All that
John McEwen
'The Golden Age of Spanish Painting' (Royal Academy till March 14) is a disappointment. Apart from the Goya exhibition of 1964 this is the first substantial show of Spanish painting to have been seen in this country since 1921; most pf it comes from the Prado. Everything
!ndicated a spectacular, and that is just what it t. It's an academic show attempting, and failing, to illustrate the depth of Spanish
Painting in the time of El Greco, Velazquez and Murillo, who consequently are not shown in the numbers one might reasonably have expected:
five El Grecos, six Velazquez, six Murillos, and not all these great paintings by any means. And devoting itself instead to the display of endless ',religious works by the likes of Valdes Leal, `-arretio de Miranda, the Elder Herrera and Luis Tristan to name only a few of many who will be deservedly unfamiliar to all but connoisseurs of the subject. This academicism is also reflected by Nigel Glendinning's catalogue introduction, where t.1.1,.e artists in question are discussed in terms of 'lie Spanish economy of the time — 'gnomes' of ,Medina del Campo, closed guilds and all — to lotver our agnostic resistance to what we are about to see. Because, of course, religious ardour of the high Roman Catholic sort is not to the taste of the English, nor has been ever since Tudor coal afforded them the first of those comforts that deprived them, and slowly the ,,,rest of the Western world cosseted by the `"efits of industrialisation, of the desire for a Paradisal after-life when this one was proving soadequate. Spain is different. The painters in this exhibition practised largely in the declining Years of the country's greatest period. Velazquez represents the fruition rather than the lowering of Spanish genius. After his death in ,.660 nothing happened for a hundred hears. has the Church, which alone in Spanish history has Possessed a national and exclusive position, Still survives as a power even today, four l'Iundred years after its apogee in the first half of he sixteenth century. This counter-reformationary fervour is exemplified by paintings of El Greco. The distortions and elongations of his figures, the !,!lie colours and wild skies suggest exactly that era of the War with the Netherlands and Pe long tragedy of the expulsion of the Jews hd Moriscos, which ruined Toledo in particubat. And it also conforms to the 'Spiritual Exercises, of St Ignatius, in which the religious event being contemplated had to be emotionally experienced by the person practising the aevotion. Imperfections of detail in El Greco
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hands of 'St John the Evangelist', the dove riffthe 'Annunciation', and many more — are o 'set by the overall architecture of his Pictures. The five here, particularly the smaller o _hes are all masterpieces. El Greco represents the .Passion, the sublime vanitas of the Spanish .pint, Velazquez its dignity. No portraitist has itclged -his sitters less. Here he is represented Chronologically. Three of the most important events in his development as an artist were the
visit of Rubens to Madrid and the two visits, the first at the instigation of Rubens, that he paid to Italy. 'Dona Maria of Austria' is an example from that first visit in 1628, and the two portraits of Philip IV came after the second, when the painter was at the height of his powers. The small strokes, dry paint and greater subtleties of shaded depth and tonal variety, add to a more impressionistic tech nique, single these out from the more contrasted and stilted early works. But it is unnecessary to quibble in a review over the relative merits of paintings of this standard. Murillo, apparently unfashionable today because he is considered a sentimentalist, justifies his former reputation with some brilliant and very welcome naturalism. The poor in 'St James of Alcata Feeding the Poor' really are poor, and in a 'Virgin and Child' Jesus struggling to free himself from his mother's arms really is a child. Others may find something in Zurbaran's robes and still-life or Ribera's notorious bearded lady, but it is the masters — above all Velazquez — who seem the most approachable in these ungodly times. And, as a result, it is worth going on immediately to the Spanish room at the National Gallery to realise yet again just how lucky we already are. 'Thracian Treasures from Bulgaria' (modern Thrace), at the British Museum till March 28 is in the vein of the Tutankhamen exhibition. If treasure is well publicised there is an instant gold rush. The queues, while not comparable with those of two years ago, are nonetheless big enough and impossible once released inside a relatively small room full of jewellers' display cabinets. Don't go at 'weekends till the most morbidly avaricious are satiated. Orpheus was king of Thrace and Dionysus, of wine and debauch, its God. It was relentlessly conquered, even by the Celts, but most notably colonised by the Greeks and Romans. There is plenty here to stir childhood fantasies of Orpheus, of Jason and the Argonauts seeking the incalculable riches of Colchis: helmets with slender nose-guards; greaves to cover the calves and knee-caps; wine vessels; wreaths. Only the Golden Fleece is missing.
Such constant warring and cross-culturisation naturally produced some peculiar hybrids, none stranger than the Egyptian looking greave of silver and gold of 380-350 BC, found among the Vratsa treasure and to date the most important discovery of all. But the general progression is from the simplicity of neolithic pottery (5500 BC) to an ever increasing decorativeness, reaching its zenith in such Roman exhibits as the richly carved helmet (No 290). In between there are approximately 600 items, including a laurel wreath, coated so finely in gold that the veining of the leaves can be seen (380-350 BC); the Vulchitrun treasure of gold vessels and cups weighing a total of 12.5 kgs (12th & 13th c BC); much silver horsewear and the opulence of the Panagyurishte treasure — a gold phiale of acorns and negro heads in relief, for example — from the third and fourth centuries BC.
But this sort of exhibition always makes one wonder how many of those who wait so patiently have ever explored the wealth all round them, even to the extent of visiting the Elgin marbles. Perhaps they have. At the top of the stairs to the right — unavoidable if you're going to the Thracian exhibition — there's a cabinet displaying the decorated gold covers for lozenge-shaped plates, a decorated gold cover for a belt hook and other marvels found in Bush Barrow, Wilsford, Wiltshire and dating from 1600 BC. Take a look as you go by. You'll have them all to yourself.
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