Yet Spanish painting, so far as it is individual, works even now upon the lines of Fortuny. After his death it divided into two streams. The official endeavour of the academies was to keep the grand historical painting in flower, in accord with the proud programme announced by Francisco Tubino in his brochure, _The Renaissance of Spanish Art_. "Our contemporary artists," he writes, "fill all civilised Europe with their fame, and are the object of admiration on the far side of the Atlantic. We have a peculiar school of our own with a hundred teachers, and it shuns comparison with no school in any other country. At home the Academy of the Fine Arts watches over the progress of painting; it has perfected the laws by which our Academy in Rome is guided, the Academy in the proud possession of Spain, and situated so splendidly upon the Janiculum. In Madrid there is a succession of biennial exhibitions, and there is no deficiency in prizes nor in purchases. Spanish painting does not merely adorn the citizen's house or the boudoir of the fair sex with easel-pieces; by its productions it recalls the great episodes of popular history, which are able to excite men to glorious deeds. Austere, like our national character, it forbids fine taste to descend to the painting of anything indecorous. Before everything we want grand paintings for our galleries; the commercial spirit is no master of ours. In such a way the glory of Zurburan, Murillo, and Velasquez lives once more in a new sense."