In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, during a pacific period following on the long conflict with the Moors, there arose a number of painters in Castile. Juan II., King of Castile, was a lover of the arts and of literature. We read that this king employed a painter of the Flemish School, named Maestro Rogel, who was reputed to be a pupil of Van Eyck. It was about this time that Flemish art began to influence the work of the Spanish artists, while the Italian style was especially followed by the painters of the Castilian School.
Antonio Rincon has been called the founder of the Castilian School of painting, and it is recorded that this artist studied in Italy before his appointment as court painter to Ferdinand and Isabella. Rincon’s portraits of his royal patrons were at one time in the Church of San Juan de los Reys at Toledo, but they were destroyed during the wars with France. In the Royal Gallery of Madrid, putative copies of these portraits are preserved, and they show great force and individuality. But many of the works of Antonio Rincon, in the mannered Italian style, are of mediocre merit.
A more powerful painter of Castile was Juan de Borgoña, who laboured with Rincon upon the jasper steps of the wonderful Gothic retablo in Toledo Cathedral. Some of Borgoña’s frescoes have perished; but in the Prado Gallery at Madrid there are several pictures, attributed to an unknown artist, which are probably the work of this painter.
Pedro Berruguete, father of Alonso Berruguete, the painter and sculptor, has been likened by Lord Leighton to Carpaccio. Very little is known of Pedro Berruguete. In the Royal Gallery of Madrid there are some paintings ascribed to this artist, representing scenes from the lives of Thomas Aquinas, San Pedro, and Domingo de Guzman, glowing with colour and painted with a strong hand.
Felix Castello, born in Madrid in 1602, was a painter of moderate ability. Two of his paintings may be seen in the Prado Gallery, one depicting “A Battle between Spanish and Dutch,” and the other “The Landing of General Fadrique de Toledo.”
The Titanic genius of Velazquez shone not only above all his predecessors of the School of Castile, but above the host of Spanish painters. Velazquez was born in 1599, and lived until 1660. He was a native of Seville, where he studied art under Francisco de Herrera and Pacheco. In 1623 his fame had reached the ears of the king, through the Duke of Olivares, and Velazquez was appointed royal painter in Madrid, and lodged in the princes’ quarters of the palace. Here he produced his greatest works, often watched while he painted by the king, who enjoyed the society of artists.