It is interesting to compare Goya’s equestrian portraits with those of Velasquez. Goya’s best, in the Prado, are those of the King and Queen. Perhaps the most noticeable difference appears in the treatment of the horses. Velasquez, as we have seen, gave to each of his animals an individual character and action, suitable also to the character and psychology of the rider. A spirited small creature bears the little Don Carlos; a showy, powerful brute the swaggering Olivares; a beast, trained in stately menage, the proud and reserved king. With Goya, however, there is little apparent study of the structure or character of the animal; it is felt for its value as a handsome mass. And the rider’s figure seems to have been felt in the same way; as if by emphasising its mass the artist could evade the inevitable commonplace of the face. Accordingly, in the case of the Queen, the impression we receive is of a black beaver hat with scarlet cockade, scarlet revers and silver braid on a black habit; black trousers against the deep green and gold of the pummel and saddle-cloth, and of a red-bay horse with darker tail; the whole forming a striking silhouette against a dull drab sky that deepens to slaty grey on the right, and a tawny, pale green landscape fading toward the horizon to silver buffs and olive. Similarly, the King’s portrait suggests the effect of a handsome silhouette, which culminates in a blaze of splendor amid the decorations that cover the rider’s breast. This is artfully balanced by the brilliantly white chest of the horse and by a paler white light in one part of the sky. Both these portraits, in fact, are primarily color-impressions. It is as if Goya had taken refuge in this point of view, in order to get over the difficulty of adjusting two such undignified personages to the monumental feeling of a large equestrian portrait. It was a case in which he tried to keep in control his feelings as a satirist. * * * * * [Illustration: QUEEN MARIA LUISA ON HORSEBACK GOYA THE PRADO]