Famous European Artists Part 14

He bought a piece of linen, cut it into pieces of various sizes, and, in some obscure room, painted upon them saints, flowers, fruit, and landscapes. Then he sallied forth to find purchasers. One wonders whether the young man did not sometimes become discouraged in these years of toil; if he did not sometimes look at the houses of the grandees and sigh because he was not rich or because he was homeless and unknown?

He sold most of his pictures to a ship-owner, by whom they were sent to the West Indies and other Catholic portions of America. Then he started on foot over the Sierras,--a long and tedious journey to Madrid. In the Spanish capital he could find the works of art which he wished to study.

He had no money nor friends when he arrived in the great city, but he had courage. He had learned early in life a most valuable lesson,--to depend on himself. To whom should he go? Velasquez, formerly of Seville, was at the height of his fame, the favorite of the king, the friend of the wealthy and the distinguished. Murillo determined to seek the great artist in his own home; at least he could only be refused admittance.

Velasquez kindly received the young man, who told him how he had come on foot over the mountains to study. There was no jealousy in the heart of the painter, no fear of rivalry. He was pleased with the modesty, frankness, and aspiration of the youth, and, strange to say, took him into his own home to reside. What a contrast to painting in the _Feria_, and living in a garret!

Murillo at once began to study in the royal galleries where Philip II.

and his father Charles V. had gathered their t.i.tians, their Rubenses, and their Van Dycks. For three years, through the kindness of Velasquez, he met the leading Spanish artists and the prominent people of the court. The king admired his work, and greatly encouraged him. Murillo was fortunate,--yes; but Fortune did not seek him, he sought her!

Ambition and action made him successful.

Early in 1645, Murillo returned to Seville. Velasquez offered to give him letters of introduction to eminent artists in Rome, but he preferred to go back to his native city. Probably he longed for the old Cathedral, with La Giralda, the Alcazar, the Moorish palaces, and the Guadalquivir.

The Alcazar, says Hare, in his "Wanderings in Spain," begun in 1181, was in great part rebuilt by Pedro the Cruel, 1353-64. "The history of this strange monarch gives the Alcazar its chief interest. Hither he fled with his mother as a child from his father, Alonzo XI., and his mistress, Leonora de Guzman. They were protected by the minister, Albuquerque, at whose house he met and loved Maria de Padilla, a Castilian beauty of n.o.ble birth, whom he secretly married. Albuquerque was furious, and, aided by the queen-mother, forced him into a political marriage with the French princess, Blanche de Bourbon. He met her at Valladolid; but three days after his nuptials fled from the wife he disliked to the one he loved, who ever after held royal court at Seville, while Queen Blanche,--a sort of Spanish Mary Stuart,--after being cruelly persecuted and imprisoned for years, was finally put to death at Medina-Sidonia.

"In this Alcazar, Pedro received the Red King of Granada, with a promise of safe-conduct, and then murdered him for the sake of his jewels, one of which--a large ruby--he gave to the Black Prince after Navarete, and which is 'the fair ruby, great like a rachet-ball,' which Elizabeth showed to the amba.s.sador of Mary of Scotland, and now adorns the royal crown of England....

"It was in the Alcazar, also, that Pedro murdered his illegitimate brother, the master of Santiago, who had caused him much trouble by a rebellion. Maria de Padilla knew his coming fate, but did not dare to tell him, though from the beautiful _ajimez_ window over the gate she watched for his arrival, and tried to warn him by her tears. Six years after, this murder was avenged by Henry of Trastamare, the brother of the slain, who stabbed Pedro to the heart. But Maria de Padilla was already dead, and buried with queens in the royal chapel, when Pedro publicly acknowledged her as his lawful wife, and the marriage received the sanction of the Spanish Church....

"Within the Alcazar all is still fresh and brilliant with light and color. It is like a scene from the 'Arabian Nights,' or the wonderful creation of a kaleidoscope.... The Hall of Amba.s.sadors is perfectly glorious in its delicate lace-like ornaments and the rich color of its exquisite _azulejos_."

"The cathedral," says Hare, "stands on a high platform, girdled with pillars, partly brought from Italica and partly relics of the mosques, of which two existed on this site. The last, built by the Emir Yusuf in 1184, was pulled down in 1401, when the cathedral was begun, only the Giralda, the Court of Oranges, and some of the outer walls being preserved. The chapter, when convened for the building of the cathedral, determined, like religious t.i.tans, to build 'one of such size and beauty that coming ages should proclaim them mad for having undertaken it.'...

"Far above houses and palaces, far above the huge cathedral itself, soars the beautiful Giralda, its color a pale pink, incrusted all over with delicate Moorish ornament, so high that its detail is quite lost as you gaze upward; so large that you may easily ride on horseback to the summit, up the broad roadway in the interior....

"In the interior everything is vast, down to the Paschal candle, placed in a candlestick twenty-five feet high, and weighing twenty-five hundred pounds, of wax, while the expenditure of the chapter may be estimated by the fact that eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty litres of wine are consumed annually in the sacrament. Of the ninety-three stained windows many are old and splendid. Their light is undimmed by curtains, for there is an Andalusian proverb that the ray of the sun has no power to injure within the bounds in which the voice of prayer can be heard.

In the centre of the nave, near the west door, surrounded by sculptured caravelas, the primitive ships by which the New World was discovered, is the tomb of Ferdinand Columbus, son of the great navigator (who himself rests in Havanna), inscribed,--

"'A CASTILLA Y a LEON MUNDO NUEVO DIO COLON.'

At the opposite end of the church is the royal chapel, where St.

Ferdinand, who was canonized in 1627, 'because he carried f.a.gots with his own hands for the burning of heretics,' rests beneath the altar, in a silver sarcophagus. Here also are his Queen, Beatrix, his son Alonzo el Sabio, father of our Queen Eleanor, and Maria de Padilla, the beautiful Morganatic wife of Pedro the Cruel....

"Many of the services in this church reach a degree of splendor which is only equalled by those of St. Peter's; and the two organs, whose gigantic pipes have been compared to the columns of Fingal's Cave, peal forth magnificently. But one ceremony, at least, is far more fantastic than anything at Rome."

Frances Elliot, in her "Diary of an Idle Woman in Spain," thus describes this remarkable ceremony: "To the left, within the bars, I am conscious of the presence of a band of stringed instruments,--not only violins and counter-ba.s.s, but flutes, flageolets, and hautboys, even a serpent, as they call a quaint instrument a.s.sociated with my earliest years, forthwith all beginning to play in a most ancient and most homely way, for all the world like a simple village choir, bringing a tw.a.n.g of damp, mouldy, country churches to my mind, sunny English afternoons, and odors of lavender and southern-wood.

"As they play--these skilled musicians--a sound of youthful voices comes gathering in, fresh, shrill, and childlike, rising and falling to the rhythm.

"All at once the music grows strangely pa.s.sionate, the voices and the stringed instruments seem to heave and sigh in tender accents, long-drawn notes and sobs wail out melodious cries for mercy and invocations for pardon, growing louder and intenser each moment.

"Then, I know not how, for the great darkness gathers round even to the gates of the altar, a band of boys, the owners of the voices, appears as in a vision in the open s.p.a.ce between the benches on which the chapter sits, and, gliding down the altar steps, move in a measure fitting in softly with the music.

"How or when they begin to dance, singing as if to the involuntary movement of their feet, I know not; at first 'high-disposedly,' their bodies swaying to and fro to the murmur of the band, which never leaves off playing a single instant, in the most heavenly way. Then, as the music quickens and castanets click out, the boys grow animated, and move swifter to and fro, raising their arms in curves and graceful interlacing rounds. Still faster the music beats, and faster and faster they move, crossing and recrossing in mazy figures, the stringed instruments following them with zeal, the castanets, hautboys, and flutes, their interlacing forms knotting in a kind of ecstasy, yet all as grave and solemn as in a song of praise, a visible rejoicing of the soul at Christmas time and the Divine birth. As David danced before the ark for joy, so do these boys dance now with holy gladness.

"I made out something of their costume,--broad Spanish hats, turned up with a _panache_ of blue feathers, the Virgin's color, a flowing mantle of the same hue over one shoulder, glittering in the light, white satin vests, and white hose and shoes.

"The dance is most ancient, _archi-old_, as one may say--of an origin Phoenician or Arab, sanctified to Christian use. The music, like the dance, quaint and pathetic, with every now and then a solo so sweet it seems as if an angel had come down unseen to play it. I have inquired on all hands what is the origin of this singular rite, which takes place twice a year, at Advent and Easter, but no one can tell me. About two centuries ago an Archbishop of Seville objected to the dance as giddy and mundane, and forbade it in his cathedral, causing a terrible scandal. The Sevillians were enraged; their fathers had loved the dance, and their fathers before them, and they were ready to defend it with swords and staves.

"As the Archbishop was inexorable, an appeal was made to Rome. The Pope of that day, a sensible man, replied that he could give no judgment without seeing the dance himself; so the whole troop--stringed instruments, castanets, serpent, cavalier hats and cloaks, and the boys who wore them--were carried off to Rome at the expense of rich citizens.

Then the measure was tried before the Pope in the Vatican, and he approved. 'Let the citizens of Seville have their dance,' the Pope said; 'I see no harm in it. As long as the clothes last it shall continue.'

"Need I add that those clothes never wore out, but, like the widow's curse, renewed themselves miraculously, to the delight of the town, and that they will continue to last fresh and new as long as the gigantic walls of the cathedral uprear themselves, and the sun of Andalusia shines on the flat plains!"

Murillo loved this old cathedral, and later he painted for it some of his wonderful pictures, among them "The Guardian Angel," in which "a glorious seraph with spreading wings leads a little, trustful child by the hand, and directs him to look beyond earth into the heavenly light,"

and "St. Anthony of Padua visited by the infant Saviour." The saint is kneeling with outstretched arms, looking above to the child, who descends through a flood of glory filled with cherubs, drawn down by the prayers of the saint. On the table beside him is a vase of white lilies, which many persons averred were so natural that the birds flew down the cathedral aisles to peck at the flowers. For this picture the cathedral clergy paid ten thousand reals. Mrs. Jameson declares this the finest work ever executed in honor of St. Anthony, a subject chosen by t.i.tian and scores of other artists.

When the nephew of Murillo's first master, Castillo, looked upon this work, he exclaimed, "It is all over with Castillo! Is it possible that Murillo, that servile imitator of my uncle, can be the author of all this grace and beauty of coloring?"

The canons told M. Viardot that the Duke of Wellington offered to pay for this picture as many gold pieces as would cover its surface of fifteen feet square, about two hundred and forty thousand dollars. In 1874 the figure of St. Anthony was cut out, stolen, and sold to a Mr.

Schaus, a picture-dealer of New York, for two hundred and fifty dollars.

He turned his purchase over to the Spanish consul, who restored it to the cathedral.

St. Anthony was a Portuguese by birth, and taught divinity in the universities of Bologna, Toulouse, Paris, and Padua. Finally he became an eloquent preacher among the people. It is said that when they refused to listen he preached to the dwellers in the sea, "and an infinite number of fishes, great and little, lifted their heads above water, and listened attentively to the sermon of the saint!"

Very many miracles are attributed to him. He restored to life by his prayers Carilla, a young maiden who was drowned; also a young child who was scalded to death; renewed the foot of a young man who had cut it off because the saint rebuked him for having kicked his brother; caused the body of a murdered youth to speak, and acquit an old man who had been accused of his death; made a gla.s.s cup remain whole when thrown against a marble slab, while the marble was shivered.

"The legend of the mule," says Mrs. Jameson, "is one of the most popular of the miracles of St. Anthony, and is generally found in the Franciscan churches. A certain heretic called Bovidilla entertained doubts of the real presence in the sacrament, and, after a long argument with the saint, required a miracle in proof of this favorite dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. St. Anthony, who was about to carry the host in procession, encountered the mule of Bovidilla, which fell down on its knees at the command of the saint, and, although its heretic master endeavored to tempt it aside by a sieve full of oats, remained kneeling till the host had pa.s.sed."

After Murillo's return from the house of Velasquez to Seville, he worked incessantly for nearly three years upon eleven paintings for the convent of the Franciscans near Casa del Ayuntamiento. The cloisters contained three hundred marble columns. For the decoration of a minor cloister the priests offered so small an amount that no leading artist in Seville would attempt it. But Murillo, still poor, and not well known, gladly accepted the work. It was a laborious undertaking, with perhaps scarcely enough compensation to provide for his daily needs; but it made him famous. Henceforward there was neither poverty nor obscurity for the great Spanish master.

The first picture for the Franciscans represented "St. Francis, on an iron bed, listening to an angel who is playing on a violin." The second portrayed "St. Diego blessing a pot of broth," which he is about to give to a group of beggars at the gate of his convent. Another picture, called, "The Angel Kitchen," now in the Louvre, represents a monk who fell in a state of ecstasy whilst cooking for the convent, and angels are doing his work. Still another represents a Franciscan praying over the dead body of a friar, as if to restore it to life. This is now owned by Mr. Richard Ford, of Devonshire, England.

The finest picture of the series represents "The Death of St. Clara of a.s.sisi." She was the daughter of a n.o.ble knight of great wealth, and much sought in marriage. Desiring to devote herself to a religious life, she repaired to St. Francis for counsel, who advised her to enter a convent. She fled from her home to where St. Francis dwelt, and he with his own hands cut off her luxuriant golden tresses, and threw over her his own penitential habit of gray wool. Her family sought to force her away, but later her sister Agnes and mother Ortolana joined her in the convent.

On the death of her father, St. Clara gave all her wealth to the poor.

She went, like the others of her order, barefoot or sandalled, slept on the hard earth, and lived in silence. The most notable event of her life was the dispersion of the Saracens. Emperor Frederic ravaged the sh.o.r.es of the Adriatic. In his army were a band of infidel Saracens, who attacked the Convent of San Damiano. The frightened nuns rushed to the side of "Mother Clara," who had long been unable to rise from her bed.

At once she arose, took from the altar the pyx of ivory and silver which contained the Host, placed it on the threshold, knelt, and began to sing. The barbarians were overcome with fear, and tumbled headlong down their scaling-ladders.

Mrs. Jameson says, "The most beautiful picture of St. Clara I have ever seen represents the death of the saint, or, rather, the vision which preceded her death, painted by Murillo.... St. Clara lies on her couch, her heavenly face lighted up with an ecstatic expression. Weeping nuns and friars stand around; she sees them not, her eyes are fixed on the glorious procession which approaches her bed: first, our Saviour, leading his Virgin-mother; they are followed by a company of virgin-martyrs, headed by St. Catharine, all wearing their crowns and bearing their palms, as though they had come to summon her to their paradise of bliss. Nothing can be imagined more beautiful, bright, and elysian than these figures, nor more divine with faith and transport than the head of St. Clara."

These paintings of Murillo were the one topic of conversation in Seville. Orders for pictures came from every side; artists crowded to the convent to study works so unlike their own; the chief families of the city made the hitherto unknown young man a welcome guest at their palaces; fame and position had come when he was only thirty years old.

For one hundred and seventy years these pictures were the pride of the convent, when they were taken by Marshal Soult under Napoleon, and eventually scattered through Northern Europe. The convent was destroyed by fire soon afterwards.

The old adage that "blessings never come singly" was realized in the case of Murillo, for at this time he married a wealthy lady from a family of high renown, Dona Beatriz de Cobrera y Sotomayor, who dwelt at Pilas, about five leagues from Seville. It is said that he first saw her when painting an altar-piece in the Church of San Geronimo at Pilas, and portrayed her as an angel in his picture while he was winning her love.

Their married life seems to have been an eminently happy one. Their home became a centre for artists and the best social circles of the city.

Three children were born to them: Gabriel, who went to the West Indies; Francisca, who became a nun; and Gaspar, afterwards a canon of Seville Cathedral.

Murillo's manner of painting changed now from what the Spanish call _frio_, or his cold style, to _calido_, or his warm style, where the outlines were less p.r.o.nounced, the figures rounder, and the coloring more luminous and tender. "The works of the new manner," says Sweetser, "are notable for graceful and well-arrayed drapery, skilfully disposed lights, harmonious tints, soft contours, and a portrait-like naturalness in the faces, lacking in idealism, but usually pure and pleasing. His flesh-tints were almost uniformly heightened by dark gray backgrounds, and were so amazingly true that one of his critics has said that they seemed to have been painted with blood and milk (_con sangre y leche_)."

Many of the Madonnas which Murillo painted were evidently from the same sweet, pure-faced model, and it is believed that they are the likeness of his wife. His boys were his models for the infants Jesus and John.

His first work in the so-called warm manner was "Our Lady of the Conception," a colossal picture for the Brotherhood of the True Cross.

The monks were at first displeased, thinking that the finishing was not sufficiently delicate; but when Murillo caused it to be hung in the dome, for the high position for which it was intended, they were greatly delighted. Murillo, however, made them pay double the original price for their fault-finding.