Bartolome Murillo: Ambition Awakened

"Two Women at a Window" by Bartolome Murillo

"In Seville Bartolome Murillo's friend and fellow apprentice, Pedro de Moya, showed him his copies of the soft lights and delicate colouring of Anthony van Dyck. These were a revelation to the student of Castillo's hard contours. As he pondered these, his ambition was awakened. He determined to visit Rome or Flanders, and see for himself the artistic wonders of which he heard - but the young enthusiast was penniless. Although Italy and the Low Countries were beyond his reach, Madrid was comparatively accessible.

Murillo purchased a quantity of saga-cloth [a loose-textured material with a rough surface], and cutting it into the most marketable sizes, he primed and prepared the little squares, and immediately set to work to cover them with saleable daubs. Saints and Madonnas, flower pieces and landscapes, sacred hearts and fanciful cascades - he painted them all and disposed of his entire stock to a speculative shipowner for re-sale in the South American colonies. He then placed his sister under suitable protection, and without informing anybody of his plans or his destination, in 1642 he disappeared from Seville.

Three years later he returned as mysteriously as he had gone, to be acclaimed by his admiring countrymen as the first painter of Andalusia. What had transpired? The interval had been occupied in unceasing work. Murillo had copied the masterpieces of the Spanish, Venetian and Flemish schools, drawing much from casts and from life, and following a thorough system of education under the advice and protection of the King's painter, Velazquez!"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)