Studio: international art (37.1906)

Modern Spanish Sculpture: Agustin Querol

soldiers and animals, to the great delight of his
comrades and the wrath of his employer. Later,
and in spite of parental opposition, he entered a
sculptor's studio, remaining there until 1884, when
he obtained his first triumph in Madrid by exhibit-
ing his St. John Preaching in the Wilderness, a
marble statue of great promise, though conventional
and youthful when compared with his more recent
works. It pleased, nevertheless, and the govern-
mental committee sent our penniless friend to
Rome as pensioner, where he lost himself in the
contemplation of the realistic figures of such
masters as Donatello—masters who were to in-

STATUE OF THE POET QUEVEDO (MADRID) BY A. QUEROL
3°4

fiuence him largely in the future. Seven years
later he returned to Madrid, and since then has
devoted all his time and energy to his work.
Rarely seen in society, and then only when polite-
ness requires it, living alone in the suburbs in his
beautiful studio, Don Agustin is ever ready to
welcome and receive the stranger and friend who
calls at his door; with true Spanish ease - and
hospitality he shows him over his immense work-
shops lined with plaster models and strewn with
clay dust. He will spend an hour chatting about art
problems and questions; never once will he hint that
his visitor is robbing him of his precious moments.
In 1900 a short visit to Paris, where he had
been appointed member ot the International
Sculptural Jury in the Exposition, proved rich
in honours. It was the climax of his celebrity,
and his being chosen from among hundreds
of competitors to design the Bolognesi monu-
ment in Lima in 1901 could barely heighten
his fame, though it amply justified the confi-
dence placed in his skill.

Disregarding Querol's earlier works, three
distinct characteristics are prevalent in all his
later works. They are : (a) the mystic melan-
choly of the Spanish art genius, which caused
the critic, Mr. Arthur Symons, to exclaim
that the saints and Virgins in Sevillian churches
"sweated blood "; {b) the enthusiastic love for
the Greek plastic form; and (c) the natural
portraiture of daily scenes and groups, even
when they mar in their minor details the classic
pureness of the composition. These charac-
teristics are unconscious—that is, the sculptor
himself does not realise their existence. Yet
there they are, ofttimes united, now and again
clashing, though never wounding the eye by a
non-artistic conception or execution. It is their
presence or, better still, the evident contra-
diction between Greek symmetry and modern
realism which has given birth to the artist's
ideal, in search of which he has been meditat-
ing, combining, creating and destroying during
many long years. This ideal is no other than
the " undulating line," free from all conven-
tional rules, though obeying the great rule of
plastic harmony, in the observance of which
the Greeks were willing to sacrifice all and
everything. To attain it, however, Querol
was unwilling to neglect the realistic lessons
taught him by Donatello. Hence his struggle :
the combining of natural groups—i.e. trousered
men and misshapen women, touching portraits
in themselves—with symmetrical forms, perfect