Studio: international art (80.1920)

MODERN SPANISH PAINTING:
VALENTIN AND RAMON DE ZU-
BIAURRE. a a a 0 a

TOGETHER with the names of Sorolla
and Zuloaga, that of Zubiaurre is
beyond all doubt among the most widely
known in Spanish art to-day. Representing
something eminently characteristic in
Spanish painting to-day, it is also among
the most notable in the renaissance that
has been revealing itself in our midst for
some years past—and the significance of
one of the most clearly defined forms of
this renaissance may be realised by even a
cursory study of the work of the Zubiaurres.

Spain, in truth, never knew that absolute
decline which at various periods has shown
itself in the artistic schools of all other
countries. Of course, its " Golden Age "
has not been unbroken; but even during
the second and third quarters of the past
century—that is to say, the most adverse
period as regards art the world has ever

known—the direct descendants of Goya
gave to our painting a vigour deserving of
greater recognition. There is quite a
pleiad of pre-Romantic painters of in-
contestable worth, some of whom, as, for
example, the portrait painter Esquivel
(1806-1857), Perez Villaamil (1807-1854),
above all, the quasi-Romantic Gutierrez
de la Vega (d. 1867)—devoted to half-
lights, and spiritual brother of Ricard—and
the draughtsman Leonardo Alenza (1807-
1845) stand in the foremost rank. 0 0
A little later Eduardo Rosales (1837-
1873) continued the unbroken tradition
which throughout the centuries has made
the Spanish school of painting, from the
days of the great portraitists who were the
immediate predecessors of Velasquez—
Pantoja de la Cruz, Sanchez Coello and
others—one of the richest in exceptional
temperaments. Rosales, with his genius,
anticipated the luminous discoveries of
Impressionism, and his historical pictures,
though academically composed, in the

LXXX. No. 333.—December 1920

"types du pays basque"
by valentin de zubiaurre
167