To him belong also the _Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple_, the _Visitation_, and a masterly _Conception_, which is in the State College of Puebla, of vigorous execution and strong light and shade. Echave gave life size to most of the figures on his canvases, as did--indeed--most of the other painters of the school.
Miguel Cabrera exaggerated the defects of Ibarra and fell into others, because he is more incorrect in form, more neglects the study of the natural, lacks strength in execution, and reduces coloring to the use of five or six tints, monotonously repeated; he is weak in perspective, and in composition never maintains himself at any great height; yet, with all this, his vogue was great during his lifetime and his prestige has not ceased today. The religious communities outbid each other for his works, connoisseurs sought his canvases, the University entrusted important commissions to his hand, Archbishop Rubio y Salinas appointed him his court painter, and when, in 1753, a group of painters were organizing the first Academy of Painting, they elected him perpetual president. How can we explain the high opinion in which he was held? The reason may be found in the bad taste then prevalent, bad taste which in other times has even elevated a Gongora, or has caused that a Lucas Jordán shall be compared with, and preferred to, a Claude Coello. But there is a further reason for the popularity, which Cabrera enjoyed; that he painted prettily, taking great pains with the faces, even when he neglected the rest, and employing brilliant coloring, pleasing to the crowd.
To his fame, have contributed his activity and extraordinary productiveness, shown by the quantity he produced, but particularly by his having painted the thirty-four great canvases of the life of San Ignacio, and the same number of that of Santo Domingo, in the short period of fourteen months. The fact is not, really, so surprising if one considers on the one hand his unfinished style, and on the other that it is in those very pictures, that his style reached its fullest expression; these being, for that reason, the worst we have seen of that artist. It must be added, too, that other artists worked in his studio, who naturally assisted him in his heavier commissions. Furthermore, it is not the quantity of the works of an artist, nor the rapidity with which he turns them out, that gives the measure of his value, but their quality, no matter how small their number. Otherwise, Luca, of course, would have long since been proclaimed the greatest painter of the world, and criticism would have relegated to oblivion such works as the _Santa Forma_ of Claude Coello, for having been made, although marvelously perfect, with patient slowness.