Selected Writings (Dario, Ruben) (56 page)

Marcelino Unceta, like Pérez, specializes in bullfights. His picadors, his powerful horned beasts, his
espadas,
all the figures in the national circus that inspire his pictorial talent, are first-rate. But his posters, examined closely, do not correspond to what one understands by the term “poster art.” They are figures that might be used in a genre painting, or a study for a
real
painting.

I do not consider the caricaturist Xaudaró as belonging to the same line as the Catalan poster-makers, even the new ones, like Gual, who shows indisputable brio and talent. Xaudaró takes his caricatures to the poster: the eternal macrocephalic dwarf, the exaggeration of gesture, the deformation—not, let it be understood, out of an excess of understanding of drawing. So much repetition of his
bonshommes
tires one, I fear. They lie outside one’s expectation for the poster; one sees that they have come from their creator’s albums, or have emerged from the humorous pages of weekly magazines.

Navarrete merits mention on account of the forthrightness of his drawing and coloration—always with the national exaggeration, of course. Both he and almost all of Spain’s draftsmen have used and abused the thick line that outlines the figure, as in the leading of
vitraux.
Since the appearance of the posters that have brought Alphonse Mucha such renown, that tendency to heavy outlining has increased, as, in imitation of the
affichiste
of Sarah Bernhardt, has the unbinding of figures’ hair into volutes and ribbons and ringlets.

I have not had the fortune to come across those posters described by M. Deschamps—who, I understand, has not actually
been
in Spain—in which Spanish painters have attempted to create a national art of the poster here. What I have seen, however, are many reflections, many imitations, many calques. There is a great deal of talent, and many good intentions. It would not be surprising if that creation were achieved. Of course one sees that in the Spanish poster the artists go beyond seeking to attract attention with the nude. I do not know what reason there might be, except for the eternal beauty of the nude, to advertise a sewing machine, or pills, or light fixtures, with naked women, as most French posters do. But here, in this land of lovely female faces, this true empire of flowers, there are many beauties to portray, to the delight of the public’s eye; Sattler, in that fantasy of his in the land of the North, was clever enough to have his
affiche
for the magazine
Pan
blossom from a rare flower. What things, in the clear light of day, might the Spanish palette not say, with the aid of the truth of its sun?

A DIPLOMATIC MISSION

The extraordinary German diplomatic mission, led by Prince Albrecht, has been much talked about in recent days. He is a good Teuton giant, a worthy representative of his military, iron nation. He has brought the Black Eagle to adolescent King Alfonso XIII, who in the palace ceremony gave a very pretty speech in French. There have been no military reviews, out of very sensible considerations. But the foreign princes have seen much of great, indestructible Spain; they have seen the Velázquez gallery in the Prado, have had several impressions that have given them to understand that however much the actions of bad governments may bring ruin and disaster to the Spanish nation, there is a wealth of fecundity and life from which a Spain that is the master of its own future may arise.

The other night they were also able to admire, in the Teatro Real, the superb fount of loveliness that belongs to this people filled with such nobility and enchantment. The aristocracy showed off such jewels of youth and beauty as few countries can boast of, whether it is the “type” with large black eyes and hair of incomparable richness falling over shoulders as harmoniously as the capillary burden that wearies a virginal
annunziana
of the rocks; or the semi-Arabic type, which reveals its Andalucian heritage; or the solid woman of the north who, in her opulence, bears all the pride of a generous race.

And while Darclee performed her brave Manon, I watched the German colossus examine the box seats through his opera glasses. Before him lay the fragrant human flora of the sunlit nation that has lived in an environment of knightly heroism under a sky of poesy; there, the descendants of the highest names of Spanish nobility, still preserving all the grace painted by so many illustrious brushes and sung by so many luminous poets.

And something by don Alonso Quijano “the Good” whispered to my soul: “Let the dum-dum bullet be tried on the Boer, and let the end of the nineteenth century be a time of blood and slaughter, reasoned or unreasoned. Someone has said that Krupp is Hegel and the Chamberlain is Darwin. There is no cause for despair. These heartless scientists may be succeeded by reasonable and necessary lyrical links. Don Quixote is never a bad thing. And William II writes verse and paints pictures and composes operas and hymns. Spain should not think of war now, or of things that it has been shown by the variety of its fortune or the fragility of greatness. And when the Germanic Caesar sends a black eagle, the gift in return should be a white dove.”

¡TOROS! (EXCERPTS)

April 6, 1899

 

The gay peach trees are sporting fresh spring pink, the Retiro is all green, and with the springtime come the bulls. The city is beginning to see its usual profusion of Cordoban sombreros, tight pants in an absurd callipygian display, the smooth-skinned faces of the men of the bullring and their assistants. The day of the beginning of the bullfight season was a day of great celebration. On Alcalá, I was able to salute the spirit of Gautier several times. It was the same atmosphere as in the time of Juan Pastor and Antonio Rodríguez: the calashes lining the boulevard, the mules with pompoms and bright bunting, the carriages passing by filled with
aficionados,
the mantillas adorning the many enchanting heads. The very breeze seemed filled with enthusiasm; no one could think of anything but the next performance, no one could talk about anything else. Colored cravats exploded on men’s shirtfronts; jackets seemed to have multiplied; bells jingled as vehicles rumbled by; the petulant figure of El Guerra appeared everywhere on the brightly colored posters.

—El Guerra! His name is like the blast of trumpets, or a flag. He stands a head taller than Castelar, Núñez de Arce, and Silvela; today, it is he who triumphs, he who is the lord and master of a fascinated city. El Guerra! Salvador Rueda, so very Andalucian, finds nothing more to say to me about his beloved
torero
than “He is Mallarmé!”

Let us go, then, to the bullfight.

“It has been repeated almost
ad nauseam
that the taste for bullfights, those famous
corridas de toros,
is waning in Spain, and that civilization will soon see that they disappear. If civilization does that, so much the worse for it, because a bullfight is one of the most beautiful spectacles that man can imagine.” Who wrote that? Great Théo, magnificent Gautier, who came from “over the mountains” to see the fiestas of blood and sun; later, Barrès was to discover the
sang, volupté, et mort.
It is easy to understand the impression made upon that man who “knew how to think” by the cruel circus pomps. It is undeniable that the spectacle is magnificent, that so much color, so much gold and crimson, under the golds and purples of the sky, is singularly striking and seductive, and that the vast ring in which those jugglers of death, gleaming in silks and metals, exhibit their talents has a Roman air about it, a certain Byzantine grace. Artistically speaking, then, those of you who have read descriptions of a
corrida,
or who have witnessed one for yourselves, cannot deny that it is a thing whose beauty makes an impression. The gathering of a sun-people in these celebrations in which instinct and vision are rewarded, is justified, and from that justification derives the deification of the bullfighter, the
torero.

Nodier raconte qu’en Espagne.
. . .
⁹¹
It is easy to imagine Gautier’s enthusiasm for this “Espagne” of his, which appeared in the Romantic period to be a peninsula from a fairy tale: the Spain of
châteaux,
the Spain of Hernani, and another, more fantastical Spain if you like, which, even if it did not exist, had to be invented. That Spain came forth in the fantasies of Gautier, and the bulls seen by him were seen through the magic of the imagination. On Calle Alcalá he was swept up, and swept along, by the picturesque crowds; the coaches, the mules adorned as for a fair day, the princely riders, the violent hues heated even further by the afternoon sun, the characteristic national “types.” Art seized him at every moment, and if a brace of mules brought to his memory a painting by Van der Meulen, a pass with the
torero
’s cape reminded him of an engraving by Goya. Here he found the famous
“manola,”
that young woman of Madrid’s lower classes, who would bring him to write a no less famous song whose
“¡alza! ¡hola!”
would be repeated in the future in all the café-concerts of Paris. He was fascinated by details; we smile now at the sincerity with which he corrected his compatriots in search of “local color”: one should say
torero,
not
toreador;
one should say
espada,
not
matador.
Later, he amended Delavigne’s essay, telling him that the Cid’s sword was called
tizona,
not
tizonade,
and correcting an error in his use of Spanish in the description of a bullfight. Oh! the Spanish of the French would yield up many curious quotations, from Rabelais to Maurice Barrès, and including Victor Hugo and Verlaine. The bulls captured the eyes of the poet of
Enamels and Cameos
:
⁹²
“When I was about to sit in my place, in the seats,” he says, “I experienced a dizzying, dazzling sensation. Torrents of light flooded the ring, for the sun is a high, high chandelier (which has the advantage of not spraying kerosene about). . . . A throaty, roaring murmur floating like a haze of sound above the sand. On the sunny side of the
plaza
thousands of fans and parasols fluttered and sparkled. . . . I assure you that twelve thousand spectators in a theater so vast that its ceiling can only be painted by God himself, with the splendid azure that He extracts from the urn of eternity—that sight is an
admirable
spectacle.”

Later were to come the vicissitudes of the games, the magnificence of the suits and capes, the bloody incidents—disemboweled horses, wounded bulls—and the tempestuous audience, an audience whose equal could not be found unless one traveled back to the circuses of Rome. And all this with sun and music and trumpeted fanfares and fiery
banderillas.
⁹³

“The bullfight had been a good one,” he concludes: “eight bulls and fourteen horses dead, one of the bulls’ keepers slightly wounded—one could not ask for anything better.” We can accept that for reasons of imagination and artistic sensibility men such as Gautier were infected with a taste for the bullfights of Spain; but the case is, that infection spreads to foreigners who are wholly “intellectual,” so that it is not unusual to see, up in the seats, a blond
commis-voyageur
⁹⁴
giving clear signs of the most overflowing sort of contentment.

As strongly rooted as bullfights are in Spain, it is inconceivable that there should come a time when this violent hobby should no longer be. Before and after Jovellanos, there have been those who have protested against the practice, and they have broken their best arrows against the centuries-old bronze of this most immovable of customs. In the provinces, the same thing happens as in Madrid. Sevilla seems to water its red carnations with the blood of those fierce
soavetaurilias
; there, bullfights—which they call
fiestas de toros,
bull-feasts—are inseparable from the fire of the sun, the warmly amorous women, the manzanilla sherry, the furious happiness of the earth. The
corrida
is another aspect of the land’s voluptuousness, and Bloy’s opinion as to the sensuality of the spectacle would find its best support in the truly sadistic enjoyment taken by certain women who attend the bloody performance. The Sevilla of Mañara’s sword-thrusts, Moorish languor, females for whom Gutierre de Cetina dissolved, the bloody scenes of Zurbarán, the feminine flesh of Murillo, little Gypsy girls, generous bandits, must be the Sevilla of the classic bullfight. Under Ferdinand III, the young men of the nobility had their own special ring in which to practice their favorite sport. Royal births and the taking of Zamorra were celebrated with bullfights. The cardinal Archbishop Rodrigo de Castro forbade bullfights during one particular jubilee year; the city protested to His Excellence and won, with the support of Philip II. The bullfight went on. . . .

In the times of Philip IV “don Juan de Cárdenas, one of the duke’s jesters, a man of excellent humor, fought bulls, and with such skill and princely nobility that he gave the most furious bull a good sword-thrust: His Majesty killed three bulls with a harquebus,” said one chronicler of the time. Philip V attempted to replace bullfights with “intellectual games,” but the French part of him was defeated by the Spanish part. Yesterday, as today—
toros
forever! . . .

Nevertheless, there are certain passionate followers of the sport who lament the decadence of bullfights; they say that today there is no “love of the art,” that the
espadas
(Frenchmen and others, read: “matadors”) have become simple businessmen, and that the breeders, even the descendants of Columbus, offer—according to Pascual Millán, notable taurographer—“rickets-ridden animals, without blood or bravery or power.” Some days ago I met, in Aranjuez, a hospitable, friendly man who, through his knowledge of the pigtail, showed a certain refinement and a liking for Latin America. He spoke to me about the Río de la Plata, and Chile, and his friend Agustín Edwards. This was the famous Angel Pastor. He is suffering greatly. At the top of his career, when he was still strong and young, he had the misfortune to break an arm. He will no longer be able to “work,” as he calls it; the bad luck has hit him worse than an angry bull, and has crippled him. And Pastor also spoke about how bad bullfighting is today, how the art has fallen into decay; and he spoke about the “classical” and the “modern” forms, like some professor of literature or painting. But he lacks not the fat diamond on the finger and the admiration of everyone. The best hotel in Aranjuez is his. And the traditional gentility and chivalry are his, too.