Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/98

82 last-named establishment may well be called a very old one, the fact being that it evolved by degrees from a school of engraving, founded in 1778 by Charles IV of Spain, while its first director was a noted Mexican expert of the burin, Geronimo Antonio Gil. In 1783 the king made a handsome pecuniary present to this school, almost simultaneously sending it a valuable gift of casts from the antique; and shortly afterwards he sent overseas, to assume the directorship of affairs, one Rafael Jimeno, a painter, and an architect named Manuel Tolsa. Up till then the Academy's activities had been conducted in a section of the old Mint, but in 1791 it moved into its present spacious quarters, a house previously the Hospital de Amor de Dios, and situate hard by the Palacio Nacional. Just as in all other countries, in Mexico the Academy is fervently disliked by the majority of young artists who are in real earnest about their work, these contending that, by its whole nature, the institution is the sworn foe to that individual note which is essential in vital paintings and sculpture, the enemy, too, of that development or evolution, as regards technique, so indispensable to art's welfare, if not to her life. But waiving this point, it can hardly be gainsaid that, considering the comparatively limited extent of the Mexican national treasury, in the matter of subsidies the country acts munificently towards its Academy, which is thus able to offer numerous scholarships to young men and women. The most valuable of these scholarships admit of their holders going abroad to study; and, quite recently, the incalculable advantages of working for a while in Italy have been granted by the Academy to three of its most promising pupils. Leandro Izaguirre, best known as a gifted copyist of old masters; Ramos Martinez, a successful painter of pastels and a notable colourist; and Alberto Fuster, who has since painted "Sappho" and "The Greek Artist," each of the three receiving a comfortable little pension during his foreign sojourn. What European countries, it is worth pausing to ask, give money sufficient to convey their budding