What is the secret of the beautiful Madonnas Bartolomé Murillo - a painter who was compared to Raphael

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The saints in his paintings radiate kindness, the Virgin Mary is full of love and tenderness, and the angels "seem to breathe" - the artist portrayed them so realistic. Soft delicate light in the Flemish style and at the same time - the bright southern sun of native Spain, bold large-scale ideas - and the warmth, intimacy of each of the paintings - this is all about the paintings of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. What was his main secret? Maybe in who he invited to the roles of sitters?

Bartolome Esteban Murillo, his teachers and his unique style of writing

Little is known about Bartolome Murillo's childhood. He was born in 1617 in the family of a barber, moreover, a Seville one, and he spent almost his entire life in this Spanish city. At ten years old, the boy lost his father, a year later - his mother, after which he was sent to be raised in the house of his aunt and her husband. But Bartolome did not become a poor relative: his new family was rich enough, and the guardians treated his nephew well. Noticing his talent for drawing, they provided him with training from the famous artist Juan de Castillo in Seville. The elder sister Anna replaced the boy's mother.

The surname "Murillo" Bartolome Esteban apparently took from relatives on the maternal side, following the example of his fellow countryman and teacher Diego Velazquez. In 1640, the young artist went to Madrid, where he got acquainted with the works of Rubens, van Dyck, Ribera. This experience became defining for him. At first, writing in the dry, harsh manner of his first teacher, Murillo, influenced by the works of Velazquez and other great baroque masters, changed his style, lyricism, cheerfulness, tenderness, and kindness began to appear in his paintings. The artist returned to his hometown.

Seville in those days was a rich and prosperous city. Ships laden with the gold of the Incas and Aztecs sailed from the New World, and the status of the main Spanish seaport gave great advantages and brought huge profits. Seville was granted a monopoly on trade with the West Indies. And therefore the artists were provided with work and daily bread; both monasteries and individual customers willingly paid for the labor of painters, and Murillo was no exception. For some time he earned by selling small canvases, and in 1645 he received a large order from the Franciscan monastery, which became a turning point in his career.

Murillo became one of the most famous painters of Seville. The completed cycle of paintings for the Franciscan monastery brought him fame, and some of the canvases are still valued as examples of the most outstanding works of Spanish painting: “Saint Diego Saturates the Beggars”, “Kitchen of Angels”, “The Death of Saint Clara”, “Plague”. Even then, in the work of Murillo, his heightened sense of reality was manifested, and also the ability to combine it with the mystical mood of biblical subjects, which is why the paintings seemed to radiate warmth and kindness.

Family, Virgin Mary and angels in Murillo's paintings

At that time, Bartolome Murillo got married, his wife became dona Beatriz Sotomayor y Cabrera, from a family of jewelers. More and more orders come in, mainly from churches and monasteries. Most of the artist's legacy is devoted to biblical themes, especially the glorification of the Virgin Mary. The Murillo Madonnas were special, not typical of the painters of the time. An open gentle face, expressive dark eyes, full of love, directed at the viewer or at the heavens - this is how the Virgin Mary appears in the works of Murillo. And if the artist often invited local residents from the people as models for his genre paintings, then his wife usually posed as the main female Christian character Murillo.

This is more a guess of art historians than an established fact - nevertheless, there are too many ambiguities in Murillo's biography, but looking at the paintings of the Spaniard, it is easy to see that the Mother of God was really painted from one female face. The spouses had children one after another - and they also had the opportunity to become models. It is believed that in the painting "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" Murillo painted the baby Jesus with his daughter Isabel Francisco.

In 1660, the already famous painter participated in the creation of the local Academy of Arts and became its first president. After the death of Velazquez, he was called to court service, but Murillo refused, remaining in his hometown.

The artist was sincerely interested in the life of ordinary people; genre scenes with children often appeared on his canvases. For Murillo, such pictures turned out to be alive, natural, kind, sometimes funny. And he himself had a full house of children. In 1663, dona Beatrice died during another childbirth, and a turning point occurred in the artist's life. For some time he did not pick up a brush at all. And for the next two decades he lived as a widower, never marrying again.

Convent life and service to the arts

He moved with his children from a luxurious mansion to the rooms of the Capuchin monastery, where Murillo lived until his death. For this monastery, he did a great job of decorating the altar wall. In the work of Murillo, the theme of the exploits of Christian mercy arose more and more often. In 1680, when the canon of one of the monasteries of Seville, Domonte, was elevated to the episcopal rank, Murillo was commissioned to paint a painting depicting the Archangel Raphael and the bishop addressing him with prayer. The image of the archangel was made by the artist in a manner atypical for the Spaniards. This character is modeled on a woman.

According to the Russian painter Viktor Vasnetsov, “it is difficult to do something new in Christian painting after Raphael and Murillo”.

Murillo is considered one of the leading Spanish painters of the "golden age". In total, he wrote over 450 works, mostly on religious topics. In 1682, Bartolome Murillo went to fulfill another order in the city of Cadiz, where he was supposed to paint a large altarpiece "The Betrothal of St. Catherine." Having fallen unsuccessfully from the stage, he was badly hurt, and, being transported back to Seville, died some time later. The painting was finished by one of Murillo's students, Osorio.

And in continuation of the theme, a story about what biblical phrase became the subject of the paintings of the Renaissance.