What a splendid muster-roll is this! Who will not be tempted to come and judge for himself? The works of many of these artists, however, are only to be seen in the churches and convents of their native provinces, where they remain “hanging like golden oranges on their native boughs.”
But before leaving Madrid, you must give a little time--not too much, since it is so precious--among “these acres of canvas,” to the fantastic and not pleasing pictures of Goya, the last Spanish painter of any note, who died in 1828, at the age of eighty-six. Goya has been compared to Hogarth for his quality of humour; to Callot, for imagination; to Rembrandt, for vigour of execution, elsewhere to Velasquez and to Reynolds; but his pictures are so characterised by a sort of Hoffman-like revelling in the weird and the impossible, that it is difficult to understand and like them. Like Ribera he bids you sup on horrors.
And after this survey of all the Spanish painters, how much remains yet to see! Here are grand pictures of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, of Michel-Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, of Domenichino,--indeed, of all the Italian, Flemish, and French masters, and amongst so much to see, the only fear is of seeing nothing.
Our principal object in coming to Madrid was Velasquez, who is to be studied nowhere else, and we therefore saw many other pictures imperfectly. Other travellers may be less circumscribed as to time, and fortunate are they who, having leisure, can support the rarefied air of Madrid long enough to do justice to the greatest picture-gallery in the world. It is not only the greatest but the best-arranged, the quietest and the most comfortable. You leave your carriage at the door and stroll in for an hour or so. All is quiet, and silent, and orderly as in a church; the rooms are unadorned and perfectly lighted; the pictures are never hidden by crowds of copyists; the place is never crowded or noisy; and after contemplating your favourite pictures or picture for a time, you leave the gallery, not tired and blinded by too many impressions, but refreshed and invigorated with a calm intellectual enjoyment that is as good and simple as it is deep and lasting.
A LEAR OF CITIES.--GOTHIC, ROMAN, AND MOORISH REMAINS.--COMMENTARIES ON STREET’S GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, AND ON TOLEDAN LANDLORDS.--TILES, AND A DISCOURSE THEREON.