IGNACIO ZULOAGA

CHRISTIAN BRINTON

With Pictures Never Before Reproduced in America

THE popular misconception that the Spaniards are a predominantly Southern people is nowhere more convincingly contradicted than in the art and personality of Ignacio Zuloaga. A Basque, and therefore belonging to one of the oldest and staunchest races of Europe, Zuloaga proclaims his affinity with that Gothic strain which has left its indelible impress upon the Iberian character and temperament. The suavity of form and imaginative fervor so typical of Italian painting, for example, is missing in the aesthetic production of the Spaniards. You are confronted in Spanish art with an austerity and a rigorous sense of reality far removed from the mellow evocations of the Renaissance or modern Italian masters.

A TRUE son of this sombre Gothic Spain, this Spain that for eight centuries has been the scene of bitter strife and cynical oppression,

Ignacio Zuloaga comes from the town of Eibar which lies hidden in the Cantabrian mountains midway between San Sebastian and Bilbao.

It is impossible to form an accurate conception of the art of Zuloaga without knowing something of his early surroundings and forbears.

The name Zuloaga is a place name, there being in the judicial district of Azpeitia, in the province of Guipuzcoa, a sparse settlement boasting some four score souls from whence the family doubtless originally derived. At all events it is Eibar, the Toledo of the North, which for over two centuries has been the home of this dynasty of craftsmen who through their indomitable energy inaugurated a memorable revival of the art of ornamental metal work.

Creative spirits all, they have by turns been armorers, ceramists, or painters, not infrequently practicing each profession with equal aptitude.

It was in this same town of Eibar, deep-set between towering mountains and cleft by the silver Rio Deva where, on July 26, 1870, was born Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta. like his elder brother Eusebio, first saw light in the solemn, sixteenth century palacio which for generations had been the family home. Everything about the place was old and breathed the spirit of bygone days, and it was in this atmosphere that the boys and their three sisters passed their childhood. In a household where work was wellnigh a religion, it is small wonder that the lads, as they grew to manhood, were destined by their rigorous father for serious pursuits. Eusebio in due course became a mining engineer and distinguished metallurgist, but Ignacio presented a more disturbing problem. It was at first ordained that he, too, should study engineering, yet evincing a minimum capacity for mathematics a compromise was effected in favor of architecture. Displaying even less liking for the latter profession, the youthful and not unrefractory individualist was thereupon sent to the workshop to learn the trade of his ancestors.

Matters were proceeding with a fair degree of equanimity, and it is possible that the future painter might have succeeded in the parental calling had it not been for a chance visit to Madrid where he came for the first time under the spell of the restrained, aristocratic vision of el Greco and Velazquez, and the restless vitality of Francisco de Goya. A species of feverish exaltation appeared to take possession of the young man's soul. A thousand subconscious atavisms seemed to stir within him. He haunted the Prado for days, and finally, in eager supplication, begged his father to buy him brushes and colors that he might copy and take home to Eibar the likeness of a certain reserved, white-ruffed nobleman by the enigmatic Domenikos Theotokopoulos. And it may not be amiss to add that the copy proved an astonishingly able one, and even to-day ranks among the artist's most cherished possessions.

FROM this period onward the foundry and finishing room became distasteful to the awakened Ignacio. Fired by the example of his great forbears of brush and palette, he dreamed only of becoming a painter, of following in their inspiring footsteps. The bitterest paternal opposition was unable to overcome his determination to devote his life to art. At last, acknowledging defeat, his father grudgingly permitted the lad, who was barely nineteen, to depart for Rome, then fallaciously deemed the artistic focus of the universe. It was but natural that this truculent ypung montañes should have found little to attract him in the grandiose city by the Tiber and the pretentious and effete production of the period. After passing a few ineffectual months in the ateliers of the Via Margutta and various nearby trattorias, he left for Paris where, like many another aspiring genius, he made his home on the Butte within the shadow of Sacré-Cæur and the swaying arms of the Moulin de La Galette.

It is unnecessary to recount in detial the stark years of struggle and privation that forthwith confronted Ignacio Zuloaga and the slender band of compatriots which composed his immediate circle. The group included that inimitable decorative craftsman Francisco Durrio, informally known as "Paco," who still lives and labors in the Impasse Girard on, together with the stressful Pablo de Uranga now peacefully sequestered at Vitoria in the Pyrenees. The robust Rusinol also frequented Paris at this time, while among the Frenchmen with whom Zuloaga was in close touch may be mentioned Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Charles Morice. Thrown upon his own resources he more than once faced starvation, and even now cannot traverse the rue Cortot or the rue des Saules without an involuntary shudder at the recollection of those days of alternate hope and despair. And yet the resolute Vasco was not fated to succumb to any of the conventional fatalities. A certain antique austerity of ternper characterized his attitude alike toward life and toward art. He was no trifler. Deep-chested and majestic of appearance he made his presence felt in any company.

THESE are among the forty-five Zuloaga canvases which were recently brought to America from Europe and which will be exhibited in New York early in January.

MTEETING with no success, and being at the end of his meagre resources, our young Spaniard next crossed the Channel to London where his father was known to certain wealthy collectors and where he in consequence hoped to secure a footing. He luckily managed to paint a few portraits, among others one of the late Oscar Browning, with the none too substantial returns from which he straightway embarked for Spain. After pausing at Bermeo in Vizcaya in order to rehabilitate h i s fortunes by decorating the local casino, he proceeded to Sevilla, where he set to

work with unbounded energy a n d enthusiasm. Here at last he seemed to come into his own. The sun-drenched soil, the languorous Andalúz, the sinuous, glittering gitanas, the beggars, dwarfs, and swarthy water-carriers all exercised an imperative fascination over one who had suffered hunger and isolation on the heights of Montmartre, and whose brain had been confused by the jargon of countless cliques and coteries. Mixing in free, fraternal fashion with all classes he now haunted the Sevillian Triana, now frequented the ever-popular Plaza de Toros.

Yet you must not assume because he was inspired by the eloquent subject-matter which unfolded itself before him that Zuloaga achieved for several years to come anything approaching adequate recognition or remuneration. The few scattered canvases he meantime sent to Paris passed virtually unregarded. Scarcely anyone noted the two portraits that marked his appearance at the New Salon of 1894, while the American artist Dannat alone had the discrimination to purchase one of the series of figure studies entitled la Espana blanca seen the same season at Le Bare de Boutteville's. Bitter times were in fact still in store for the young Basque, whose spirit nevertheless continued unbreakable, no matter what the conditions he was forced to face. Despairing of making a living by the brush, he was for a while a dealer in antiques, and also an accountant with a mining company in the Sierra Morena district. The bull-ring, too, attracted him, and on occasions he would bury himself in the remotest and most inaccessible corners of the Peninsula, consorting with the vintners of la Rioja, the smugglers and cutthroats of Aragon, and the hideous brujas of las Batuecas. An insatiable appetite for the primitive, unspoiled aspects of his country has indeed more than once lured him outside the confines of conventionally organized society.

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IF neither Paris nor Madrid was sufficiently free from academic atrophy to recognize the force and verity of Zuloaga's transcriptions of Spanish theme, the same fortunately cannot be said of Barcelona. To the exhibition of 1896 he sent the canvas entitled "Friends," which not only attracted favorable notice but was purchased for the Municipal and Provincial Museum of the Catalonian capital. It was a modest beginning, still in a measure it paved the way for a more conclusive triumph when his "My Cousins" and "My Uncle Daniel," which, figuring simply as portraits, at the Salon of 1899, found permanent place upon the walls of the Luxembourg. At once traditional and individual, this canvas opened the eyes of the world to the merit of a newcomer who had something to say and who could say it with due regard for the past, yet without sacrificing his own artistic identity. Painted at Segovia, where he had retired for a time from the attractions of Andalucia, the picture marks the inception of a veritable cycle dedicated to the celebrated ceramist Don Daniel Zuloaga and his three incomparable daughters. For the past eighteen years Zuloaga has, in fact, spent a portion of each season at Segovia, and in order to gather an adequate impression of his growth and development we must glance at him as he lives and works in this typical Old Castillian town.

Dominated by the Alcazar that sweeps athwart the horizon like some majestic galley of bygone days, and straddled by the giantesque Acueducto which is the most imposing Roman monument now standing in Spain, Segovia la vieja breathes the spirit of the Reconquista. Avila is full of mystic exaltation, Burgos is the home of romance, but Segovia sleeps, sleeps and dreams of her dark and stressful past. Zuloaga has at various periods occupied three different studios at Segovia, the first, situated in the San Millan quarter, being known as the Casa del Crimen, on account of its having been the scene of numerous violent and sanguinary episodes. It was here that he painted "A Piquant Retort," "Gipsy Coquetry," and other important canvases, the grim pile with its tangled garden at the back costing him but fifteen pesetas a month. On account of the difficulty he experienced in persuading models to trust themselves within these unsavory precincts, he next moved to la Canonjia vieja, a frowning, fortress-like structure wherein were enacted divers sinister dramas of the Inquisition. There were various things about la Canonjia that appealed to a man of Zuloaga's temperament, and here he remained several years, until, in fact, he moved into his present quarters in the abandoned Romanesque church of San Juan de los Caballeros.

THE Zuloaga that certain of us know and have visited during the summer months in Segovia, sleeps and takes his meals at a modest casa in the Plazuela de San Justo and works daily in a lofty studio walled off from the rest of the church and lit from a window cut into the solid masonry for a depth of some five feet. The room is notable for its restrained simplicity, a rush matting covering the stone floor, a chair or two over the backs of which are flung bull-fighter or gipsy costumes, an ornamental bridle suspended from a peg in the wall, and two carved statuettes of Christ being all the accessories that greet the eye. It is here for some months each season, usually from July until December, that Zuloaga passes his most productive period. He has, it is true, lately built himself a summer home at Zumaya, near the coast between San Sebastian and Eibar, but it is certain that he will never forego the eloquent pictorial appeal of Segovia.

His chief source of inspiration has not unnaturally proved to be the family of his uncle Don Daniel, for Zuloaga is before all else a painter of portraits, not portraits in the conventional acceptation of the term, but nevertheless portraits whether of nature or of humanity. Locally known as "el alquimista de San Juan de los Caballeros," and throughout Spain as "el gran ceramico," Daniel Zuloaga continues unbroken the tradition of his forefathers. Painter as well as potter, he leads the life of a sixteenth century craftsman, and when you see him, bearded and clad in long, flowing blouse, adding a touch of color to some ornate composition or feverishly firing the clay, your mind travels back to Faust's kitchen and the spell of mediaeval necromancy. And not less suggestive from the standpoint of artistic possibility are the aged alchemist's three daughters, las Senoritas Candida, Theodora, and Esperanza, essentially Spanish in their spirited fascination or languorous inquietude. It is not difficult on meeting them, in watching them at the local cinema or bull-fight, or kneeling before the altar of San Marcos, at the end of an afternoon stroll, to see why the painter has so frequently portrayed these expressive types. "Las primal," as they are always called, represent to Zuloaga something more than three specific young creatures. They are to him symbols of Castillian femininity and assume upon his canvases commensurate significance.

APART from portraits, of which he paints a certain number, both of Spaniards and of those more or less important internationals who annually illumine Paris, Zuloaga's subjects fall into four main divisions, each devoted to a strongly marked segment of Peninsular society. First in this pictorial treasury of native theme comes the Spanish woman who typifies that imperious seduction we instinctively associate with her race and sex. Now full of subtropical lassitude, now roused by the sting of desire she flaunts from these canvases sure of her power, supreme in her avid animalism. Next we encounter a strangely assorted collection of individuals deformed and distorted almost beyond human semblance, cripples, dwarfs, witches, and leering jades who fulfil all possible demands for that picaresque note which is so peculiarly Spanish and which attains such prominence in the paintings of Velazquez and the pages of Aleman or Quevedo. The bull-fight, with its combination of bodily grace and flexibility and deliberate, sinister cruelty, and religion, with its frenzied exaltation and often sanguinary selftorture, complete this panorama of contemporary Spanish life.

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In treating such subjects the art of Zuloaga bases itself upon that of his great precursors, Herrera, Ribera, Velazquez, and Goya. Like them he is explicit in his outlook, and like certain of them, and more especially el Greco and Goya, he is also not without a 'strong savor of mysticism and romantic fervor. At first a succession of isolated individuals and episodes this work gradually came to reveal traces of co-ordination. In due season the illustrator became the interpreter, and that which was particular took on general significance. The mere record of fact, of external appearance no longer affording satisfaction, he endeavored to present a synthesis of that which passed before him. Beginning with a wholesome reliance upon precedent he little by little submitted to the primacy of tendencies that were more personal. A diminishing objectivity and an increasing subjectivity have in short marked the more recent phases of his development.

THE) technique of the earlier paintings is the technique of tradition. In "Daniel Zuloaga and His Daughters" dark figures are stencilled against a neutral background. And in this canvas, and the more consciously conceived composition entitled "Before the Bull-fight," you will note the same distant, undulant landscapes common to the older masters. Something akin to the once popular regard for classic spaciousness and equipoise characterizes the "Promenade after the Bull-fight." while in the "Street of Love" we are face to face with one of those composite effects built up from various individual units. In each instance the elements are ready at hand, though even at this date he did not hesitate to combine and adjust according to his predilection. You will grasp better the genesis and evolution of his method if you bear in mind the fact that his only preceptors were, according to his own statement, "nature and the museums."

That Ignacio Zuloaga never set foot inside an art school or academy, that, as he pithily puts it, "All I knew of the Lcolc des Bcaux-Arts was the view one has of it from the windows of the Louvre," appears in nowise to have mitigated against his progress. He drew from the first with vigor and decision. His figures were solidly constructed and his sense of composition correct though by no means conventional. Scarcely a vivid colorist, he nevertheless employed color in a manner that differentiated him from the older men. It would indeed be difficult to match for harmonic resonance the flowing robes of the women in the "Promenade after the Bull-fight" or the rose-red frock with film of lace about waist and flounce that screens the piquant form of the actress Consuela. "I did not paint her," he confessed, "because she was particularly beautiful or famous, but because I saw in her a certain Goyesque air." And with the little brown and white dog at her feet, and the sweeping landscape and gray-green sky in the background, she constitutes a fitting tribute to the stormy, sensitive soul who immortalized the Duquesa de Alba.

ZULOAGA'S palette though richly set is restricted in range. He prefers as a rule warm browns, dark reds, green, yellow, purple, silver-grey, and black. Blue is unsympathetic to him and is rarely found in his compositions. It has been my privilege on numerous occasions to watch him before the easel both at his Paris studio in the rue Caulaincourt and in the solemn side chapel of San Juan de los Caballeros, the silence broken only by faint cries from the street or the sound of countless church and monastery bells. Unlike most artists he makes no preliminary sketches. When he wanders abroad to study native types and scenes at first hand, or stands upon the terrace surveying the shimmering, wide-horizoned panorama of Vieja Castilla, he has with him no painter's kit, no brushes, tubes, or canvas. All he carries is a small, compact leatherbound notebook wherein he transcribes in free, legible script certain suggestions which he afterward translates into line, form, and color. "Mis dibujos los escribo," he says, and these written sketches merely serve to recall impressions that might otherwise become fogged or effaced.

The capacity for synthetic observation implied by such an attitude finds appropriate expression when he undertakes the painting of a picture. A long process of incubation precedes the actual work upon each composition. He ponders deeply every detail and when the mental pattern is sufficiently clear, and the creative impulse sufficiently strong, he attacks one of his big canvases with confident surety. He first draws the main outlines boldly in charcoal upon a light gray ground and then applies the pigment in firm, resolute passages instinct with rhythmic power. In a method so reasoned, so deliberate, nothing is left to chance. There are no surprises, no accidents fortunate or otherwise. All is preconceived, prearranged, and the touch is that of the sculptor rather than that of the painter. Generations of ancestors who were accomplished modellers seem to have imparted to him a marked feeling for plastic form. In looking at these solidly constructed compositions where there is no suspicion of faltering or incertitude you are apt to recall the triumphs of past ages, the expressive statuettes of Alonso Cano, for instance, carved out of wood and colored in the image of nature. Zuloaga seems to belong to an older epoch. He appears to possess no nerves. His conceptions are wrought in rare strength of spirit and physical fortitude.

IT is scarcely to be wondered that a temperament so arbitrary and so dominant should in due course have impelled Zuloaga to select his own themes and perfect his own manner of treatment. From 1908 onward we note a change in his work, a pronounced intensification of vision and interpretation. The impeccable Velazquez yields place in his admiration to the hieratic el Greco. If "Las Lanzas" may be called a military ceremonial, and the "Promenade after the Bull-fight" a glimpse of the social pageantry of the Plaza de Toros, we nevertheless do not again meet, save in certain of the more cosmopolitan portraits, anything approximating this same atmosphere of studied distinction. We enter, to the contrary, a world wherein horrific creatures huddle together upon stark hillside, and where the stain of the serpent or the sting of the Scourge leaves its scarlet trail across trembling flesh. The "Sorceresses of San Millan, the "Women of Sepulveda," and the more rufescent "Flagellations" and "Crucifixions," as well as such apparitions as the "Victim of the Fete" mark the ascendency in Zuloaga's work of that taste for Gothic gloom and frenetic fantasy which is a legitimate portion of his artistic heritage. You cannot ignore such themes in any consideration of the Spanish temperament, a temperament wherein love and cruelty closely commingle and piety and punishment go hand in hand. The art that confronts you in these later productions is an art full of potent atavisms from which no one of Zuloaga's persuasion could reasonably escape, and in projecting such tendencies upon canvas he but gives proof of his courage and racial integrity.

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You may not relish certain of these scenes, yet you are compelled to admit their ethnic as well as aesthetic inevitability.

Coincidental with the change in subject-matter comes a corresponding change of style and technique. In dealing with ideas as well as impressions Zuloaga's vision properly assumes a more abstract form. The figures, instead of remaining detached silhouettes as in various earlier canvases, show an increased sense of volume, the landscape setting is no longer incidental but boldly scenographic, while the general effect reveals a heightened degree of decorative synthesis. Something of the ardent joy of actual aesthetic creation characterizes not a few of the more recent compositions. The red robe of the cardinal or the variegated pattern of an Oriental shawl flung over the body of a dancer play their appointed parts in comprehensively conceived schematic arrangements. The love of arabesque, of formal distribution and balance, has not however been achieved at the sacrifice of feeling or character. You are always in the presence of virile, forceful human beings, while remote monasteries clustered against craggy mountainside with restless clouds scudding overhead acquire, through sheer significance of line, mass, and simulated movement, the power of independently arousing emotion and inducing mood. In the words of the pedantic but not unillumined Pacheco, Zuloaga's art, in its more subtle phases, seems indeed "formados por la meditación del alma."

ON the numerous occasions when Ignacio Zuloaga and I have found ourselves together—whether at Vincent's overlooking the incandescent panorama of Paris by night, at his favorite Roman trattoria opposite the Fountain of Trevi, in the seclusion of the family palacio at Eibar, or seated before one of Dona Julia's delectable Segovian dinners—the conversation has not infrequently turned upon art. It has usually, I hasten to add, assumed the form of an inspiring monologue delivered with deep-toned conviction and pointed phrase.

"I realize," he once confessed in retrospective vein, "that I belong to another age, that I have remained a sixteenth century person, like the surroundings in which I grew up. I have a horror of every manifestation of modernism. My distaste for things modern includes of course painting, most of which, impressionistic, pointillistic, cubistic, futuristic, or whatever you may

choose to term it, seems to me feeble and neurasthenic. The primitives and the early Egyptians with their rigorous economy of line, form, and tone afford me more pleasure than I derive from the work of my contemporaries. As to modern music it distresses me because of its complexity. I much prefer Palestrina and Bach, and in the way of literature, though once a great reader, I now scarcely open a book or glance at the newspaper."

Another time, in discussing the personal equation in art, he observed:—"I abhor with all my being mere slavish fidelity to fact—the stupid and servile expedient of those who are content simply to copy nature. I hold that the painter is entitled to arrange, compose, magnify, and exalt those elements that go to make up a given scene. How is it possible for anyone still to believe that we should prostrate ourselves before actuality, especially to-day when we have at our disposal the camera, the cinematograph, and color photography. Does not art exist in the brain and heart as well as in the eye? The longer I live the more I detest those trivial, snap-shot effects without a trace of individuality, of strangeness, or imaginative force. We must simplify ourselves; we must go back to the source of things. Art must submit to profound and far-reaching changes. And while I cannot bring myself to countenance the vagaries of cubism, futurism, and the like I frankly hold that painting should be more cerebral, more ready to accept certain definite limitations and sacrifices. We cannot hope to depict all phases of nature and feeling with equal success, so we should strive to fortify and intensify such talents as we may possess. Though caring more for the older art, I am by no means an enemy of all that is new. I greatly admire for instance the unquestioned sincerity and austere devotion to the absolute exhibited by such a man as Pablo Picasso."

IT would be possible to transcribe a quantity of such notes, for whenever the spirit seized him, or some suggestion came from without, Zuloaga would launch upon one of these illuminating dissertations. He seemed to have thought deeply along kindred lines and apparently relished the opportunity afforded for unhampered expression. In Guipuzcoa while watching the supple Basques dance the aurrescu on 'the moonlit

greensward, seated in the cafe La Marina at Madrid, reverently resisting the Prado, or driving home from the blood-soaked Plaza de Toros, he was always the same, always serious, observant, and full of inborn dignity of mien and mood. On the occasion of our last meeting I recall that in speaking of his plans for the future he remarked with salutary independence and determination:—"I work ever with more and more enthusiasm, my brain teeming with fresh ideas and inspirations. I am more and more obsessed by dreams which I fear I may never realize, but nothing can divert me from my appointed path. I paint only that which I like, in the way I wish to paint it, and according to the dictates of my taste and temperament. Essentially and exclusively Spanish in my sympathies, I love my country with passionate ardor and am unhappy anywhere, and everywhere else. I leave for Spain to-morrow. I shall remain there all summer, going first to Burgos where I shall shut myself up in a Carthusian monastery and paint religious pictures. I shall put into my work emotion, only emotion, for I trust that all else may disappear!"

Making due allowance for the customary intensity of expression inseparable from the artistic temperament you have herewith an accurate self-portrait of Ignacio Zuloaga. He signifies in extreme form the spirit of autocracy in art, the principle of absolutism so typical of his race and country. You will meet in these bold, affirmative canvases no hint of cowardice or compromise. This work is defiant, almost despotic. It does not strive to enlist sympathy nor does it fear to be frankly antipathetic. The contours are positive, the tones not infrequently acidulous, and the surfaces sometimes hard and metallic. Reactionary if you will, the method of Zuloaga stands in direct contrast to the minute analytic notations so beloved of the impressionists and their followers. It entails no scrupulous study of milieu. Synthetic and stylistic, it endeavors to free itself from that which is capricious and ephemeral in order to attain that which is permanent and typical. Zuloaga does not seek deftly to catch the smile of nature or sing the simple joys of labor and relaxation. Peopled with matadors and trianeros, sensuous gitanas, cynical priests, and seductive women of society, these canvases are instinct with passion and fatalism. They are primitive, sinister, and full of tragic implication, and as such unflinchingly reflect certain fundamental national characteristics. With its innate structural strength, its superb graphic energy, and confident grasp of what may be termed the technique of the whole, the art of Zuloaga is perfectly adapted to the task in hand. It depicts with convincing eloquence la Espana clasica, that Spain at once Gothic, romantic, picaresque, and legitimately modern to which it is dedicated—that immutable Spain whether it be the Spain of the Gospel or the Spain of the Koran, the Spain of the Crucifixion or the Spain of the corrida. Finally, in the ultimate analysis, the art of Zuloaga attains, under stress of creative impulse, that purely emotional significance to which he refers —emotional and romantic, not, however, the romantic tinsel of Gautier, Prosper Merimee, and Bizet but the more enduring romance of reality. In its affiliation with the master tendencies of contemporary thought and feeling it has transcended Fortuny, Vierge, and the agreeable devotees of the rococo. It reflects something of the reasoned verity of Manet, the vital intensity of Daumier, and the satanic suggestion of Felicien Rops.

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IT is an easy matter with one possessing so definitely fixed a formula to discover various so-called defects and deficiencies in the production of Ignacio Zuloaga. You may readily contend that these canvases lack the subtle ambience of atmospheric effect, that the tones are opaque and wanting in life and vibrancy, that the passion for simplification and symmetric arrangement has been pushed too far, or the sense of character overemphasized. Regarding the question of atmosphere it may not be amiss to recall the caustic counter of Degas that "l'air n'est bon qu'a respirer," while as for the rest, I can only reply that Zuloaga has everywhere and at all times been true to himself. You are familiar with his profession of faith as inscribed above, and you must strive to realize that work such as he has given us reflects not merely outward and external phenomena but also the imperative inner logic of the plastic temperament. Painting is in brief to Ignacio Zuloaga a process of self-affirmation. Both as man and artist he is typically autogeneous. It is through gazing into the spectrum of his own soul that he has attained that unity of mood and manipulative mastery so essential to art that is destined to endure. He does not accept nature and life as they are. He makes all things conform to his own sovereign creative consciousness.

THE plain white walls of Zuloaga's studio apartment in the rue Caulaincourt are covered with canvases which he prizes above all else in the world, all saving his wife, his daughter Lucia, and son Antonio, for this turbulent exponent of brush and palette is also a devoted family man. Here is a Carreno, there a Goya, there a Zurbaran, there an el Greco, and here are several more Grecos —Greco being, according to him, "el Dios de la pintura." No one in the entire hierarchy of art can, holds Zuloaga, be compared with the mysteryhaunted ascetic of Toledo, the present vogue of whom is in large measure due to the early and discriminating admiration of the younger man. "I live with my august predecessors," he avers with simplicity and conviction, and such seems indeed the case, for they are to him an unfailing solace and source of inspiration. When you survey their contribution and then turn toward his you will be conscious of no break in the continuity of Spanish aesthetic development. He does not imitate his forbears; he perpetuates their aims and ideals. His art, like theirs, is a pictorial epitome of Spain.

IN his foreword to the catalogue of the exhibition, John S. Sargent, R. A., says: "An exhibition of the works of Ignacio Zuloaga is an event to be proclaimed as one of supreme artistic interest. His genius will receive in this country the recognition that it has conquered in the old world. The strangeness and power of Senor Zuloaga's evocations might lead one to consider him as a personality quite unique and unrelated to any past tradition; as a creator of types and of a setting for them charged with an intensity of life strained to a pitch not reached before. But it is in this very excess of romanticism that his link with one of the two main tendencies of the Spanish school can be recognized."