Studio: international art (37.1906)

Modern Spanish Sculpture: Agustin Querol

to " repose and dignity, grace and
thoroughly controlled energy." These
are the qualities we most admire, and
perhaps we are in the right. At any
rate, if we examine the details of some of
his groups, in each man or woman, in
each bust bearing a mythological name,
we are confronted with a portrait, with
a person whom we know, who, carved
in marble or wrought in bronze, is artisti-
cally woven into the sumptuous ensemble.

Querol's works—statues, monuments,
reliefs, etc.—are many, and scattered as
they are over the greater part of Europe
and America, space will only permit me
to mention the best known. In his
Tradition, one of the very finest of his
groups, we have a haggard old woman
recounting fairy tales to two children,
whilst a secular raven whispers legends
in her ear. His Mater Dolorosa and
St. Francis (bust) repeat the tale of woe.
On beholding them, I unwittingly think
of El Greco : both strengthen the vertical
lines, the one by deepening their colour,
the other by deepening their creux. But
Don Agustin's creations are not all
morbid; it would be doing him a
gross injustice to imagine so, and
such works as Juan Tenorio, Tullia
(bust), Helen, Bacchus, etc., amply
prove the contrary, as well as such
monuments, as, commanded by a
conservative Government, have
k to be academical. His cele-

, Kn, brated alto-relievo •S/.i?ra««'.s-

:>s V curing the Lepers, adjudged

in Berlin to be one of the
finest contemporary sculp-

' ........ i tural works, I consider to

-"_.„. •. ......- ■

1 ....._ . _ :'JHHHhIB|hHI . be the artist s masterpiece.

The most remarkable fea-

FRAGMENT OF BOLOGNESI MONUMENT : " HISTORY " BY A. QUEROL t . X , • .1

ture about the work is the
aesthetic arrangement of

in their lines and drapery; the whole composition the principal conductive lines; rather than em-
to be harmonious and boasting the essential "un- phasise the standing figure of the saint, they
dulating line." appear to concentrate in the beggar's face—an

Like all sincere artists, Don Agustin Querol is unsurpassed physiognomy of pain and anguish,
a thinker. Art problems interest him. Neverthe- Donatello's hand—or influence—is to be traced in
less he works in quest of an ideal, and hence keeps this chef-d'aiuvre.

steadily on his way. Highly imaginative, he in- Two of Querol's latest works—the monument
spires his monuments with a fire that must appear to General Bolognesi, the Peruvian national hero,
to us Northerners as exuberant, not to say ex- and the project for a monument in honour of
aggerated. For in sculpture we are accustomed Alfonso XII.—show the same general lines in their

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