* * * * *

Italy and Spain are sisters, and not merely first cousins, as Mr.
Whistler once remarked. Their history to a great degree is
contemporaneous. They have seen dynasties arise, grow old, and die; and
schools of art, once the pride of the people, sink into blank
forgetfulness: for schools, like dynasties and men, live their day and go
tottering to their rest.

Italy, as the elder sister, has set the fashion for the younger. The
manners, habits and customs of the people have been the same.

To a great extent all art is controlled by fad and fashion; and all the
fashions in the polite arts easily drifted from Italy into Spain. The
works of Titian carried to Madrid produced a swarm of imitators, some of
whom, like Velasquez, Zurbaran, Ribera and Murillo, having spun their
cocoons, passed through the chrysalis stage, developed wings, and soared
to high heaven. But the generations of imitators who followed these have
usually done little better than gape.

And although Spain has been a kind mother to art for four hundred years,
yet the modern school of Spanish art shows no "apostolic succession" from
the past. It is a thing separate and alone: gorgeous, dazzling, strong,
and rarely beautiful. Totally unlike the art of the old masters, it takes
its scenes from Nature and actual living life--depending not on myth,
legend or fable. It discards pure imagination, and by holding a mirror up
to Nature has done the world the untold blessing of introducing it to
itself.

The average man sees things in the mass, and therefore sees nothing;