Page:Lisbon and Cintra, Inchbold, 1907.djvu/105

Rh for there is only a catalogue of one division, and some of doubtful origin are attributed to the great masters: Michael Angelo, Rubens, Raffaelle, Vandyke and to stars of lesser magnitude, Teniers, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Landseer and so forth, without real authority.

The primitive Portuguese school, the mysterious Flemish pictures, and what is called in Portugal the Gothic (meaning Germanic) school are nearly all nameless works. The best are always attributed to Grão Vasco, that great national artist of the Middle Ages, about whose life and experience hangs a cloud of mystery as impenetrable as that which envelops those of Shakespeare in England. Count Raczynsky, who published in Paris, 1846, a very careful detailed work, prepared con amore, on the Arts in Portugal and is still reckoned by many as an authority, gathered together all the matter he could find relating to this artist; others declare he never existed at all but has in course of time been made by tradition the figurehead of the school his work represents. Almeida Garrett, a later exponent of artistic and literary life in Portugal, declares that it is known from documents of the time that Grão Vasco lived about the end of the fifteenth century, that he was painter-royal in the reign of D. Alfonso V and D. Manuel, that his style resembling the old Florentine school makes critics pronounce him to have been a pupil of Pedro Perugino. "Strong, accurate, yet rugged draughtmanship, high conceptions of architecture, beauty of landscape work are the characteristic marks of this celebrated genius whose fertile brush and assiduous application enriched the kingdom with his achievements."

Exhibitions of modern art are held in the Academy of the Bellas Artas in the same old monastery as the National Library, but not every year so it seems, as this season the Barcelona International Exhibition appears to have 77