When Fortuny was thirty years old he married the daughter of a Spaniard called Madrazo, director of the Royal Museum. His wife's family had several well known artists in it, and the marriage was a very happy one. Because of this, Fortuny was inspired to paint one of the greatest of his pictures, "The Spanish Marriage." In it are to be seen the portraits of his wife and his friend Regnault. After a time he went to live in Granada; but he could never forget the beautiful, barbaric scenes in Morocco, and so he returned there. Afterward he went with his wife to live in Rome, and there they had a fine home and everything exquisite about them, while fortune and favour showered upon them; but he fell ill with Roman fever, because of working in the open air, and he died while he was comparatively a young man. PLATE--THE SPANISH MARRIAGE Fortuny is said to "split the light into a thousand particles, till his pictures sparkle like jewels and are as brilliant as a kaleidoscope.... He set the fashion for a class of pictures, filled with silks and satins, bric-à-brac and elegant trifling." Look at the brilliant scene in this picture! The priest rising from his chair and leaning over the table is watching the bridegroom sign his name. This chap is an old fop, bedecked in lilac satin, while the bride is a dainty young woman, without much interest in her husband, for she is fingering her beautiful fan and gossiping with one of her girl friends. She wears orange-blossoms in her black hair and is in full bridal array. One couple, two men, sit on an elegantly carved seat and are looking at the goings-on with amusement, while an old gentleman sits quite apart, disgusted with the whole unimpressive scene. Everybody is trifling, and no one is serious for the occasion. The furnishings of the room are beautiful, delicate, almost frivolous. People are strewn about like flowers, and the whole effect is airy and inconsequent. Fortuny painted also "The Praying Arab," "A Fantasy of Morocco," "Snake Charmers," "Camels at Rest," etc. XV THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH _English School_ 1727-1788 _Pupil of Gravelot and of Hayman_ There seems to have been no artist, with the extraordinary exceptions of Dürer and Leonardo, who learned his lessons while at school. Little painters have uniformly begun as bad spellers.