A King like a Rock

Peter the Great at the Battle of the Col de Panissars (1889) by the Spanish painter Mariano Barbasán Lagueruela (1864-1924).

Barbasan depicts here the great king of Aragon stopping an French army of crusaders in the Pyrenees. Some of the Aragonese soldiers hesitate or are looking even a little scared viewing the overwhelming forces of the enemy. But the king stands firm and proud like a continuation of the rocks under his feet.
But it’s not only a well composed painting. It’s typical for the heyday of European history painting. The weapons, the chainmail, the coat of arms, all these details are historically as perfect as possible.

Echoes of History

Echoes of Roncesvalles (1890) by the Spanish painter Antonio Muñoz Degrain (1840-1924).

This painting refers to the battle of Roncesvalles in 778, where Charlemagne's rear guard was annihilated by the Basques. But it’s far more than the typical pseudo-realistic battle painting.

Muñoz Degrain became well known for his traditional history paintings. But later he moved to impressionism, which changed not only his way of painting but also his view on history.
Although there is a canyon with skeletons to be seen, this is obviously not Roncesvalles or at least no realistic depiction of it. The impressionist Muñoz Degrain is not interested in this. History is no portrayable, it’s covered by myths and legends. And because of that he painted only the echoes - the impression.

The Moor's last sigh

El ultimo suspiro del moro (1892)

The Spanish painter Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz (1848-1921) is relating here a nice anecdote about the fall of Granada in 1492. When the Sultan Boabdil, the last Moorish ruler in Spain, had to leave his beloved Granada he turned around and made a big sigh. As legend tells his mother approached him and said: "don't weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man".

Salman Rushdie took this legend as an inspiration for his famous novel “The Moor's Last Sigh”.

The End of a Rebellion

The Spanish painter Antonio Gisbert Pérez (1835-1902) was a convinced liberal. On this painting he shows the end of the rebellion of the Castilian towns in 1521. The members of the Catholic Church are shown as the great enemies of any liberal movement. The rebels didn’t listen to their promises and threats. They are the true martyrs of their time and their people.

Los Comuneros de Castilia (1860)

Joanna the Mad

One a the great European history paintings is "Juana the Mad holding vigil over the coffin of her husband, Philip the Handsome" by the Spanish artist Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz (1848-1921).

There is no bright spanish sun or happy dancing and wine drinking people. It's a hard cold land. And there's this queen, pregnant and half-mad, beside her broken dreams.

I think the painting could only be understand by a look on the situation in Spain in the time of its creation. It was painted 1878 few years after the miserable end of the First Spanish Republic. Spain fought internal wars againts the Carlist insurrectors, and outside in Cuba, where it defended the small rest of the once so spledid empire.

So there was no time for optimism or happiness. To remain standing and to endure was the best to hope for.