writes to his brother in London: "If my history shall ever be written, it will
be found though in a different way, quite as wonderful as that of Benvenuto
Cellini" Taking heart, and rallying amidst such kindly encouragement, he
ventured to resume his labours} and although his progress was, as he says, by
little and by little, half an hour at a time, and three half hours a-day," he
executed two small pictures, and nearly finished a large one in the course of
five months. As only two out of the three years had been spent during which he was to reside abroad for the recovery of his health, Wilkie, who had sufficiently studied the Italian school of painting, was now anxious to devote his
attention to that of Spain, and to study especially the productions of Velasquez
and Murillo. Furnished with letters of introduction, and having already friends
at Madrid, from whom he was sure of a hearty welcome, he set off upon this
new journey, and arrived at Madrid in October, 1827.
This visit to Spain was in the highest degree influential upon Wilkie's future course as an artist, and in his letters at this time we recognize a new principle acting upon him in full vigour. "The five months I have passed here," he thus writes to his sister, "have, in point of society, been dull, but in point of pursuit and occupation far otherwise. For what I have seen I may almost be the envy of every British artist; and from what I have been doing, weak as I am, have again the happiness to say with the great Correggio, though on a far more humble occasion, 'Anch’ io sono pittore." To his brother he writes: "This winter, though as severely interrupted as ever by my malady, yet pictures are growing up under my hands with even greater rapidity than they used to do in Kensington; and if less laboured, the effect to the eye and impression on the mind seem not at all to suffer by it." The study of the Italian, and especially the Spanish school, had inspired him with the resolution to be less fastidious and more rapid in execution than before, and accordingly he dashed on with a fearlessness that formed a new trait in his character. The subjects also which he selected were in harmony with the inspiration, for they were Spanish, and connected with the war of independence. The first of three pictures on this subject he finished in ten short weeks, and then sat down astonished at his own rapidity. But he was heartened onward in this bold commencement of a new era in his life by the commendations of the artists and critics in Madrid, while his levee was crowded by dukes, counts, and solemn hidalgos, who looked on and worshipped his artistic doings, as if the old days of Spanish painting and Spanish national glory were returning side by side. All this adulation was gratifying in the highest degree; but still, Wilkie had an occasional recoil of doubt and misgiving. How the innovation might be relished by his brother artists was also a trying question, and he thus feels his way upon the subject in a letter to one of the academicians: "I need not detail to you what I have seen in the Escurial, in Madrid, or Seville: it is general ideas alone I wish to advert to. Being the only member of our academy who has seen Spain, perhaps it is to be regretted that I see it with an acknowledged bias or prejudice, in which I fear scarcely any will participate. With some of my kindest friends, indeed, much of what I have seen and thought will cast between us an influence like the apple of discord; and if some of our youths with less matured minds—while I write this with one hand, fancy me covering my face with the other—should venture, now that an entrance to the mysterious land has been opened, across the Bidassoa, what a conflict in testimony there would be!"
