But Velasquez, but Velasquez! In the Prado there is no one else present
when he is by, with his Philips and Charleses, and their "villainous
hanging of the nether lip," with his hideous court dwarfs and his pretty
princes and princesses, his grandees and jesters, his allegories and
battles, his pastorals and chases, which fitly have a vast salon to
themselves, not only that the spectator may realize at once the rich
variety and abundance of the master, but that such lesser lights as
Rubens, Titian, Correggio, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rembrandt,
Zurbaran, El Greco, Murillo, may not be needlessly dimmed by his
surpassing splendor. I leave to those who know painting from the
painter's art to appreciate the technical perfection of Velasquez; I
take my stand outside of that, and acclaim its supremacy in virtue of
that reality which all Spanish art has seemed always to strive for and
which in Velasquez it incomparably attains. This is the literary quality
which the most unteclmical may feel, and which is not clearer to the
connoisseur than to the least unlearned.
After Velasquez in the Prado we wanted Goya, and more and more Goya, who
is as Spanish and as unlike Velasquez as can very well be.
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