The marriage over, the ever
loyal Velasquez returned to Madrid, but he returned only to die.
CHAPTER XIII
REYNOLDS AND THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Hitherto we have travelled far and wide in our search for typical
examples of the beautiful in painting. We went from Flanders to Italy,
from Italy to Germany, back to Holland, and thence to Spain. It is
true that we began in England with our first picture, and that we have
returned twice, once with Holbein, and again with Van Dyck, both
foreign born and trained artists. We will finish with examples of truly
native English art.
In the eighteenth century England for the first time gained a foremost
place in painting, though the people of the day scarcely realized that
it was so. Even the poet Gray, writing in 1763, could say:
Why this nation has made no advance hitherto in painting and sculpture,
it is hard to say.... You are generous enough to wish, and sanguine
enough to foresee, that art shall one day flourish in England. I, too,
much wish, but can hardly extend my hopes so far.
Yet in 1763 Reynolds was forty years of age and Gainsborough but four
years younger.
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