Chapter IV: Part 4

In the smaller pictures of Sánchez de Castro that remain to us, such, for instance, as the panel of the “Madonna with St Peter and St Jerome,” once in San Julian, but now in the Cathedral, we find him more bound by convention, less himself. We see the immense debt Spanish painting owed to Flemish art. And this influence, always so beneficial, the Northern art being, for reasons of race not possible to state here, the true affinity of Spain in art, remains, with different and more certain knowledge, in the “Pietà” of Juan Nuñez, which still hangs in the Cathedral where it was painted. It meets us again in the fine and interesting “Entombment” by Pedro Sánchez, a painter of whom we know nothing, except that his name is given by Cean Bermudez among the illustrious artists of Spain. The picture may be seen in the collection of Don José López Cepero, at No. 7 Plaza de Alfaro, the house in which Murillo is said to have lived. In all three pictures, and in other work of the same period not possible to mention here, we are face to face with that special Spanish trait, the pre-occupation with grief, that is quite absent from the early fourteenth-century Madonnas, as from the simple child-art of De Castro’s “San Cristóbal.” The shadow of the Inquisition had fallen; art, the handmaid of the Church, could express itself no longer in quaint and beautiful symbols. Instead, it had to force itself to be taken seriously, being occupied wholly with emphatic statements, its aim an insistence on the relation of human life to the divine life.

But the joy of life did not die easily.

Juan Nuñez, once, at least, in those pictures in the Cathedral in which he has painted the archangels Michael and Gabriel quite gaily, their wings bright with peacock’s feathers, returns to the child-humour of De Castro. And Nuñez carries us forward to Alejo Fernandez, the most important painter of this early period, much of whose work remains for us in the Cathedral and in the old churches of Seville.

Go to the suburb of Triana, and in the Church of Santa Ana there is the sweetest Madonna and Child, in which we find a new suggestion in the joy of the Mother in her Babe, a human attitude, making the picture something more than mere illustration. And we notice a delicate care for beauty found very rarely in Seville, perhaps never as perfectly as in the work of this painter. The “Virgen de la Rosa” is the name given to the picture. The Mother sits enthroned under a canopy of gold, in a beautiful robe of elaborate pattern, pale gold on brown. She holds a white rose out to her Child. Typical of Fernandez is this fortunate use of the flower; typical, too, of his new mood of invention is the small landscape of rocky and wooded country that fills the distance. The gracious pose of the Virgin, the beauty in the Child, show an advance in ease upon earlier pictures. But the other figures, four angels who guard the Mother, all posed a little awkwardly, suggest a scheme on whose design the early Byzantine models may have had a forming influence, though the result is different enough. For Fernandez understood the very spirit of the Renaissance; he saw life beautifully and strongly. The attraction of the picture is in its effect of joy, in the charming way in which it forms a pattern of beautiful colour, and in its new sense of humanity that carries us beyond the scene itself.

And there are other pictures of Fernandez in Seville: the great altar-piece in eight sections--one is a copy--that tells the story of Joseph, Mary, and the Child, in the old Church of San Julian; and there is a large “Adoration of the Magi,” the “Birth and Purification of the Virgin,” and the “Reconciliation of St Joachim and St Anne,” all in the Cathedral--the first in the Sacristía de los Cálices, and three others in unfortunate darkness, over the Sacristía altar. And if these larger pictures have not quite the fresh charm of the “Madonna of Santa Ana,” in each one we find a real understanding of beauty, and with it the Spanish gift of presenting the sacred stories as drama, just as the painter felt it all must have happened. Each figure in these scenes has life, has character. No lover of Spanish painting can afford to neglect any picture of Fernandez, and no estimate of the early art of the country can be true that does not include his work. Of his life we know nothing, merely that he came with his brother Juan from Cordova in 1508, called by the Chapter to work in Seville Cathedral. But it matters little that his life is unrecorded, for the work that he has left is his best history.

In these first years of the Sevillian school, when art was sincere and young, many pictures were painted, all strong work, all interesting, in lesser or greater measure, to the student, even if not to the art lover, as showing the growth of a national style. In many cases the names of the artists are unknown; no painter has left much record of himself. These pictures, which may be recognised very readily, are found in the Museo de la Merced, in the Cathedral, and still more in the churches, the true museums of Seville.

But fashion in art changes, and the sixteenth century witnessed the manifestation of a new mood in painting, the advent to Spain of the Italian influences of the Renaissance. This is not the place to speak of the blight which fell upon art. The distinctively Italian schools were only an influence of evil in Spain, and the inauguration of the new manner was the birth of a period of great artistic poverty. The main desire of the sixteenth-century painters was, as it were, to wipe the artistic slate. All pictures painted in the old style were repudiated as barbarous, cast aside as an out-of-date garment. The country became overrun by third-rate imitators of the Italian grand style, of Michael Angelo, of Raphael and his followers. The decorations, as you can still see them, of the Escorial, may be taken as typical of Italian art as it was transplanted into Spain. All national art that was not Italian in its inspiration was looked upon as worthless.

Yet, be it remembered, that the Spanish painters, more perhaps than the painters of any other school, could imitate and absorb the art of others without degenerating wholly into copyists. The temper of the nation was strong. Even now it was not so much a _copying_ of Italian art, rather it was an unfortunate blending of style which took away for a time the dignity and strength which is the beauty of Spanish painting. Thus, Peter van Kempeneer, a Flemish painter, known better in Spain as Pedro Campaña, who, strangely enough, was the first to bring the Italian influence to Seville, was inspired alternately by the Northern and Italian styles; and in such a picture as his famous “Descent from the Cross,” still in the Sacristía Mayor of the Cathedral, with its crude colour and extravagant action, we find him--in an effort, it is said, to imitate Michael Angelo--being more Spanish than the Spaniards. Indeed, this picture, which made such strong appeal to Murillo that he chose to rest beneath it in death, gives us a very curious, left-handed fore-vision, as it were, of the marvellous work of Ribera. In the large altar-piece, of many compartments, of the Capilla del Mariscal in the Cathedral, the first picture painted by Campaña, when, in 1548, he came to Seville, we see him a realist in the portraits of the donors, painted with admirable truth; but in the “Purification of the Virgin,” the scene that fills the lower compartment of the altar, he is Italian and demonstrative--spectacular movement, meaningless gestures, all done for effect.

The Italian influence, the _buena manera_ it was called in Seville, is more insistent in Luis de Vargas, whose painting was contemporary with that of Campaña. He was the first painter of Seville to submit himself wholly to Italy, and most often he was inspired by Raphael. Much of his work has perished; of the once famous frescoes, “his greatest gift to Seville,” nothing remains except a few colour traces upon the Giralda Tower. De Vargas, the pupil probably of Perino del Vagas, brought back as the reward of twenty-eight years of painting in Italy much craft skill; and his work, as we see it in the “Pietà,” in Santa Maria la Blanca, in the earlier “Nativity,” and, even more, in his masterpiece, the popular “La Gamba,” both in the Cathedral, gives us a borrowed art, academic and emotional. Only in portraiture does he say what he has to say for himself. The portrait of Fernando de Contreras, in the Sacristía de los Calices, is a portrait of sincerity and character, in which is the Spanish insistence on detail, unpleasant detail even, as in the ill-shaven cheeks rendered with such exact care. Contrast this portrait with his other pictures, so extravagant, with such futile gesticulation, to understand how a really capable painter lost his sincerity, as just then it was lost in all Spanish painting. In this effort to be Italian, De Vargas’ natural gift of reality, as we see it, for instance, in the “Christ” of Santa Maria la Blanca, or in the peasant boy of the Cathedral “Nativity,” was overclouded, mingled curiously enough with a Raphaelesque sweetness. It was not that this painter did not realise the scenes that he depicts--yes, and depicts with passion--do we not know the sincere piety of his life?--but he used to express them an art that was not his own, an art he was temperamentally unfitted to understand.

Contemporary with Campaña and De Vargas, the leaders of the Andalusian Mannerists, worked a band of painters of second, or even third-rate, talent. Francisco Frutet, like Campaña a Flemish painter who had learnt his art in Italy, and who came to Seville about 1548, is typical of these “improvers,” as Pacheco calls them so mistakenly, of the native art. His best work is his Triptych in the Museo, in which again we see the same curious mingling of Flemish and Italian types; the Christ, for instance, recalling the models of Italy, while Simon of Cyrene, who bends beneath the Cross, is nearer to the Gothic figures. Pedro Villegas Marmolejo has more interest. His quiet pleasing pictures--one is in the Cathedral, one in San Pedro--interpret Italian art with more charm, but still without originality.

And Marmolejo leads us quite naturally to Juan de las Roelas, and in Roelas we have at last a Spanish painter who learnt from Italy something more than mere technical imitation. And in spite of a want of concentration--the accustomed insincerity, the result, it would seem, of a too persistent effort to express his art in the art of Venice, in which city he is thought to have painted, perhaps in the studio of some follower of Titian, he does realise his scenes with something of the old intensity. Roelas anticipates Murillo, not altogether unworthily, giving us, with less originality, but with much sweetness, an expression of that mood of religious sensuousness that is one phase of Spanish painting. Seville is the single home of Roelas;[A] here we may see his pictures in the Cathedral, in the Museum, and in many of the churches. His art is unequal in its merit. In his large compositions often there is confusion--“Santiago destroying the Moors at the Battle of Clavijo,” his picture in the Cathedral, is one instance--spaces are left uncared for, the composition is a little awkward, the brush-work is careless, a fault that is common to much of his work. The “Martyrdom of St Andrew,” in the Museum, is perhaps his most original picture. Here Roelas is a realist. And how expressive of life--Spanish life, are all the powerfully contrasted figures that so truly take their part in the scene depicted. In some of his pictures Roelas gives us the brightest visions. Such is “El Transito de San Isidore,” in the parish church of the saint, a picture in which we see in the treatment of Christ and Mary and the child-angels a manner that seems, indeed, to forestall Murillo; such, too, are the “Apotheosis of San Hermenegildo,” and the “Descent of the Holy Spirit,” both in the church of the Hospital of La Sangre. All three pictures are difficult to see: one is hidden behind the altar, the other two hang at a great height in the church where the light is dim. There are good pictures by Roelas in the University, a “Holy Child,” the “Adoration of the Kings,” and the “Presentation of the Child Christ in the Temple”; and in this last picture, with its soft colour and human gaiety, again we are reminded of Murillo. But a work of perhaps more interest, certainly of more strength, is “St Peter freed from Prison by the Angel,” which is hidden in a side-chapel in the Church of San Pedro. Then, how quiet, with a repose uncommon enough in Spain, is his “Virgin and Santa Ana,” in the Museo de la Merced. The figures--the girl Virgin, her mother, and the angels who crowd the space above them--all have the fairness Roelas gives to women; the soft glow of their flesh is beautiful. Look at the cat and dog that play so naturally in the foreground, beside a work-basket, and what a happy “note” is given by the open drawer, which shows the linen and lace within. Certainly this picture is more Italian than Spanish.

As the years passed, and art in Seville grew older, many painters trod in the steps worn by these others. It is not possible, nor is it necessary, to wait to look at their pictures; too often they exaggerate the faults of the masters they copied, and by a slavish repetition of accepted ideas--the inevitable fault of the age--they weakened still further native art. And, when we come to the next century, which gives us Alonso Cano, sculptor, architect, and painter, described admirably by Lord Leighton as “an eclectic with a Spanish accent,” many of whose facile, meaningless pictures may be seen in Seville, to the much inferior work of the younger Herrera, and to the exaggerated over-statements of Juan de Valdés Leal, in whose art Sevillian painting may be said to die, we realise into what degradation pseudo-Italianism had dragged painting.

But there is a reverse side to the picture. The spirit of Spain was too strong to sleep in an art that was borrowed. Already Luis de Morales, a native of Estremadura, known as “the divine,” on account of the exclusively religious character of the subjects he painted, and of the strange intensity with which he impregnated them, had evolved for himself a sincere expression of Spanish art; already Navarrete, the mute painter of Navarre, had broken from conventions, and taken for himself inspiration from the marvellous pictures of Titian which he had seen at the Escorial; already, Theotócopuli, known better as El Greco, was painting with wonderful genius in Toledo, pictures, so new, so personal, that to-day they command the attention of the world. But Seville does not represent these painters.[B]

It has been the fashion, since the tradition was started by Cean Bermudez, to call Herrera _el viejo_ (1576-1656) “the anticipator of the true Spanish school.” Herrera had a studio in Seville, in which worked many painters, and among them Velazquez, Antonio Castillo y Saavedra, and perhaps Alonso Cano; and it seems certain that he owes his position to-day in large measure to this fact; had he not been for a few months the master of Velazquez his impossible art would remain unknown outside Seville. For the truth is Herrera said nothing that Roelas had not already said better.

His temper was Spanish enough, but his work is without originality, if emphatic and personal in a too vehemently Spanish way. Yet it is worth while to see, yes, and to study, each one of his half-dozen pictures. Even in Seville, Herrera’s work is rare; the “Apotheosis of San Hermenegildo,” and the later, more violent “San Basil,” are in the Museum, where, too, are the less known, but much better, portrait-pictures of apostles and saints; while the “Final Judgment,” his most personal work, is still where it was painted in the darkness of the Parroquina of San Bernado. One quality we may grant to Herrera; he did resist the popular Italian influence. These pictures, sensational as they are, with their hot disagreeable colour--“macaroni in tomato sauce” Mr Ricketts aptly terms it--their mannerism, extravagant contortions and splash brush-work, have little apart from this to recommend them. But you will understand better the esteem Herrera has gained if you will compare his work with the paintings of his contemporaries; the conscientious, academic Pacheco, for instance, the last, and, in himself, the most interesting of the Mannerists, or with Murillo’s master, Juan del Castillo, the worst painter of Seville, whose pictures fill with formal tedium so many buildings in the city. This is why Herrera’s pictures claim notice from the student of Andalusian art to-day: they form a link in the unbroken chain of the national pictures.

Now turn to Zurbarán.

You pass at once into a world of realism, a world in which facts, obvious facts, are set forth with a downright passion of statement that for a moment tricks us; we think we have found life, and, instead, we have the outward form, too monotonously literal, and without suggestion. Upon Zurbarán lies the weight of the sadness of Spain. It is something of this that we realise as we see the thirty or forty of his pictures that are in Seville, gathered together for the most part in the Museo de la Merced, where the light is so much better than it is in the Cathedral and in the churches, though there certainly his pictures seem to be more fittingly at home. Each picture is so true to life, and yet without life. Look at his Saints, all are portraits, faces caught in a mirror that seems to sum up the old world of Spain. Contrast these Saints with the Saints of Murillo. What honesty is here; what singular striving to record the truth. Note the gravity and simplicity of the Scriptural scenes; his conception of the Christ; the intensity of the three renderings of the Crucifixion, in which for once Zurbarán finds a subject suited exactly to his art; then mark how the peasants[C] he depicts are almost startling in their outward nearness to life.

Look especially at the Carthusian pictures in the Museum, “San Hugo visiting the Monks in their Refectory,” the “Virgen de las Cuevas,” and “St Bruno conversing with Pope Urban II.” They are typical of Zurbarán’s special gift. In the first of these three pictures, which is the best, the monks clad in the soft white robes of their order are seated around a table at their mid-day meal. The aged Hugo stands in the foreground, attended by a boy-page; he has come to reprove them for dining upon flesh-meat. His purple vestments give a note of colour in contrast with the white frocks of the brothers. But, as is customary with Zurbarán, colour counts for very little, and atmosphere for less, in this picture in which all care is given to formal outline and exact expression. Once only in the “Apotheosis of St Thomas Aquinas,” also in the Museo, does he give us some of that warm colour he should have learnt from Roelas, whose pupil he is said to have been. This is one reason why his figures, so true to the facts of life, do not live. But no one has painted ecclesiastics and monks quite as Zurbarán has done. His sincerity is annoying almost; for he tells us nothing that we could not have seen for ourselves; we are no nearer than a photograph would bring us to the character of these men. Zurbarán was hardly consciously an artist; and with all his sincerity, his vision was ordinary. He was a recorder and not an interpreter of life, and in gaining reality he has just missed truth.

On coming to the work of Murillo it is quite another phase of the religious sentiment of Spain that we see developed: we gain an over-statement of sweetness, not an over-statement of facts. The spirit in which he painted was happier, more trustful, more personal than was that of Zurbarán; he is more Andalusian and less Spanish, and certainly better equipped as a painter.

Murillo forms part of your life while you are in Seville, he is more or less around you everywhere; and though to some of us, perhaps not unjustly, he is a painter we have tried in vain to love, he does express in a special way the very aspect of the southern city he himself loved with such single devotion. This is why we like him so much better in Seville than we are able to do anywhere else. His pictures repeat the full life of Andalusia--its religious emotion, its splendour, its poverty, its stark contrasts, its rich sense of life; and his colours are the same colours that we see in the landscape, warm and deep, the soft, hot light of southern Spain. You don’t visit the Museum, La Caridad, the Cathedral, and the churches to see his pictures as a change of amusement from the streets; you go because they renew the same atmosphere, and offer a reproduction of so much that surrounds you.

No one has ever painted ecstasy with quite the facility of Murillo. And in the Museum, where the Capuchin Series and other famous pictures are gathered, you can learn all that is essential to his art; his happy Saints swim before you in mists of luscious colour; cherubs flutter around as they minister to beggars clad in rags carefully draped; Virgins, garbed in the conventional blue and white, their feet resting upon the crescent moon, vanish into luminous vapour, their robes rustle in the air, and their sun-lighted faces repeat the very complexion of Seville. Murillo had neither the power nor the desire to idealise his models. His Saints--St Francis of Assisi, St Felix of Cantalicio, St Anthony, St Thomas of Villanueva--and how many more? are men such as may be seen to-day in the streets of Seville; all are alike, the name alone differs. His Madonnas are peasants whose emotions are purely human. More perhaps than any painter Murillo’s work is personal--he translated the divine life and made it his own common human life--the fault is that his personality is not interesting. And seeing these pictures, and, even more, his other work--pictures hanging still in the churches for which they were painted, where they seem to share in the pervading religious emotion and to take their part in the life of the building--the “Vision of St Anthony of Padua” in the Baptistery of the Cathedral, for instance, or the great pictures of La Caridad; you will understand how Murillo came to be idolised in Spain; how his pictures held, for a time, the admiration of Europe; and how to-day he has ceased to interest a world that has grown older and seeks, above all, the truth.

Murillo was impelled by a desire for realism. There is much of the spirit and manner of Zurbarán in his early pictures: “San Leandro and San Buenaventura,” two early “Virgins and the Child,” and the “Adoration of the Shepherds,” all in the Museum, are examples. The same careful characterisation meets us in the much later “Last Supper” of Santa Maria la Blanca, his most truthful Scriptural scene. Then his portraits, such as those of SS. Leandro and Isidore in the Sacristia Mayor of the Cathedral, or that of St Dorothy in the Sacristia de los Cálices, are serious studies after nature. Once or twice in his landscapes we find a sincerity that surprises us. But a painter must be judged by the main output of his art. And the truth is that, with a natural gift that certainly was great, added to unusual facility, Murillo’s personality was commonplace. His self-assurance amazes us. His emotion, neither profound nor simple, but always perfectly satisfied, perfectly happy, exactly fitted him to give voice to the common sentiments of his age. He did create a sort of life, but his compositions are the work of his hand rather than of his soul. All his Saints, his Madonnas--pose unthinkingly in the subtly interwoven light he knew so well how to paint, living only in the moment which their conventionalised attitudes perpetuate. You do not realise them as personalities greeting you from the canvas like the intense, painful faces of El Greco, or the wonderful creations of Velazquez; if you remember them at all it is part of a pleasing picture. This is the reason why these religious idylls have lost so much of their meaning; their over-statement of sweetness cloys. Murillo gives us one aspect of Andalusia; it was left for El Greco, Ribera, Velazquez, and Goya to interpret Spain to the world.

THE OLD ROMAN CITY.

Moor and Spaniard have, between them, effaced almost all traces of the ancient Hispalis or Romula, the little Rome; but the sister-city of Italica, early deserted by man, has been dealt not too harshly with by time. Its remains--a Spanish league to the north-west of Seville--still attract the artist and the archæologist. There, where the wretched hamlet of Santi Ponce now stands, was in the dim past the Iberian village of Sancios. Scipio the Elder, after his long and victorious campaign, passed this way, and selected the spot as a place of rest and refreshment for his war-worn veterans. “Relicto utpote pacata regione valido præsidio, Scipio milites omnes vulneribus debiles in unam urbem compulit, quam ab Italia Italicam nominavit,” says Appian. Señor de Madrazo remarks that this must have been the first Latin-speaking town founded outside Italy. It was not at first a municipium, but a place for meeting and council of the Roman citizens. The municipal status it owed to Augustus. Subsequently, its citizens petitioned to be classed as a colony of Rome.

The colony proved not unworthy of the great capital. Hence sprang the illustrious line of the Ælii, and most of the eminent Roman Spaniards who conferred such lustre on the early Empire are believed to have been natives of the place. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the citizens should have preferred a nominal dependence on the Mother City to the quasi-independence of a provincial municipality. But Italica never seems to have been a city in the modern sense of the word. Excavations have revealed extremely few remains of private habitations or bazaars. The only vestiges are those of great public monuments--temples, palaces, amphitheatres, baths. The Emperors seem to have delighted to embellish this small town with ornaments quite out of proportion to its size and population, and it is clear that it never was a serious rival to its older neighbour, Hispalis.

Its downfall, like its history, is mysterious. Leovigild occupied it while besieging Seville, which was held by his son, Hermenigild. Later on, the Arabs are said to have demolished it almost completely, and to have carried off numerous statues, columns, and blocks of masonry to serve in the construction and adornment of the neighbouring city. Then Italica disappeared from history. Earthquakes finished the work of ruin, and the scattered stones went to the making of the miserable village of Santi Ponce--a name which some derive from that of San Geroncio, a Bishop of Italica in early times.

The amphitheatre is now all that remains to attest the erstwhile splendour of the darling colony of the Ælii. It is a melancholy and yet a pretty spot, approached through olive plantations. Some of the walls are still standing, and enable us to determine the dimensions, which are stated at 291 feet length and 204 feet breadth. You may still see the Podium or stone platform, whereon the civic dignitaries sate, and the upper tiers appropriated to the populace. You may pass down the vomitoria, through which the spectators streamed, glutted with the sight of blood, and penetrate to the dens and chambers, wherein gladiators and wild beasts were confined before the combat. Italica is more a place to muse in than to explore. The place has long since been rifled of all its treasures. Extensive ruins of what was believed to have been the palace of Trajan existed down till the great earthquake of 1755, and all that was spared were three statues preserved in the Museo Provincial or Picture Gallery.

Close to the ruins is the convent of San Isidoro del Campo, founded in 1301 by Don Alonso Perez de Guzman, as a place of sepulture for him and his family. The establishment was peopled first by the Cistercians, later by the Hermits of St Jerome. The edifice presents the appearance of a fortified abbey of the Middle Ages, though not without traces of Mudejar influence. The church is Gothic, and divided into two naves, united by a transept, and constituting each a distinct church. One of these structures was built by the hero of Tarifa, Guzman the Good, and contains his tomb and that of his wife, together with a fine retablo by Montañes; the other, founded by the hero’s son, Don Juan Alonso Perez de Guzman, contains his tomb, marked by a fine recumbent figure, and that of Doña Urraca Osorio, burnt by order of Pedro the Cruel. In the cloisters of the convent are some mural paintings of the fifteenth century, which though much damaged repay inspection.

With the excursion to Italica the traveller should combine a visit to the Cartuja, more properly called Santa Maria de las Cuevas. It lies close to the suburb of Triana. The monastery was founded in the first decade of the fifteenth century, at the instance of the great Archbishop Gonzalo de Mena, and became the burying-place of the Ribera family, whose magnificent tombs are now to be seen in the University Church. Of the original structure only a little antique chapel remains. The refectory, chapter-hall, and cloisters all date from a restoration effected by the first Marqués de Tarifa in the sixteenth century. The building became, in 1839, the seat of the pottery manufacture of the (then) English firm of Pickman & Co. The establishment has produced some fine porcelain, and is worth inspection by all those interested in the ceramic art. Pottery has been associated from time immemorial with this locality and the adjoining suburb of Triana, and it will be remembered that the patron saints of Seville, Justa and Rufina, were, according to tradition, potters by trade.

General View of Seville from the Giralda Tower, West Side of the City.

First View.]

General View of Seville from the Giralda Tower, West Side of the City.

Second View.]

General View of Seville from the Giralda Tower, East Side.]

General View of Seville from the Giralda Tower, Central Part of the City.]

General View of Seville from the Giralda Tower, North Side.]

Procession of the Conception of the Virgin passing through the Plaza de San Francisco.]

View of Seville.]

View of Seville.]

View of Seville.]

View of Seville.]

View of Seville.]

View of Seville.]

View of Seville.]

View of Seville.]

Bridge over the Guadalquivir.]

Hercules Avenue.]

The Plaza Nueva.]

View of Triana from the Tower of Gold.]

General View from Triana.]

General View from Triana.]

The Tower of Gold from San Telmo.]

A Street in Seville.]

The Tower of Gold.]

Church of San Marcos, from the Palace of the Dueñas.]

Church of San Marcos.]

Court of the Hotel de Madrid.]

Hospital, with the Mosaics painted by Murillo.]

Portal of the Convent of Santa Paula.]

Church of Santa Catalina.]

Church of Todos Santos.]

The Provincial Museum, with Murillo’s Statue.]

Statue of Murillo.]

General View of the Town Hall.]

The Town Hall, Left Side.]

The Town Hall, Left Side, Detail of the Interior Angle.]

Door of the Town Hall.]

The Town Hall, Detail of the Principal Part.]

General View of the Town Hall.]

The Town Hall, Detail of the Façade.]

The Town Hall, Detail of the Principal Door.]

Window in the Town Hall.]

Principal Façade of the Tobacco Factory.]

The Tobacco Factory.]

Cigar Makers, Seville.]

The “Sevillanas” Dance.]

Sevillian Costumes--A Courtyard.]

General View of the Exchange.]

Court in the Exchange.]

The Aceite Postern and Ancient Ramparts.]

The Roman Walls near the Gate of the Macarena.]

The Roman Amphitheatre of Italica.]

General View of the Palace of San Telmo from the River.]

Principal Portal of the San Telmo Palace.]

Interior of the Hall of Columns in the San Telmo Palace.]

Interior View of the Duke of Montpensier’s Study In San Telmo.]

Various Objects found in the Sepulchres at San Telmo.

(In the Palace of San Telmo.)]

Palms in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

The Sepulchres of the Victims of Don Juan Tenorio in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

The Roman Sepulchres in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

View in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

The Aviary in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

The River in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

The Cocoa Tree and East Side of San Telmo.]

The Zapote, a Tree in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

The Island and River in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

The Yucca, a rare Tree in the Gardens of San Telmo.]

General View of the Hospital de la Sangre.]

Church of the Sagrario, North Side.]

Principal Façade of the Hospital de la Sangre.]

Porch of the Church of the Hospital de la Sangre.]

Bas-relief. Hospital de la Sangre, the Work of Torregiano.]

General View of the Exterior of the Cathedral.]

The Giralda, from the Patio de los Naranjos.]

The Top of the Giralda.]

The Dancing Choir Boys, Seville Cathedral.]

Dancing Boys, Seville Cathedral.]

The Gate of the Archbishop.]

Plaza de San Francisco, with the Giralda and Cathedral.]

Plaza del Triunfo, the Cathedral, and the Exchange, from the Gate of the Lion.]

The Fête.]

Gate of San Miguel in the Cathedral.]

Gate of the Cathedral called de las Campanillas.]

Gate of the Baptist in the Cathedral.]

The Gate of the Lizard in the Cathedral.]

General View of the Cathedral From the Tribune of the Principal Door.]

Principal Sacristy in the Cathedral.]

Principal Entrance to the Cathedral.]

Interior View of the Principal Sacristy in the Cathedral.]

The Gamba Chapel.]

The Cathedral.

The Gamba Chapel and Entrance to that of the Antigua.]

Chapels of the Conception and the Annunciation in the Cathedral.]

The Cathedral.

The Chapel of the Conception.]

The Cathedral.

Detail of the High Altar.]

The Cathedral.

Retablo, or Altar-piece of the High Altar.]

Iron Railings of the Lateral Part of the High Altar.]

The Cathedral.

Wrought Iron Screen in the Choir.]

The Cathedral.

Wrought Iron Screen of the High Altar.]

St Christopher carrying the Child Jesus, by Mateo Perez Alesio, in the Cathedral.].

San Fernando Square.]

Gardens of the Alcazar.]

General View of the Gardens of the Alcazar.]

View of the Gardens of the Alcazar.]

General View of the Gardens of the Alcazar.]

The Gardens of the Alcazar. Lake and Gallery of Don Pedro I. the Cruel.]

The Gardens of the Alcazar. View of the Gallery of Don Pedro I., the Cruel.]

The Hothouses in the Gardens of the Alcazar.]

Calle de las Vedras in the Gardens of the Alcazar.]

The Gardens of the Alcazar.

Parterre of Doña Maria de Padilla.]

The Alcazar. Baths of Doña Maria de Padilla.]

Magnificent Altar in Faience painted in the 15th Century.

In the Oratory of the Catholic Sovereigns in the Alcazar.]

Town Hall of Seville.

Details of Doors and Balconies.]

Town Hall of Seville. Details.]

Parish Church of San Marcos.]

Various Towers of Seville.]

Details of the Mosaic commonly called El Grande.]

Sculpture and Details of Ancient Churches.]

Architectural Parts, Bas-reliefs, and Ceramic Objects.]

Façade of the Consistorial Houses.]

Entrance to the Alcazar, Seville.]

Principal Façade of the Alcazar.]

Gate of the Principal Entrance, Alcazar.]

Interior of the Hall of Ambassadors, Alcazar.]

Hall of Ambassadors, Alcazar.]

Interior of the Hall of Ambassadors, Alcazar.]

Interior of the Hall of Ambassadors, Alcazar.]

Hall of Ambassadors, Alcazar.]

Hall of Ambassadors, Alcazar.]

Hall of Ambassadors, Alcazar.]

Upper Part of the Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Court of the Dolls from the Room of the Prince, Alcazar.]

Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Angle in the Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Gallery on the Second Storey of the Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Upper Part of the Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Upper Part of the Court of the Dolls, Alcazar.]

Entrance to the Dormitory of the Moorish Kings, Alcazar.]

Dormitory of the Moorish Kings, Alcazar.]

Front of the Sleeping Saloon of the Moorish Kings, Alcazar.]

Sleeping Saloon of the Moorish Kings, Alcazar.]

Intercolumniation, where Don Fadrique was Assassinated, Alcazar.

Sultana’s Quarters, Alcazar.]

Room in which King St Ferdinand Died, Alcazar.]

Interior of the Hall of St Ferdinand, Alcazar.]

Front of the Hall of St Ferdinand, Alcazar.]

Gate of the Hall of St Ferdinand, Alcazar.]

Gallery of the Hall of St Ferdinand, Alcazar.]

Throne of Justice, Alcazar.]

Court of the Hundred Virgins, Alcazar.]

Court of the Virgins, Alcazar.]

General View of the Court of the Hundred Virgins, Alcazar.]

Court of the Virgins, Alcazar.]

Front of the Dormitory of the Moorish Kings and the Court of the Virgins, Alcazar.]

Gallery in the Court of the Virgins, Alcazar.]

The Court of the Virgins. Capital of the Door of the Hall of Ambassadors, Alcazar.]

The Alcazar.

Court of the Virgins. Capital of the Gate of the Hall of Charles V.]

Palace of the Dueñas. Door of the Chapel.]

Palace of the Dukes of Alcala, Commonly called Casa de Pilatos.]

The Court in the House of Pilate.]

Court of the House of Pilate.]

Gallery in the Court of the House of Pilate.]

House of Pilate.]

Gallery in the Court of the House of Pilate.]

Angle and Statue in the House of Pilate.]

House of Pilate.

Entrance to the Ante-room of the Chapel.]

The Staircase in the House of Pilate, by Barrera.]

House of Pilate.

Entrance Door of the Oratory.]

House of Pilate.

Way out to the Flat Roofs in the High Gallery.]

Staircase in the House of Pilate.]

House of Pilate. Doors of the Offices in the High Gallery.]

House of Pilate.

Window of the Prætor’s Hall leading to the Garden.]

House of Pilate.

Barred Window in the Prætor’s Garden.]

House of Pilate. Bolt on the Prætor’s Gate.]

House of Pilate.

Window in the Ante-room of the Chapel.]

House of Pilate.

Section of the Ceiling in the Prætor’s Hall.]

Palace of the Dueñas in Seville.]

House of Pilate.

Mosaics in the Hall of the Fountain.]

Palace of the Dueñas in Seville.

Glazed Tiles in the Socles of the Chapel and Arches.]

Mosaic of the Peristyle in the Palace.]

House of Pilate.

Mosaic in the Hall of the Fountain.]

Mosaic in the Court of the House of Pilate.]

Mosaic in the Court of the House of Pilate.]

Mosaic in the Court of the House of Pilate.]

House of Pilate.

Mosaic in the Chapel.]

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

BORN IN SEVILLE, 1617.]

Altar-screen of the La Gamba, by Luis de Vargas.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

Descent from the Cross, by Pedro Campaña.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

St Anthony of Padua visited by the Infant Saviour while kneeling at his Prayers, by Murillo.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

Our Lord Baptized by St John Baptist, by Murillo.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

The Guardian Angel, by Murillo.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

St Leander, by Murillo.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

St Isidore, by Murillo.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

St Ferdinand, Crowned and Robed, by Murillo.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

Madre Francisca Dorotea Villalda, by Murillo.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

St Anthony with the Infant Saviour, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Justa and St Rufina, Patron Saints of Seville, holding between them the Giralda Tower, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Bonaventure and St Leander, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Thomas of Villanueva giving Alms at the Door of his Cathedral, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

The Annunciation of our Lady, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Felix of Cantalisi restoring to Our Lady the Infant Saviour, whom she had placed in his Arms, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Adoration of the Shepherds of Bethlehem, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Peter Nolasco kneeling before Our Lady of Mercy, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

The Deposition--St Francis of Assisi supporting the Body of Our Lord nailed by the Left Hand to the Cross, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Joseph and the Infant Saviour, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St John the Baptist in the Desert leaning against a Rock, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Augustine and the Flaming Heart, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Felix of Cantalisi and the Infant Jesus, known as, “San Felix de Las Arrugas,” by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Anthony with the Infant Saviour, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Deposition from the Cross, by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM..]

Our Lady with the Infant Saviour in her Arms, by Murillo.

(AN EARLY PICTURE.)

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lady and the Infant Saviour, known as “La Virgen de la Servilleta,” by Murillo.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lady seated, with the Infant Saviour in her Lap, by Murillo.

(AN EARLY PICTURE.)

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Thomas of Aquin, by, Zurbarán.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

The Virgin of the Grotto, by Zurbarán.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

St Bruno talking to the Pope, by Zurbarán.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

The Day of Judgment, by Martin de Vos.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, by J. Valdes Leal.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Jesus crowning St Joseph, by Zurbarán.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

The Devout Punyon, by Zurbarán.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. The Virgin surrounded by Cherubim. By Fr. Pacheco.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Our Lord’s Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, by Murillo.

SEVILLE HOSPITAL.]

Moses striking the Rock in Horeb, by Murillo.

LA CARIDAD, SEVILLE.]

St John of God, sinking under the Weight of a Sick Man, assisted by an Angel, by Murillo.

LA CARIDAD, SEVILLE.]

The Death of St Hermenigild, by J. de las Roelas.

HOSPITAL DE LA SANGRE, SEVILLE.]

The Apostleship, by Juan de las Roelas.

HOSPITAL DE LA SANGRE, SEVILLE.]

The End of this World’s Glories, by Valdes Leal.

LA CARIDAD, SEVILLE.]

The Pietà, or the Virgin supporting the Dead Body of her Divine Son, Altar-screen, by Luis de Vargas.

SANTA MARIA DE LA BLANCA, SEVILLE.]

St Joseph holding the Infant Saviour in His Arms, by Murillo.

SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

Our Lady of the Girdle, by Murillo.

SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

Portrait of Ferdinand VII., by Goya.

SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

Portrait of Charles IV., by Goya.

SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

The Annunciation, by F. Zurbarán.

SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

The Death of Laocoön and his Sons at the Siege of Troy, by El Greco.

SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

Caton of Utique tearing open his wounds, by Josef Ribera.

SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

Pietà. The Virgin holding the Dead Saviour in her Arms, by Morales.

SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

Portrait of El Greco, by Himself.

GALLERY OF SAN TELMO, SEVILLE.]

The Miracle of St Vœu. St Hugo in the Refectory with several Chartreux, by Zurbarán.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

The Martyrdom of St Andrew, by J. de las Roelas.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

The Last Supper, by P. de Cespedes.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Christ on the Cross, by Zurbarán.

SEVILLE MUSEUM.]

Portrait of the Figure in Pacheco’s Picture at Seville, supposed to represent Cervantes.]

The Virgin and the Child Jesus, by Alonso Cano.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

The Descent from the Cross, by Alejo Fernandez.

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]

The Cathedral.]

The Giralda.]

The Giralda.]

Cathedral. The Gate of Pardon.]

Cathedral. Puerta de los Palos.]

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL

_Specially drawn for The Spanish Series_]

Cathedral. View of an Organ.]

Cathedral. Monument to Columbus.]

Cathedral. Silver Tabernacle (weighing 45 arrobas).]

Alcazar Gardens.]

Alcazar Gardens.]

Alcazar Gardens.]

House of Pilate. The Goddess Ceres.]

House of Pilate. The Goddess Pallas Pacifer.]

Italica.]

Roman Walls.]

Patio de Banderas and the Giralda.]

Plaza de San Francisco.]

St Mark’s Church.]

Plaza de San Fernando.]

The Town Hall. Details of the Old Part.]

Façade of the Palace of San Telmo.]

Statue of Velaquez.]

Plaza de la Constitución.]

Plaza de la Constitución.]

Calle de Sierpes.]

Calle de Sierpes.]

A Street in Seville.]

Hercules Avenue.]

The Pasadera.]

Courtyard of La Caridad.]

Plaza de San Fernando.]

Plaza de Gavidia.]

View from the Pasadera.]

The Drive.]

Paseo de las Delicias.]

The Quay.]

Partial View of Seville.]

Plaza de Toros.]

Fields of San Sebastian.]

Park of Maria Luisa.]

Railway Station of M.Z.A. Principal Façade.]

Railway Station of M.Z.A. General View.]

Triana Bridge.]

View from Triana Bridge.]

View from Triana.]

San Telmo from Triana.]

The Cathedral. Our Lord Crucified. Sculpture in the Sacristy.]

SEVILLE

_Specially drawn for The Spanish Series_]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] There is one picture only by Roelas in the Prado. His work is hardly known outside Seville. In England we have at least one of his pictures, a fine example, in a private collection.

[B] There is a picture by El Greco, the wonderful portrait of himself, in the Museum. It came quite recently from the Palace of San Telmo, where also was once the really grand picture, “The Death of Laocoön and his Sons at the Siege of Troy.” The remarkable and interesting “Trinity” in the Cathedral, attributed to El Greco, is the work of his pupil Luis Tristan, a painter neglected too long. Seville has no picture by Navarrete; the one work of Morales, the triptych in the Sacristiá de los Calices of the Cathedral, is not typical of his strange power.

[C] The most important is the “Adoration of the Shepherds,” until recently in the Palace of San Telmo; but this work has been removed with other pictures in the collection of the Infanta Maria Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon. The really fine picture on the same subject in our National Gallery is now attributed to Zurbarán; probably to him, too, belongs the “Dead Warrior,” now assigned to Velazquez.