Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban

Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban

(baptized Jan. 1, 1618, Sevilla, Spain—died April 3, 1682, Sevilla) Spanish painter. The most popular Baroque religious painter of 17th-century Spain, he is noted for his idealized figures, most of them painted for religious orders and the confraternities of his native Sevilla (Seville). His early works were executed in the naturalistic style of Francisco de Zurbarán, but with the development of his mature style in the 1650s he soon surpassed the older master in fame and popularity. The softly modeled forms, rich colours, and broad brushwork of the later paintings, such as the Immaculate Conception of 1652 (his favourite subject), reveal the influence of 16th-century Venetian and Flemish Baroque painters. Murillo's works were copied and imitated throughout Spain and its empire, and he was the first Spanish painter to achieve fame outside the Spanish world.

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Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban 

Baptized Jan. 1, 1618, in Sevilla; died there Apr. 3, 1682. Spanish painter.

Murillo studied and worked in Sevilla; he was one of the founders (1660) and the first president of a local academy of painting. Already in Murillo’s early works, which showed the influence of Caravaggism, religious scenes were presented as events from folk life. In the 1650’s, Murillo began to use a golden chiaroscuro, adopting a more picturesque style (especially in landscape backgrounds). His religious compositions, including scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary (The Flight Into Egypt, 1665–70, Hermitage, Leningrad), depicted the national type of Spanish woman with penetrating lyricism but were frequently marked by idealization and sentimentality.

The realistic features of Murillo’s work were manifested most fully in his innovative genre paintings, for instance, in a series of paintings that depicted with good-natured humor the life of Sevillian ragamuffins (Boys With Fruits, 1645–54, Old Pinakothek, Munich).

REFERENCES

Levina, I. M. Kartiny Muril’o v Ermitazhe. [Leningrad, 1969.]
Mayer, A. Murillo, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1923.
Muñoz, A. Murillo. Novara, 1942.