Antonio de Murillo

“ Murillo has always been one of the most popular of painter snot in Spain alone. His works show great technical attainment without much style, and a strong feeling for ordinary nature and for truthful or sentimental expression without lofty beauty or ideal elevation. His ecstasies of Madonnas and Saints are the themes of some of his most celebrated achievements. ”

“ The trees and flowers, the birds and beasts of a foreign land may endure in a clime for which they were not intended, but there is no more than an arrested growth; they cannot do justice to themselves. Frankly and without reserve we admit that Murillo was almost as much an Andalusian as a painter, but when we know his city and his work there, a fine picture in the National Gallery or the Louvre will bring Seville back to us as surely as a sea-shell brings back the ceaseless murmur of the waves. ”

“ Many learned and critical works have been written about Murillo, but whereas Velazquez has been familiarised to the general reader by the aid of small, popular biographies, the niche is still empty which it is hoped that this book will fill.
In this volume the attempt has been made to show the painter’s art in its relation to the religious feeling of the age in which he lived, and his own feeling towards his art. Murillo was the product of his religious era, and of his native province, Andalusia. To Europe in his lifetime he signified little or nothing. ”

“ A living model was a luxury generally beyond the means of the school, but on great occasions the youths would strip in turn and proffer an arm or a leg to be, studied by their fellows. Objects of still life, however, were much studied by Murillo, and he early learnt to hit off the ragged urchins of Seville. Murillo in a few years painted as well as his master, and as stiffly. His two pictures of the Virgin, executed during this period, show how thoroughly he had mastered the style, with all its defects. ”

“ Elizabeth.” The one represents the abnegation of self in woman’s way—she gives service. The other represents man’s way—he gives money. At the portal of the church stands the pale-faced, spiritual St. Thomas, dispensing his alms to beggars and cripples. In composition and drawing this is one of Murillo’s greatest works. We are interested to know that it was his own favorite among his pictures.
“The Madonna of the Napkin ” is both beautiful and curious. While Murillo was painting a series of pictures for a Capuchin convent of Seville, the cook became very much attached to him. ”

“ The artists do not all regard him in the same manner, but they love him above all others, and they are not able to divorce their admiration from their love.
Murillo is not merely a great painter; he is a great soul. He has won more than glory: he has won the love of Spain. He is more than a sovereign master of the beautiful; he is a benefactor, an inspiration to noble deeds, for a lovely image, when once seen on his canvas, is carried in the heart throughout life with a feeling of gratitude and religious devotion. ”

“ It is easy enough to study Murillo in the public galleries, but it seems more satisfactory to see his canvases in the places for which they were painted, and a special interest attaches to the hospital of the Caridad, because it was founded by one of the men whom an age of devout belief is apt to produce from time to time—a desperate sinner turned saint. ”

“ But for Murillo's life of poverty he could not have had this sympathy with the poor. Doubtless every experience is given us with a purpose, that either through the brush or the pen, or by word or deed, we may the better do our part for the elevation of mankind.
In 1642, Murillo had a new inspiration. A fellow-pupil in Castillo's school, Pedro de Moya, after joining the Spanish army and campaigning in Flanders, had spent six months in London under Van Dyck. Now he came back to Seville aglow with his delights in travel and the wonders of the Flemish painters. ”

“ At first sight, the blazing sun of Velasquez’{70} genius would seem to obscure and dwarf the paler orb of Murillo’s. It is like passing from Cervantes to Calderon; and if the one paints men and manners with inimitable force and humours, the other takes us straight up to heaven, where we abide with saints and angels.
It is curious that the distinctive recognition of Murillo as a great religious painter should not yet have generally taken place in England. People who do not travel and read Mr. ”

“ If I remember rightly, we know one hundred and thirty canvases of Murillo, to any one of which our admiration hesitates to award the pre-eminence,—and if the crown of laurels which a Pope laid upon the funeral couch of Raphael is the consecration of the sovereignty of the painter of Urbino for History, the universally popular name of Murillo has also sanctified the incontestable genius of the painter of Seville. ”

“ His house still stands in the Jews' Quarter, and a few of his best works are kept in the picture-gallery; among them the one which he was wont to call "my picture"—"St. Thomas of Villanueva Giving Alms." Like the "Saint Elizabeth" at Madrid, it is a grand study of beggary—vagabondism as you may see it to-day throughout Spain, but here elevated by excellent design, charming sympathy with nature, and the resources of a delightful colorist, into something possessing dignity and permanent interest—qualities which the original phenomenon lacks. Murillo is pure, sincere, simple, but never profound ”

“ There have been long years in which the name of Bartolomé Esteban, known to the world as Murillo, was one to conjure with. Velazquez, El Greco, Ribera, Zurburan, Goya, were long uncertain in their appeal, recognised only by the enlightened among their contemporaries and ignored by the great majority of their fellow-countrymen. The pendulum of taste swings slowly from one extreme to the other, and, as the moods and needs of men change so they cast their idols into the dust, where they remain until another generation restores what it can find to the old pedestals. ”

“ The Gallery, however, compensates for all. Our travellers had spent months at Florence, at Rome, at Dresden, and fancied that nothing could come up to the Pitti, the Uffizi, or the Vatican—that no picture could equal the "San Sisto;" but they found they had yet much to learn. No one who has not been in Spain can so much as imagine what Murillo is. In England he is looked upon as the clever painter of picturesque brown beggar-boys: there is not one of these subjects to be found in Spain, from St. ”

“ Look at this and the other little boy near it (176) , and you will see at once the secret of Murillo's popularity. "In a [Pg 149] country like Spain he became easily the favourite of the crowd. He was one of themselves, and had all the gifts they valued. Not like Velazquez, reproducing by choice only the noble and dignified side of the national character, Murillo could paint to perfection either the precocious sentiment of the Good Shepherd with the lamb by his side, or the rags and happiness of the gipsy beggar boy" (W. B. Scott's Murillo, p. 76) —
Poor and content is rich and rich enough. ”

“ It is very fine in its mingling of soft, rich hues and flamboyant realism. The artist has revelled in the opportunity for anguish of expression that his subject afforded, but has treated it with such a passionate seriousness that, in his grim, fierce way, he does not fail to be impressive. The frame is of twisted golden pillars, supported by little naked angels, and decorated with grapes and vine-leaves. Above and at the sides are great saints in carved wood, and angels with floating drapery.
Murillo was on terms of intimacy with don Miguel de Mañara, and like him a member of the Hermandad. ”

“ Such examples has Spain given to the world of the purest patriotism, the first element of greatness in a nation; of a self-reliance that, when all seems lost, will not look without for aid, but to itself.
She has not ceased her working here. In no department has she been backward. Science owes her much. Literature is enriched by her authors. The inspirations of Murillo are the embodiment of all that our religion can feel in its deepest moments; before his canvas, the Christian prays, the infidel cannot scoff. ”

“ Down to the year of his return to Seville the painter's work is of small importance, and in all probability the most of it has been lost. In a country where the wealthy were better prepared to buy pictures than to attach any importance to those who painted them, it is hardly likely that the rough immature efforts of the painter who sought his patrons at the weekly Fair would command attention. Critics of Murillo divide his works into three periods, the first dating from 1646 to 1652, when his outlines were hard and the background lacked depth, and the colouring was more or less metallic. ”

“ Her lips are half open and tremulous. She is borne up in a flood of silvery light, calmly ecstatic, her whole soul in her eyes, which are bathed in a humid languor, and her beautiful hair, caressed by the wind, is floating around her like an aureola of gold. The whole is a vision as intoxicating as a cloud of Arabian incense. It is a poem of mystical Pg 24 love—the very ecstasy of devotion.
Murillo’s best paintings were done for the Franciscans, the great defenders of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. From the Capuchins of Seville perhaps he derived his inspiration. ”

“ Murillo was born at Magdalena, near Seville, on the first day of January, 1618, and died on the third of April, 1682. He was buried in the church of Santa Cruz at Seville. The immediate cause of his death, although he had long been worn out by the anguish of his infirmities, was a fall from a scaffold while he was painting the Marriage of Saint Catharine for the Convent of Capuchins at Cadiz. ”

“ As a rule, the gentlemen employed in Spain to restore masterpieces seem to have as much knowledge of art as the African witch doctor has of the healing art that is practised by a London Doctor of Medicine. It is only now and again, when one finds Murillo at his best in a picture that has defied the assaults of time, that one can realise what the cruel mercies of the restorer have done to obscure the painter's work. They have accentuated the obvious, turned sentiment into sentimentality, and made colour schemes lose their refinement. ”

“ You may find his work in all the great galleries to-day, but to know Murillo intimately one must go to Spain—to Seville and Madrid for choice. France boasts a fine collection, and many of those that adorn our National Gallery, Dulwich and Wallace Collections, are worthy of the painter. In Rome, Florence, Dresden, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg he is represented by work that demands attention. ”

“ You will see all the sombreness of Spanish piety, the savage faith, dissolved into ineffable love. Religion has become a wonderful tenderness, in which passionate human affection is inextricably mingled with god-like adoration. Murillo, these sensual forms quivering with life, brought the Eternal down to earth, and gave terrestrial ardour to the apathy of an impersonal devotion; that, perhaps, is why to women he has always been the most fascinating of painters. ”

“ Murillo’s subject-matter, says Señor Cossío, in the background as in the thing portrayed, represents always the soft and agreeable side of life. In the sphere of spontaneous creation, in that which does not require profundity, nor reflection, Murillo always exerts an irresistible attraction. ”

“ In the combination of these excellences, Titian, among all the Italian masters,{229} most nearly resembles Murillo; but if a picture of this eminent master be placed beside a picture of Murillo, executed in his ripest years, the former appears feebler; this is probably owing to the unapproachable excellence of Murillo’s colouring, which combines the brilliancy of the Flemish, with the truth of the Venetian. Looking at the greatest efforts of Murillo’s pencil, there seems nothing left to desire. An invention noble and touching; a conception natural and graceful ”

“ It may not be improper to add here, that, in our opinion, Murillo is at the head of the class of painters, who have treated subjects of common life. There is something in his pictures which is not to be found at all in the productions of the Dutch school. After making the colours on the canvass feel and think, the next best thing is to make them breathe and live. But there is in Murillo’s pictures a look of real life, a cordial flow of animal spirits, to be met with no where else. We might here particularly refer to his picture of the Two Spanish Beggar-boys in Mr. ”

“ The fame of these productions soon got abroad, and “El Claustro Chico” swarmed daily with artists and critics. Murillo was no longer friendless and unknown. The rich and the noble of Seville overwhelmed him with their commissions and their praises.
In 1648 Murillo married a wealthy lady of rank, Dona Beatriz de Cabrera y Sotomayor, of the neighbourhood of Seville, and his house soon became the favourite resort of artists and connoisseurs. About this time he was associated with the landscape-painter Yriarte-the two artists interchanging figures and landscapes for their respective works ”

“ He gives occasional instances of great sublimity of expression, but it is a sublimity which neither forces nor enlarges nature: truth and simplicity are never out of sight. It is what the painter sees, not what he conceives, which is presented to you. Herein he is distinguished from his preceptor Velasquez. That great master, by his courtly habits of intercourse, contracted a more proud and swelling character, to which the simple and chaste pencil of Murillo never sought to aspire. A plain and pensive cast, sweetly attempered by humility and benevolence, marks his canvass ”