A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

74. A SPANISH PEASANT BOY.

Murillo (Spanish: 1618-1682). See 13.

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 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.