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Bartolome Esteban Murillo
Spanish
1618-1682
Bartolome Esteban Murillo Galleries
Murillo began his art studies under Juan del Castillo in Seville. Murillo became familiar with Flemish painting; the great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was also subject to influences from other regions. His first works were influenced by Zurbaran, Jusepe de Ribera and Alonso Cano, and he shared their strongly realist approach. 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 Velazquez, 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. He returned to Seville in 1645. In that year, he painted thirteen canvases for the monastery of St. Francisco el Grande in Seville which gave his reputation a well-deserved boost. Following the completion of a pair of pictures for the Seville Cathedral, he began to specialise in the themes that brought him his greatest successes, the Virgin and Child, and the Immaculate Conception.
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 Mar??a la Blanca (completed in 1665), and others.
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Painting ID:: 59999
The Young Beggar
The Young Beggar
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Painting ID:: 62315
Self-Portrait
122 x 127 cm National Gallery, London The tablet beneath the fictive frame of this self portrait is inscribed in Latin: 'Bart [olo] m?Murillo portraying himself to fulfil the wishes and prayers of his children.' By 1670, when this portrait was probably painted, only four of Murillo's nine children were still living. His only daughter had entered a Dominican convent, and his youngest son was deciding on a career in the church; he was later to become a canon of Seville Cathedral. After the artist's death, the painting was engraved in Antwerp at the request of Murillo's friend Nicolas de Omazur, a Flemish poet and silk merchant established in Seville. The portrait itself borrows a device from Netherlandish engravings, much used in the frontispiece of books. A gilded oval frame, set against a wall on a shelf or console table, encloses Murillo's half-length likeness. But in a feat of legerdemain only possible in art, it is the painter himself, not his image, who paradoxically extends his hand beyond the frame. Dressed in sober black, with a soft lace collar at his throat, he looks at the viewer with a dignified and slightly melancholy air. Nothing within this portrait betrays that he is anything other than a gentleman. Around the frame, however, are disposed the tools of his profession: a palette laid out with paint, brushes, a drawing in red chalk, the chalk itself, a pair of dividers and a ruler. The white on the palette is a real, three-dimensional swirl of white lead paint, not the image of one. The dividers and ruler tell us that he is a learned artist, creating pictures according to the rules and proportions of mathematical laws and not merely imitating appearances. A drawing - the academic basis of all the visual arts - recalls that in 1660 Murillo co-founded the Academy of Seville of which he was the first president. As in all his portraits, in contrast to his other pictures, Murillo emphasises truthfulness above charm. Strong light, casting dark shadows, is used to model the forms, and his famous 'soft' brushwork is apparent only in the hair and lace. The sombre colour scheme of black, white and ochre is relieved only by red - as indicated on the palette, where its undiluted presence helps to clarify the spatial construction of the painting and enlivens its solemn play on the art of reality and the reality of art.
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Painting ID:: 62316
) Infant Christ Offering a Drink of Water to St John
1675-80 Oil on canvas, 104 x 124 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid Murillo was one of the great devotional artists of all time, especially in his later years when he produced ingratiating compositions that inspire gentle, pious feelings. This painting is a superb example the sort of imagery that established Murillo's reputation in the seventeenth century and demolished it in the twentieth
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Painting ID:: 62324
Angels Kitchen
180 x 450 cm Mus?e du Louvre, Paris In his early pictures Murillo seems to have drawn the figures one by one, without attempting to unify the composition. But in the famous painting known as the Angels' Kitchen there is a greater narrative cohesion. Although the name of the protagonist is still somewhat uncertain, he may be the lay brother Francisco P?rez from the nearby town Alcal?de Guadaira, who spent thirty years as an assistant in the kitchen of the monastery San Francisco el Grande. According to the story he was much given to fervent prayer and one day became so lost in his devotions that he neglected his duties. Upon returning to consciousness, he was surprised to see that his chores had been miraculously accomplished. Murillo has embellished the legend with irresistibly charming details. Fray Francisco, who is bathed in an aura of golden light, floats above the ground in a mystical rapture. Next to him stand exquisitely painted angels, with richly coloured wings, while at the right putti and angels tackle the work of preparing the meal, grinding spices, stirring the hotpot, and setting the table in the midst of a delicious still-life of vegetables and cookware. Painted when the artist was approaching thirty years of age, this painting announces the arrival of a new talent and temper in Sevillian painting
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Painting ID:: 62326
Flight into Egypt
155,5 x 125 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Murillo painted several variants of this popular subject, this is not the best among them. There is an autograph variant of this painting in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow
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| Prev Artist Next Artist
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Bartolome Esteban Murillo
Spanish
1618-1682
Bartolome Esteban Murillo Galleries
Murillo began his art studies under Juan del Castillo in Seville. Murillo became familiar with Flemish painting; the great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was also subject to influences from other regions. His first works were influenced by Zurbaran, Jusepe de Ribera and Alonso Cano, and he shared their strongly realist approach. 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 Velazquez, 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. He returned to Seville in 1645. In that year, he painted thirteen canvases for the monastery of St. Francisco el Grande in Seville which gave his reputation a well-deserved boost. Following the completion of a pair of pictures for the Seville Cathedral, he began to specialise in the themes that brought him his greatest successes, the Virgin and Child, and the Immaculate Conception.
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 Mar??a la Blanca (completed in 1665), and others.
. Related Artists to Bartolome Esteban Murillo: | Vleughels Nicolas | johan zacharias blackstadiusblackstadius | Peto, John Frederick | Ivan Khrutsky | Andreas Edvard Disen |
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