International studio (25.1905)

PANISH PAINTERS OF TO-DAY:
^^JOSE MORENO CARBONERO.
^_)BY LEONARD WILLIAMS.
SoME months ago I introduced readers of THE
STUDIO to Soroiia the Vaiencian, whom many-
consider to stand at the head of Spanish painting
of our time. The subject of the foiiowing article
is a painter of a widely different mood—Jose
Moreno Carbonero, a native of Malaga.
Carbonero practically won success while quite a
child. Even in boyhood he never had to learn
that fishermen must light the seething waters;
husbandmen, the sulky soil. From the mental
notes I took while standing with my shoulders to
his easel, I dare to say that fortune smiled upon
him almost from his cradle. The calmness of his
manner, the smoothness of
his face, his obvious lack
of interest in all that has
to do with violence and
change ! I am sure, then,
that Moreno Carbonero
was a happy and untroubled
boy, just as I am sure that
he is a happy and un-
troubled man. By happi-
ness I mean of course
success. There is no other
happiness, save possibly
that of health. Bread is
the mighty mirth-creator.
Give us a crust, and we will
pipe, or paint, or chatter
for you. Whatever the
philosophers may say, we
do not often take ourselves
too seriously. It is necessity
that takes us so.
All those who scrutinise
Moreno Carbonero, or Mo-
reno Carbon ero's art, ex-
pecting to discover in one,
or other, or both, a protest
against the faults and follies
of society, will have to
undergo disenchant
ment. A son of Andalusia,
he finds within her Helds,
and roads, and river-beds,
no other lesson than un-
clouded sunshine and
unclouded laughter. He
overlooks the reaper bending
298

before those torrid rays a dozen hours for a wicked
pittance and a porringer of watery ;
ignores the baked and cracking earth, the usurer-
landlord, the swelling taxes, the greedy church,
the scanty harvest, the blighted grape, the rotten
olive, the nakedness and want behind the miserable
cottage door. He only sees the prosperous and
happy side of things, theand the
the roses in the women's hair, the gala costumes at
the gay procession, the images ablaze with gold
and silver. Well, in their prosperous and happy
way, his paintings are at least as perfect as the
scenes they represent. Are the Andalusian
peasantry ? Why then should we complain ?
As with the present, so with the past. To those
who are familiar with the record, blotted with her
blood, of Spain's decadence in the seventeenth and


HIS EXCELLENCY DON FRANCISCO SILVELA

BY J. M. CARBONERO