figure of Janus, on the border-line between two centuries, standing in a manner between two worlds, he was the last of the old masters and the first of the moderns--even in that special sense in which we employ the word to-day. [Illustration: GOYA. DE QUE MAL MORIRA. _From "Los Capriccios."_] Through a commission to design cartoons for the Spanish manufactories of tapestry, he was brought into contact with the Court. Member of the Academy of San Fernando in 1780, Pintor del Rey, with an income of 12,500 francs in 1786, he became soon afterwards the Director of the Madrid Academy--the drollest Director of an Academy that man can imagine! Goya, the peasant youth, with his bull neck and matador-like strength, lived at the Spanish Court in the midst of the enervated scions of a dissolute aristocracy, who, with their sickly and anæmic features, indolent and impotent, skulked through life, young men prematurely old. Naturally he was the idol of the women, hated by the courtiers on account of his caustic wit, a terror to all husbands because of his perpetual intrigues, and at the same time feared as the best swordsman in Madrid, who drew his rapier with the indifference with which we light a cigarette. It is only as the outcome of such a personality that his works are to be understood. [Illustration: GOYA. SOPLONES. _From "Los Capriccios."_] Goya was far too great a sceptic to put a religious sentiment into matters in which he no longer believed; his talent was far too modern for the religious abstraction to be able to seize him. His "Christ on the Cross," therefore, in the Museo del Prado, is simply tedious, a bad academical study. His frescoes in San Antonio de la Florida, at Madrid, exhibit a pretty, decorative motive--considerable movement, grace, and spirit. But amongst them are angels who sit there most irreverently, and, with a laugh of challenge, throw out their legs _à la_ Tiepolo. The chief picture represents St. Antony of Padua raising a man from the dead. But all that interested him in it were the lookers-on. On a balustrade all around he has brought in the lovely, dainty faces of numerous ladies of the court, his _bonnes amies_, who lean their elbows on the balcony and coquette with the people down below. Their plump, round, white hands play meaningly with their fans; a thick cluster of ringlets waves over their bared shoulders; their sensual eyes languish with a seductive fire; a faint smile plays round their voluptuous lips. Several seem only just to have left their beds, and their vari-coloured, gleaming silks are crumpled. One is just arranging her coiffure, which has come undone and falls over her rosy bosom; another, with a languishing unconsciousness and a careless attitude, is opening her sleeve, whose soft, deep folds expose a snow-white arm. There is much _chic_ in this Church picture. One very immodest angel is supposed to be the portrait of the Duchess of Alba, who was famed for her numerous intrigues.