Meanwhile his popularity was based upon his decorations and altar-pieces. His decorative ability, which had been recognised, as we have seen, by Velasquez, included a familiarity with the technique of fresco painting, a branch of the art which had few representatives among Spanish painters. The taste for it had been introduced by the Italians summoned to decorate the Escoriál, and perpetuated by other foreigners who were employed in decorating the principal churches and convents. From them Carreño acquired a knowledge of the process. He seems (for I am not acquainted with Carreño’s mural decorations) to have been distinguished in his use of it by a combination of Italian decorative composition with types and motives characteristically Spanish, and by very delicate and spiritual schemes of color. Perhaps the character and quality of the latter may be discovered in the altar-piece by this artist in the Hispanic Museum, New York. It is a _Conception_; the subject being presented in the usual way prescribed by the Church. But the composition is looser, if one may say so, than Murillo’s in similar pictures, with lines more flowing and masses distributed more gaily. It is the arrangement, in fact, of a painter accustomed to the liberty of decoration on a large surface. It has a sweep and elegance that make it akin to the compositions of Antolinez and particularly of Cerezo, whom we briefly discussed in the fourth chapter. In its color-scheme also, it favors theirs. All these artists, in fact, represent [Illustration: CHARLES II CARREÑO THE PRADO] a reaction from the more sober and restricted color-schemes, imposed upon Velasquez and other Court painters. At the same time, they are characteristic of the decline which had already begun. The coloring of this _Conception_ of Carreño’s is distinguishably prettified; pearly pinks and blues, soft greys and greens, perilously suggestive of the _bonboniére_ style. And the sentiment of the whole is correspondingly suave, almost, if not completely, to insipidity. Similarly sentimental are this artist’s _Magdalen in the Desert_ in the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, and his _San Sebastian_ of the Prado. The Magdalen looks like a matured Ariadne, abandoned by her lover. She is posed upon a rocky seat, so that her beautiful arms may be seen to advantage and the long line of her graceful figure duly emphasised. Meanwhile she lifts her tearful gaze to the sky, at a carefully calculated angle that will impress the beauty of her neck upon the sympathetic spectator. As for the _San Sebastian_, it should make a gentle lady weep to behold how this tender body has been abused. In fact, the student who has discovered the true sources of greatness in the Spanish School of painting will not take Carreño very seriously when he is in these moods. Fortunately for his present reputation there is a graver and more dignified side to his art.