecessors — I mean
those who preceded Goya,
and not those of the
nineteenth century — he
did not show himself
devoted to honesty and
sincerity in art, fond of
contrasts, and a passion-
ate observer of character ?
In Zuloaga's art there is
all this, and therefore he
may justly be associated
with the great Spanish
masters, whom, once
more, he does not copy.
Another point of ana-
logy there is between
Zuloaga and them—I re-
fer to his representation of
certain types, certain faces,
also to be found among
the old painters. But it
seems hardly necessary to
insist that he found these
faces, not in pictures ex-
hibited in the galleries,
but in the real world
Mound him. Inhisown
PORTRAIT
countryside, which has
retained its old attractive
characteristics, he has been able to re-find, at
every step, the forms and the costumes which
enchanted his masters.
Let it not be forgotten that the personages repre-
sented to-day by the artist with so keen a sense of
reality, are the grand-children of those who live in
the galleries; they resemble one another strongly,
just as the Venuses and the Dogaresses of Titian
and of Veronese resemble the women of modern
Venice, or as the women of the humbler quarters
of Amsterdam resemble, say, the portrait of Saskia
by Rembrandt. But while Zuloaga's figures have
certain affinities with those I have mentioned, they
too, as I shall endeavour to show, live of them-
selves, quite independently. In the picture which
appeared in the Salon of 1903, styled by the
painter 27^ Afh/ Vz'yzr<?72/, we notice a peasant's
head very like one of the faces of the Z?C7*7*ar/%M. The
explanation is that Zuloaga actually met his model
BY 1. ZULOAGA
in the fields of Seville; and when he paints his
women, admirably draped with their mantillas,
just as in Goya's day; when he represents the
flower of the ZL7M, the Sevillian Bohemia; when
his brush " fixes" that funny world of tattered
starvelings, the ySm27w, the dwarfs, the maimed and
the deformed; or when he depicts the emaciated
ascetics, after the manner of Zurbaran, or the
haughty nobles, like those of Le Greco; or when he
enters the brilliant variegated circle peopled by
and toreadors, he remains true to the absolute
reality, to the sheer impression of the things he has
seen.
When Zuloaga announced to his family that he
intended to become a painter, he was met at first
with the most determined resistance. But, resolved
to succeed in spite of everything, he went to Paris
to try to make for himself a place in the art world
there. For years he had to struggle against the
165