Studio: international art (29.1903)

The JVork of Zuloaga

made no appearance in the Universal Exhibition, done. This is the Promenade apres la course de
some privileged persons at any rate had an oppor- taureaux, an admirably - composed canvas, with
tunity of admiring the rejected paintings, which groups of figures against a grey-toned background,
hung in his atelier during his short stay in Paris. The eye lingers lovingly over the exceptional
There I saw, before they were sent to the " Libre richness of the execution, and on certain isolated
Esthetique," three remarkable morceaux. One of bits of the picture, which are of the very first
them, the Course de Taureaux dans mon Village, order, while at the same time faithfully playing
brushed with the usual violent contrasts, the usual their proper part in the ensemble—a notable picture,
bold colouring, was a remarkable study of Spanish not only on account of the landscape, a thing
popular life, an altogether novel interpretation of a rarely attempted by Zuloaga, who is essentially a
subject often treated in an artificial and a common- figure-painter, but by reason of the accent of all the
place manner. In another of these pictures—A personages therein.

Street Scene (page 163)—Zuloaga grasped all that is Although Zuloaga chiefly affects sombre colour-
characteristic, all that is picturesque in the Spanish schemes (the variety and the subtlety of his blacks
girl of the most degraded type. In these painted, and greys often astonish one), he will on occasion
bedizened creatures, with their velvety glances, delight the eye by an unexpected bit of bright and
their alluring gestures, their supple attitudes, he varied colouring. This is conspicuous in his three
succeeds in discovering a fascination — even a pictures shown in the Salon of 1903. The artist is
loveliness. One of these girls especially attracts "celebrating" the young women of Seville—girls
the gaze, from the manner in which she has been morepimpantes, more "dressy," more fond of tinsel
surprised in her most characteristic attitude, lifting and colour than those of the Basque country, girls
her skirt with the instinctive grace of the Spanish who, by the pallor of their skin, the dark gleam of
woman, and showing her foot; and, while playing their eyes, the nervous grace of every movement,
with her fan, she has let fall her mantilla below her betray their wild Arab origin,
waist, as she looks for him
whom she seeks.

This picture was ex-
hibited in Berlin in the
September of the same
year, together with a col-
lection of other of the
artist's works. Among
them was a very char-
acteristic one, the portrait
of the poet, Don M. de
Segovia, who is depicted
by the painter thin and
ascetic, like the Castilian
nobles of the 16th cen-
tury, draped in his long
cloak, beneath which may
be seen the red shoulder
of the national costume,
resting with the right hand
on his stick, and in the
left holding a sheet of
paper on which \ he has
written his verses.

In 1902, Zuloaga exhibi-
ted at the Salon of the
Societe Nationale a picture
which, by its dimensions,
is one of the most im-
portant things he has ever
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