MURILLO, BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN (1617–1682)

MURILLO, BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN (1617–1682), Spanish painter. Orphaned at the age of ten, Murillo was adopted by a sister, who arranged his apprenticeship with Juan de Castillo (1590–1657). By 1538, he was working in Seville. Heavenly and Earthly Trinities (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, c. 1638/1640), one of his earliest known works, incorporates characteristic features of several prominent artists, including the elegant facial types of Alonso Cano (1601–1667), the sculpturesque draperies of Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), and a celestial vision in the manner of Juan de Roelas (c. 1560–1624). Murillo's first major commission was a series of eleven pictures for San Francisco in Seville (1645–1648). Part of this series, the Angels' Kitchen (Paris, Louvre, 1646) helped establish his reputation as the leading artist of the city; this large painting depicts an unidentified Franciscan saint, floating in rapture, as elegant angels and putti prepare an elaborate repast.

In the 1650s Murillo received prestigious commissions for the Seville cathedral. In 1655, he painted San Isidoro and San Leandro for the sacristy; the glowing colors of the saints' garments set off their resolute facial expressions. The Vision of Saint Anthony of Padua for the cathedral baptistery (1656) imitates the dynamic baroque style that Francisco de Herrera the Younger (1622–1685) had recently introduced from Madrid.

Murillo spent most of 1658 in Madrid, where he studied paintings by a wide range of Spanish and foreign artists. With Herrera, he founded in 1660 the first art academy in Seville; until 1674 it offered classes in life drawing. In Birth of the Virgin (Paris, Louvre, 1660), Murillo achieved his definitive manner. Firm contours are dissolved through loose, sketchy brushwork and soft, glowing light. This style perfectly corresponded with the tender piety predominating in Spanish religious life of the era.

His many commissions of the 1660s included a group of eighteen altarpieces for the Capuchin church in Seville (1665–1670). For the Hospital de la Caridad, a confraternity devoted to caring for the sick, he produced eight large pictures (1668–1670) depicting good works. Compassionate expressions, warm colors, and hazy atmospheric effects emphasize the theme of loving forgiveness in Return of the Prodigal Son (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1667–1670). His altarpiece of the Immaculate Conception for the Hospicio de Venerable Sacerdotes, Seville (Madrid, Prado, 1678), determined the later iconography of the theme. This jubilant image eliminates almost all traditional attributes; the young, beautiful Virgin is surrounded by celebrating putti, who dissolve into soft clouds and golden light. As the Sevillan economy worsened during the 1670s, Murillo sought patronage in Cádiz, where he was working at the time of his death on altarpieces for the Capuchin church.

Murillo also produced many independent devotional paintings for private clients, some of whom collected his work in large numbers. His five paintings of the Old Testament story of Jacob (including Jacob Setting the Peeled Rods before the Flocks of Laban, Dallas, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, c. 1660) incorporate extensive landscapes, based on northern prototypes. Especially popular were his charming images of the infancy of the Christ Child and of Saint John the Baptist. Typical of these, The Infant Saint John the Baptist and the Lamb (London, National Gallery, c. 1660–1665), shows the Baptist, smiling at the viewer, as he embraces a lamb.

Murillo produced approximately twenty genre paintings, such as Children Playing Dice (Munich, Bayerishche Staatsgemäldesammlungen, c. 1665–1675). In most of these, two or three impoverished children are playing or eating in a pastoral landscape featuring a picturesque ruin. The strong sentimentality distinguishes these paintings from Dutch prototypes. Usually interpreted as a brothel scene, Two Women at a Window (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, c. 1655–1660) may depict an innocent flirtation.

Murillo was esteemed as an elegant portraitist. Don Antonio Hurtado de Salcedo (Spain, private collection, c. 1662/1664) is one of the few hunting portraits by a seventeenth-century Spanish artist. The extensive landscape, the three dogs with their keeper, and numerous genre details emphasize the hunting theme. For his Self-Portrait (London, National Gallery, c. 1670–1673), Murillo utilized a Netherlandish formula, depicting himself in an elaborate oval frame, on which he rests his hand. The inscription and professional attributes suggest the status artists had attained in Spain.

Murillo's many followers included Francisco Meneses Osorio (c. 1640–1721), who finished his series for the Capuchin church in Cádiz. Murillo's work strongly influenced painting in Seville until the late eighteenth century. British collectors avidly sought his paintings throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His paintings of children were imitated by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) and Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788). In the Victorian era, Murillo was regarded as one of the greatest artists of all times.

MURILLO, BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN (1617–1682)

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