The last of the old masters and the first of the moderns, as he has
been called, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes is not so
familiarised to English readers as his genius deserves. He was born
at a time when the tradition of Velazquez was fading, and the
condition of Spanish painting was debased almost beyond hope of
salvation; he broke through the academic tradition of imitation;
“he, next to Velazquez, is to be accounted as the man whom the
Impressionists of our time have to thank for their most definite
stimulus, their most immediate inspiration.”
The genius of Goya was a robust, imperious, and fulminating genius;
his iron temperament was passionate, dramatic, and revolutionary;
he painted a picture as he would have fought a battle. He was an
athletic, warlike, and indefatigable painter; a naturalist like
Velazquez; fantastic like Hogarth; eccentric like Rembrandt; the
last flame-coloured flash of Spanish genius.
It is impossible to reproduce his colouring; but in the
reproductions of his works the author has endeavoured to convey to
the reader some idea of Goya’s boldness of style, his mastery of
frightful shadows and mysterious lights, and his genius for
expressing all terrible emotions.
* * * * *
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
CORDOVA
A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT CITY WHICH THE
CARTHAGINIANS STYLED THE “GEM OF THE SOUTH,” WITH 160 ILLUSTRATIONS
Gay-looking, vivacious in its beauty, silent, ill-provided,
depopulated, Cordova was once the pearl of the West, the city of
cities, Cordova of the thirty suburbs and three thousand mosques;
to-day she is no more than an overgrown village, but she still
remains the most Oriental town in Spain.
Cordova, once the centre of European civilisation, under the Moors
the Athens of the West, the successful rival of Baghdad and
Damascus, the seat of learning and the repository of the arts, has
shrunk to the proportions of a third-rate provincial town; but the
artist, the antiquary and the lover of the beautiful, will still
find in its streets and squares and patios a mysterious spell that
cannot be resisted.
* * * * *
BY ALBERT F. CALVERT
LIFE OF CERVANTES
A NEW LIFE OF THE GREAT SPANISH AUTHOR TO COMMEMORATE THE TERCENTENARY
OF THE PUBLICATION OF “DON QUIXOTE,” WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS AND
REPRODUCTIONS FROM EARLY EDITIONS OF “DON QUIXOTE”.
Size Crown 8vo. 150 pp. Price 3/6 net
PRESS NOTICES
“A popular and accessible account of the career of Cervantes.”
_Daily Chronicle._
“A very readable and pleasant account of one of the great writers of all
time.”
_Morning Leader._
“Mr. CALVERT is entitled to the gratitude of book-lovers for his
industrious devotion at one of our greatest literary shrines.”
_Birmingham Post._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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