Studio: international art (29.1903)

The Work of Zuloaga

Spanish school, one had but to glance at the Spanish
section of the Universal Exhibition of 1900 or at
the Exhibition of Spanish Artists which was held
at the Guildhall. In this latter display especially,
one was struck by the contrast between the
mediocrity of most of these contemporary artists—
Fortuny, of course, excepted—and the eternal
youthfulness of the old masters whose works
palpitated with life and strength.

Now, within the past few years, the strong, rugged
spirit of these great artists seems to have become
incarnated in a young painter who to-day is admired
by the intellectual 'elite of Europe, and of whose
works some are known to the readers of The
Studio from having been reproduced in these
pages. But I am exaggerating a little in saying
that this renovator of Spanish painting, this artist
who possesses right to the marrow the characteristics
of his national art, has been comprehended and

admired throughout Europe. One country there
is which has wilfully closed its eyes to this nascent
genius—and that is Spain itself! The fact that
the artists who organised the Spanish section at
the Exhibition of 1900, who revelled in the inept
trivialities of their living compatriots, should have
rejected Zuloaga's pictures, surely furnishes still
further proof of the artistic debasement to which I
have alluded. One would refuse to believe, were
the fact not abundantly proved, that the most
personal painter in Spain has been thus renounced;
I tell the story because its conclusion is very
curious. No sooner had M. Zuloaga's two pictures
been refused by the judges than the artist sent
them to the Exhibition of the " Libre Esthetique "
of Brussels. There they made a sensation, as other
of his works had done at the Paris Salon of the
previous year, and were both acquired for art
galleries. One of them is to be seen in the