Great Artists, Vol 1.: Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer

by Jennie Ellis Keysor

Our artist’s full name was Bartolome Esteban Murillo. His last name seems to have come from his father’s family, though it was even more common in those days to take the mother’s name for a surname, as in the case of Velazquez. We know almost nothing of his early years except that he was left an orphan before he was eleven, under the guardianship of an uncle. Perhaps we should mention that Murillo early showed his inclination to make pictures by scribbling the margin of his school books with designs that in no wise illustrated the text therein. With this as a guide his guardian early apprenticed him to Juan del Castillo, another uncle, and an artist of some repute. Here he learned to mix colors, to clean brushes, and to draw with great accuracy.

When Murillo was about twenty-two, Castillo removed to Cadiz, down the river from Seville, and the young artist was thrown wholly on his own resources. Life with him in those days was merely a struggle for existence. He took the method very generally taken by young artists. He painted for the Feria or weekly market. Here all sorts of producers and hucksters gathered with their wares. We can imagine that men of this sort were not very particular about the art objects they purchased. They demanded two things—bright colors and striking figures. Murillo, in common with other struggling artists, turned out great numbers of these little bits of painted canvas. Some of them have been discovered in Spanish America, whither they were undoubtedly taken to assist in religious teaching.

If there was hardship in this painting for the feria, as people slightingly spoke of such work, there were also immense advantages. As he painted he could observe the people who came to buy and the people who came to sell, and, mayhap, that other numerous class in Seville who neither buy nor sell, but beg instead. From this very observation of character must have come largely that skill which is so marked in his pictures of beggar boys, who, with a few coppers, or a melon, or some grapes, are kings of their surroundings. Then the demand for striking figures cultivated a broad style in the artist which added greatly to his later work.

A fellow pupil of Murillo’s had joined the army in Flanders. When he returned he told such wonderful stories of the country and its art works, that Murillo was more than ever inspired to go abroad to Rome or to Flanders. He at once set about earning a little money to assist him in the journey. Again he painted a great number of saints and bright landscapes on small squares of linen, and sold them to eager customers. Thus he provided himself with scant means for the journey. He placed his sister in the care of a relative, and then started off afoot across the Sierras to Madrid, without having told anyone of his intentions. His little stock of money was soon exhausted, and he arrived in Madrid exhausted and desperately lonesome. He at once searched out Velazquez, his townsman, who was then rich, and honored in the position of court painter to Philip IV. Velazquez received him kindly, and after some inquiry about mutual acquaintances, he talked of the young painter’s plans for himself. Murillo spoke freely of his ambition to be a great painter, and of his desire to visit Rome and Flanders.

Velazquez took the young painter to his own house, and procured for him the privilege of copying in the great galleries of the capitol and in the Escurial. He advised him to copy carefully the masterpieces in his own country. There were pictures by Titian, Van Dyck, and Rubens, and Murillo began the work of copying them at once. When Velazquez returned after long absence, he was surprised at the improvement in Murillo’s work. He now advised the young painter to go to Rome, but he had been away from Seville for three years, and he longed to be again at home in his beautiful native city. During his absence he had learned much in art and in the ways of the world. He had met many distinguished artists and statesmen in Velazquez’s home.

FRUIT VENDERS.
Murillo.

The first three years after his return to Seville, he busied himself with a series of pictures for a small Franciscan convent near by. Although he did the work without pay, the monks were loath to give him the commission because he was an unknown artist. There were eleven in the series, scenes from the life of St. Francis. They were admirably done, and though the artist received no pay for them, they did him a greater service than money could have bought—they established his reputation, so that he no longer wanted for such work as he desired.

Among his earliest and best known pictures are those charming studies of the beggar boys and flower girls of Seville. Several of the best of these are in the gallery at Munich where they are justly prized. Here are some of the names he gives these pictures, “The Melon Eaters,” “The Gamesters,” “The Grape Eaters,” “The Fruit Venders,” “The Flower Girl.” They are true to life—the happiest, most interesting, and self-sufficient set of young beggars one could well imagine. Notice, too, the beauty of the faces, especially in “The Fruit Venders,” reproduced in this sketch. There are other interesting things in this picture. With what eagerness the day’s earnings are counted! There is a motherliness in the girl’s face that makes us sure that she is at once mother and sister to the boy. What luscious grapes—what a back-ground, unkempt like themselves, but thoroughly in keeping with the rest of the picture! In his works of this sort what broad sympathy he shows! so broad, indeed, that they prove him as belonging to no particular nation, but to the world.