wn are one.

In "The Actress Pilar Soler," on the other hand, Zuloaga dispenses as
far as possible with definite aids to expression. The costume is
undefined; the half-length figure, draped in black and placed high on
the canvas, is seen against a dark greenish-blue background. The mass of
the silhouette, unbroken as in an Egyptian statue, but with tremulous
contours suggesting the fluttering of life in the dimly defined body, is
sufficiently considered and distinguished; but it is the modeling of the
face that holds the attention, a mere blur of tone, yet with all the
planes understood and with a certain material richness of impasto that
contributes to the look of solid flesh, the dark of the eyebrows making
the only pronounced accent--a face that becomes more and more vital as
you look at it, with that indestructible vitality of which, among the
Frenchmen, Carriere was master.

In several other canvases, notably in the first version of "My Cousin
Esperanza," and the second version of "Women in a Balcony," Zuloaga has
caught this effect of vague fleeting values, changes in surface so
subtle as to be felt rather than seen, a kind of floating modeling that
suggests form rather than insists upon it. And he has done this in the
most difficult manner. Whistler long ago taught us to appreciate the
effect, but he worked with thin layers of pigment, a sensitive surface
upon which the slightest accent made an impression. Zuloaga, on the
contrary, works with a full brush, and consequently a more unmanageable
surface. He attains his success as a sculptor does against the odds of
his material, but he seems better to suggest his special types in this
way.

[Illustration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America.

MERCEDES

_From a painting by Zuloaga_]

Often he makes his modeling with the sweep of his brush in one direction
and another. "Candida Laughing" shows this method, and so does the
"Village Judge," in which the pigment is still more freely swept about
the bone of the cheek and the setting of the eye, telling its story of
the way the human face is built up in the frankest and briefest manner.
With the lovely "Mercedes," a fragile figure, elegant in type, the
workmanship becomes again less outspoken. The haughty, graceful
carriage, and the intense refinement of the features that glow with
a pale light beneath the fine lace of the scarf, demand and receive a
daintier, more fastidious interpretation. In the portrait