The Exhibition of Spanish Painting at the Toledo Museum of ArtAuthor(s): Walter W. S. CookSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Sep., 1941), pp. 223-224Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3046773 .

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EXHIBITION REVIEWS THE EXHIBITION OF SPANISH

PAINTING AT THE TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART

BY WALTER W. S. COOK

Of the various exhibitions related to Spanish paint- ing held in this country during the past season, the finest and most extensive was that held in the Toledo Museum of Art during the months of March and April. This exhibition was a comprehensive en- semble, including examples of Spanish painting from the Romanesque period through Goya, and contribu- tions were made by the most important art museums and private collectors of this country. It was organ- ized and arranged by Mr. Josep Gudiol, who during the past year was Carnegie Professor of Spanish Art at the Toledo Museum.

The earliest example shown was the series of mural paintings in fresco from the Mozarabic chapel of S. Baudelio de Berlanga. In order to exhibit in an appropriate atmosphere this important specimen of twelfth-century painting, the chapel of Berlanga was reconstructed, in slightly smaller scale than the origi- nal, but large enough to display on its walls the large compositions, including biblical subjects and an un- usually interesting series of hunting scenes. The vaults of the reconstructed chapel were decorated to complete the idea of the colorful aspect of a Romanesque church. The effect of the hall was mag- nificent and represented one of the greatest efforts ever made to present to the public a set of Roman- esque frescoes, properly lighted and built into a suit- able structure.

The evolution of Spanish painting was portrayed by a large group of Spanish panels of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The early Gothic period, when Spanish schools were thoroughly influenced by the Franco-Gothic style, was represented by an altar- frontal with scenes from the Passion, in the typical style of the school of Navarre about the year 1300. The Aragonese school of the same period was repre- sented by two panels with similar iconography which. had never been exhibited before. The local schools of the fourteenth century were represented by the fine polyptych from The Pierpont Morgan Library, which after having been attributed for many years to various localities, was finally grouped correctly with a number of panels and manuscripts painted in the region of Barcelona in the second half of the four- teenth century. Jaime Serra was illustrated by a large Adoration of the Shepherds, again an unknown panel and one of the best works of the early period of this important Catalan master. The brilliant Christ before Pilate, dating about 1420, has all the qualities of Luis Borrassi, the painter from Gerona, who was the earliest exponent of the International Style in Spain.

The retable of S. Michel, one of the recent acquisi- tions of the Metropolitan Museum, represented the rich development of the International Style in Va- lencia during the first half of the fifteenth century. The later development of this style in the same school was exemplified by three beautiful feminine martyr

saints by Jacomart, its greatest exponent in the mid- dle of the fifteenth century. Martin de Soria, with his large retable of St. Anthony Abbot and St. Michel, closed the cycle of Gothic painting in the Iberian peninsula, joining the qualities of the Arago- nese tradition with the style of Jaime Huguet.

The Hispano-Flemish style which developed in Castile during the second half of the fifteenth century is unusually well represented in this country. The Toledo exhibition included one of the predecessors of this style, Juan de Burgos, who signed an Annuncia- tion on panel, which still retains some of the charac- teristics of the work of the famous painter of Leon, Nicolas Frances. Fernando Gallego, a follower of Dirk Bouts, was represented by an Epiphany, which is one of the important acquisitions of the Toledo Museum of Art.

The transition from the Gothic schools to the Renaissance was illustrated by the Adoration of the Magi by the Jativa Master, the Christ Crowned with Thorns, a section of the miniature painted by Juan de Flandes for Isabella of Castile, and an Epiphany, in which probably the hands of Osona, father and son, collaborated.

The sixteenth century in Spain is still a virgin field in art history. Most of the masters are still involved in a nebulous uncertainty, although they created im- portant masterpieces. The reason why these artists are so little known in this country is that their works for the most part still hang in the places for which they were originally produced. Only a few painters of the school founded by Philip II of Madrid have achieved the rank of the better-known masters of the seventeenth century. Alonso S~nchez Coello, the most prominent among the Madrid school of the six- teenth century, was represented in Toledo by the striking portrait of a prince, probably the young Philip III, painted about I575.

The Toledo exhibition gave to El Greco a special room. The great Cretan artist was represented by paintings of his different periods. The famous Ex- pulsion from the Temple with the portraits of Titian, Michelangelo, and Giulio Clovio, from the Minne- apolis Institute of Arts, shows the last phase of his Roman style and already possesses some of the quali- ties of his large paintings of S. Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo. The Annunciation from the Coe collec- tion in Cleveland characterized the period about I585, when El Greco painted his great S. Mauricio for the Escorial. The subsequent period could be seen in the Agony in the Garden, from the Arthur Sachs collectiofi, and the impressive bust of Christ Embracing the Cross. The charming Holy Family, which was probably one of the models painted by the master in preparation for his larger compositions, begins to show some of the distortions which de- veloped during his latest period, represented in the Toledo Museum by the Crucifixion with the view of Toledo.

Other painters in Spain contemporary with El Greco's last period, whose works were included in the exhibition, were the Milanese Juan Bautista Maino (Portrait of a Man), and the Carthusian monk Juan S~inchez Cotin, represented by a highly realistic still life; Jose Ribera, the Valencian painter, the most

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224 THE ART BULLETIN

prominent master of the Spanish Tenebrists, who showed the tactile qualities of his sculpturesque tech- nique in a St. Peter painted around I630, in the Geographer from the Boston Museum, the Portrait of a Musician, owned by the Toledo Museum, and a magnificent St. Jerome, loaned by the Fogg Art Mu- seum of Harvard University.

Francisco Herrera, one of the pioneers of the school of Seville in the seventeenth century, was shown by one of the few paintings of this artist in this country, the Drinker from the Worcester Art Museum. Velasquez, the most prominent painter formed in this school, was honored in this exhibition by an unusual ensemble of his paintings, covering his earliest period, when he was a pupil of Pacheco, un- til his latest style, when he was the royal painter at the court of Philip IV. His paintings, which like those of El Greco were displayed in a special room, were the St. Simon and the Servant, both painted around 1619 in Seville; the Portrait of a Man; the Man with a Wine-Glass, and the Head of a Woman, belonging to his first Madrid period. The Head of Apollo, a study for his Forge of Vulcan, shows the simplification of his technique at the time of his first trip to Italy. The amazing portrait of the Infanta Margareta, a canvas which has recently been acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts of San Diego, California, is an admirable example of the painter's late style.

Francisco de Zurbaran and Bartolom6 Murillo, the two leading painters of the school of Seville during the seventeenth century, were also excellently repre- sented in Toledo. The powerful realism of Zurbaran, with his simple and clear manner of representing masses, with the striking use of whites and frank tonalities, was well exemplified by the Flight into Egypt, the Legend of the Bell, and the great St. Jerome. One of the great masterpieces of Murillo was shown, the St. Thomas of Villanueva Dividing his Clothes among the Beggar Boys, one of the treasures of the

Cincinnati Art Museum. The nebulous quality and elaborate technique could also be studied in the scene of St. Giles before Pope Gregory IX, the landscape scene with Jacob and Rachel at the Well, and the im- pressive Portrait of a Man from St. Louis. Alonso Cano, the sculptor and painter of Granada, was rep- resented by a St. Lawrence from the Nelson Gallery in Kansas City; Francisco Collantes, with his Hagar and Ishmael, and Carrefio de Miranda, with his Bap- tism of Christ, represented the school of Madrid after Velasquez.

A still life by Luis Men6ndez opened the chapter of eighteenth-century painting, dominated by the great genius Francisco Goya, who was represented in the exhibition at Toledo by no less than eighteen paint- ings. His early period was exemplified by the beauti- ful tapestry cartoons representing Two Gossiping Women and the delightful Winter Landscape, painted for his protectors, the Dukes of Osuna. The great canvas, the Majas on the Balcony, shows the climax of his technical development. The impressionistic quality of his last period, when he was perturbed by the tragedy of the Napoleonic War in Spain, is appar- ent in his Escape from a Burning Town, the Bullfight, the St. Paul, strangely reminiscent of the Spanish Baroque style, and especially in the great portrait of the architect Juan Antonio Cuervo.

This memorable exhibition of Spanish painting was a manifestation of the active life of the Toledo Mu- seum of Art and of Mr. Blake-More Godwin, its director. It has left a permanent record with the publication of a short history of Spanish painting, illustrated with the works exhibited on this occasion as well as by other examples of Spanish painting in American collections. It is a concise, clearly-written r6sume by Mr. Josep Gudiol, which for the first time gives a comprehensive study of the evolution of all Spanish painting from the Middle Ages through Goya.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

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