He climbed the Guadarrama in the midst of
winter, standing alone in the snowy fields like an Arctic explorer, to
transfer to his canvas the century-old pines, twisted and black under
their caps of frozen sleet.
When the Exhibition took place, Renovales' name became famous in a
flash. He did not present a huge picture with a key, as he had at his
first triumph. They were small canvases, studies prompted by a chance
meeting; bits of nature, men and landscapes reproduced with an
astonishing, brutal truth that shocked the public.
The sober fathers of painting writhed as if they had received a slap in
the face, before those sketches that seemed to flame among the other
dead, leaden pictures. They admitted that Renovales was a painter, but
he lacked imagination, invention, his only merit was his ability to
transfer to the canvas what his eyes saw. The younger men flocked to the
standard of the new master; there were endless disputes, impassioned
arguments, deadly hatred, and over this battle Renovales', name
flitted, appearing almost daily in the newspapers, till he was almost as
celebrated as a bull-fighter or an orator in the Congress.
The struggle lasted for six years, giving rise to a storm of insults and
applause every time that Renovales exhibited one of his works, and
meanwhile the master, discussed as he was, lived in poverty, forced to
paint water-colors in the old style which he secretly sent to his dealer
in Rome. But all combats have their end.
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