I must tell you just a few things about the pictures,
and give you a peep at Madrid through my eyes, since you are not here
to use your own.
Murillo is here the same as everywhere else. I very much prefer his
pictures in Seville. Velasquez, however, is to be really seen nowhere
so well as here. I do not know how many pictures there are here by him,
but a great quantity, it seems to me: Philips without number, in
childhood, youth, and age; Dons with curled moustaches; Queens with
large hoops and disfigured heads; an actor, full of life and character,
one of his very best. But his greatest picture, and really a wonder, is
his portrait of himself painting the little Infanta, who is in the
foreground of the picture with two young girls, her court ladies, her
dwarf, and a diminutive page. It is quite like a photograph, in clear,
broad effect of light and dark. From the other side of the room, full
of truth and vigor,--as you approach it, you find it is dashed in with
a surety of touch and a breadth truly extraordinary,--no details, no
substance even; painted with one huge brush, it would almost seem, all
is vigorous, dashing, clever, the triumph of _chic_, as shown by a
master hand. The dog in the immediate foreground is capital, the page
pushing him playfully with his foot.
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