Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
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Bartolomé Esteban Murillo | |
---|---|
Born | late December 1617; baptised | January 1, 1618
Died | April 3, 1682 Seville | (aged 64)
Nationality | Spanish |
Known for | painting, drawing |
Movement | Baroque |
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (/mjʊəˈrɪloʊ, m(j)ʊˈriːoʊ/ mewr-IL-oh, m(y)uu-REE-oh; Spanish: [baɾtoloˈme esˈteβan muˈɾiʎo]; born late December 1617, baptized January 1, 1618 – April 3, 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times. He also painted two self-portraits, one in the Frick Collection portraying him in his 30s, and one in London's National Gallery portraying him about 20 years later. In 2017-2018, the two museums held an exhibition of them.[1][2]
Childhood[]
Murillo was born to Gaspar Esteban and María Pérez.[3] He may have been born in Seville or in Pilas, a smaller Andalusian town.[4] It is clear that he was baptized in Seville in 1618, the youngest son in a family of fourteen. His father was a barber and surgeon. After his parents died in 1627 and 1628, he became a ward of his sister's husband, Juan Agustín Lagares.[3] Murillo seldom used his father's surname, and instead took his surname from his maternal grandmother, Elvira Murillo.[3]
Career[]
Murillo began his art studies in Seville under Juan del Castillo, who was a relative of his mother (Murillo's uncle, Antonio Pérez, was also a painter).[3] His first works were influenced by Francisco de Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera and Alonso Cano, and he shared their strongly realist approach. The great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was subject to artistic influences from other regions. He became familiar with Flemish painting and the "Treatise on Sacred Images" of Molanus (Ian van der Meulen or Molano). As his painting developed, his more important works evolved towards the polished style that suited the bourgeois and aristocratic tastes of the time, demonstrated especially in his Roman Catholic religious works.
In 1642, at the age of 26, he moved to Madrid, where he most likely became familiar with the work of Velázquez, and would have seen the work of Venetian and Flemish masters in the royal collections; the rich colors and softly modeled forms of his subsequent work suggest these influences.[5] In 1645 he returned to Seville and married Beatriz Cabrera y Villalobos, with whom he eventually had eleven children.[3]
In that year, he painted eleven canvases for the convent of St. Francisco el Grande in Seville. These works depicting the miracles of Franciscan saints vary between the Zurbaránesque tenebrism of the Ecstasy of St Francis and a softly luminous style (as in Death of St Clare) that became typical of Murillo's mature work.[3] According to the art historian Manuela B. Mena Marqués, "in ... the Levitation of St Giles (usually known as the "Angel’s Kitchen", Paris, Louvre) and the Death of St Clare (Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister), the characteristic elements of Murillo’s work are already evident: the elegance and beauty of the female figures and the angels, the realism of the still-life details and the fusion of reality with the spiritual world, which is extraordinarily well developed in some of the compositions."[3]
Also completed c. 1645 was the first of Murillo's many paintings of children, The Young Beggar (Musée du Louvre), in which the influence of Velázquez is apparent.[3] Following the completion of a pair of pictures for the Seville Cathedral, he began to specialize in the themes that brought him his greatest successes: the Virgin and Child and the Immaculate Conception.[6]
After another period in Madrid, from 1658 to 1660, he returned to Seville. Here he was one of the founders of the Academia de Bellas Artes (Academy of Art), sharing its direction, in 1660, with the architect Francisco Herrera the Younger. This was his period of greatest activity, and he received numerous important commissions, among them the altarpieces for the Augustinian monastery, the paintings for Santa María la Blanca[7] (completed in 1665), and others.[3] He died in Seville in 1682, a few months after he fell from a scaffold while working on a fresco at the church of the Capuchines in Cádiz.[3]
Legacy[]
Murillo had many pupils and followers. The prolific imitation of his paintings ensured his reputation in Spain and fame throughout Europe, and prior to the 19th century his work was more widely known than that of any other Spanish artist.[5] Artists influenced by his style included Gainsborough and Greuze.[3] Google marked the 400 years since Murillo's birth with a doodle on 29 November 2018.[8]
Public collections[]
The Museo del Prado in Madrid; Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia (such as Boy with a Dog); and the Wallace Collection in London are among the museums holding works by Murillo. His painting “The Coronation in Heaven of the Mother of God” is on display at the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedralin Bardstown Kentucky. His painting Christ on the Cross is at the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego.[9] Christ After the Flagellation is at the Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois.[10] His work is also found at the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.[11]
Selected works[]
Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, c. 1640–1645, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
Young Man with a Basket of Fruit or Personification of Summer, c. 1640–1650
The Girl with a Coin or Girl of Galicia, c. 1645–1650
The Young Beggar, c. 1645, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
Boys Eating Grapes and Melon, c. 1645–46, Alte Pinakothek
St. Jerome, c. 1650–1652
St. Peter in Tears, c. 1650–1655
The Virgin of the Rosary, c. 1650–1655, Museo del Prado
St. Isidore of Sevilla, 1654, Cathedral of Seville, Spain
Annunciation, c. 1655–1660, Hermitage Museum, Russia
Adoration of the Magi, c. 1660
Apparition of the Virgin to St. Ildefonsus, c. 1660
Three Boys, c. 1660
The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial, c. 1660-1665
St. Justa, c. 1665
St. Rufina, c. 1665
Christ Healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, 1670
Saint Rose of Lima, c. 1670. Lazaro Galdiano Museum, Madrid.
The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1678
St. Raphael the Archangel with Bishop Domonte, c. 1680, Pushkin Museum
The Marriage Feast at Cana, c. 1672, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Virgin and Child with Saint Rose of Viterbo. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid.
Rest on the Flight into Egypt, c. 1665 Hermitage Museum, Moscow
References[]
- ^ Murillo: The Self-Portraits (Frick)
- ^ Murillo: The Self-Portraits (National Gallery)
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k Marqués, Manuela B. Mena. "Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press.
- ^ A., O'Neill (1833). A Dictionary of Spanish Painters. London: C. O'Neill. p. 246.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Bartolome Esteban Murillo". Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 2007-08-30.
- ^ The center medallion of the badge of the Spanish Order of Charles III is clearly modeled on Murillo's unique manner of representing the Immaculate Conception.
- ^ Santa María la Blanca
- ^ Picheta, Rob (29 November 2018). "Bartolome Esteban Murillo, Spanish baroque painter, gets the Google Doodle treatment". CNN. Retrieved 4 June 2019.
- ^ "Christ on the Cross". Timken Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 2011-11-27.
- ^ "Christ After the Flagellation". Krannert Art Museum.
- ^ "Bartolomé Esteban MURILLO". Meadows Museum. Archived from the original on 2012-09-10. Retrieved 2012-12-08.
Further reading[]
- Palomino, Antonio (1988). El museo pictórico y escala óptica III. El parnaso español pintoresco laureado. Madrid : Aguilar S.A. de Ediciones. ISBN 84-03-88005-7.
- Murillo's painting The Spanish Page is the subject of an ekphrastic poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837. See The Spanish Page.
External links[]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. |
- 100 artworks by or after Bartolomé Esteban Murillo at the Art UK site
- Scholarly articles in English about Bartolomé Esteban Murillo both in web and PDF @ the Spanish Old Masters Gallery
- Paintings in Museums and Public Art Galleries Worldwide
- Murillo Biography, Style and Critical Reception
- Murillo Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- Murillo at ArtRenewalCenter
- The Madonna and Child., engraved by Robert Graves for The Easter Gift, 1832, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
- Infant St. John the Baptist., engraved by Samuel Davenport for The Easter Gift, 1832, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
- 1617 births
- 1682 deaths
- People from Seville
- 17th-century Spanish painters
- Spanish male painters
- Spanish Baroque painters
- Painters from Seville
- Catholic painters
- Caravaggisti