"And so that big chap was the blacksmith's son, who caused so much
disturbance among the ignorant people at home!... Madrid was not Rome.
They would soon see what that _genius_ could do!"
Renovales did nothing in the first months of his stay in Rome. He
answered with a shrug of his shoulders those who asked for his pictures
with evident innuendo. He had come there not to paint but to study; that
was what the State was paying him for. And he spent more than half a
year drawing, always drawing in the famous art galleries, where, pencil
in hand, he studied the famous works. The paint boxes remained unopened
in one corner of the studio.
Before long he came to detest the great city, because of the life the
artists led in it. What was the use of fellowships? People studied less
there than in other places. Rome was not a school, it was a market. The
painting merchants set up their business there, attracted by the
gathering of artists. All--old and beginners, famous and unknown--felt
the temptation of money; all were seduced by the easy comforts of life,
producing works for sale, painting pictures in accordance with the
suggestions of some German Jews who frequented the studios, designating
the sizes and the types that were in style in order to spread them over
Europe and America.
When Renovales visited the studios, he saw nothing but _genre_ pictures,
sometimes gentlemen in long dress coats, others tattered Moors or
Calabrian peasants.
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