Great Artists Part 2

Life of Raphael by Vasari.

Schools and Masters of Painting by Radcliffe.

History of Art by Luebke.

History of Art by Mrs. Heaton.

Great Artists by Mrs. Shedd.

The Fine Arts by Symonds.

Early Italian Painters by Mrs. Jameson.

SUBJECTS FOR LANGUAGE WORK.

1. The Boy Raphael at Home.

2. My Favorite Madonna.

3. Stories of St. Francis of a.s.sisi.

4. What I know of Fresco Painting.

5. Looking for Buried Treasures in Rome.

6. A Day in the Roman Forum.

7. A Day with the Boy Raphael.

8. The Legend of the _Madonna della Sedia_.

9. Raphael and His Friends.

10. Raphael the Student.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COURT IN THE ALCAZAR.]

MURILLO AND SPANISH ART

"Velazquez is in art an eagle; Murillo is an angel. One admires Velazquez and adores Murillo. By his canva.s.ses we know him as if he had lived among us. He was handsome, good and virtuous. Envy knew not where to attack him; around his crown of glory he bore a halo of love. He was born to paint the sky."

--DE AMICIS.

"Murillo could paint the sacred fervor of the devotee, or the ecstasy of the religious enthusiast, as well as the raggedness of the mendicant, or the abject suffering of Job."

--CHARLES BLANC.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MURILLO.]

MURILLO AND SPANISH ART.

Spain was not blessed as Italy was with one generation after another of artists so great that all the world knows them even at this distant day. Spain has only two unquestionably great painters that stand out as world-artists. They are Velazquez and Murillo. The former painted with unrivalled skill the world of n.o.blemen among whom he lived. The other, not surrounded by courtiers, looked into his own pure, religious soul, and into the sky above, and gave us visions of heaven--its saints and its angels.

It is impossible to study either of these men apart from the other, or apart from the art records of Spain. To understand either, we must know the land, teeming with rich and unique cities, we must have glimpses of its history, and we must know something of the rules laid down by the church to guide the painter in his work.

The climate of Spain, except in the south, is rigorous. Elevated plains, rounded by snow-capped mountains, and swept during a large part of the year by chilling winds, are not adapted to inspire men to produce great works of art. On such a plain Madrid is situated, and chilly indeed are its nature pictures, even though they are over-arched by the bluest of skies and the most transparent of atmospheres! In Andalusia, however, things were different. Here were the olive, the orange, and the cypress, and here a sunny climate encouraged the houseless beggar no less than the aspiring artist.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Velasquez de Silva.]

In speaking of Spain as a home of painting, we must not forget, either, how very devoted the people were to their religion, for this, perhaps more than anything else, gave a peculiar character to the art of Spain. The doctrines of Luther, found no willing listeners in Spain. Indeed, the Spaniards clung all the closer to the Church when they knew that there were those who wished to change it, and so their paintings are full of sad-faced, suffering saints, and rejoicing, holy men and women who gave their lives to religion. In connection with this extreme religious zeal, the Church found it necessary to impose rules on the artists who would paint these holy personages. The Virgin, whom all profoundly reverenced, should, according to tradition, have fair hair and blue eyes. Her robes must be of pure white and azure blue, and under no circ.u.mstances should her feet be exposed. She should stand on the crescent moon with its horns pointing downward. Many other similar rules were at that time thought necessary, and they greatly limited the artists in their work, for however good a churchman a man may be, it is impossible for him to properly prescribe colors and forms for the artist, who, if he is any thing at all, is the _see-er_ of his age. We want such things as the artist sees them. We shall see how nearly Murillo got into trouble by breaking some of these prescribed rules.

If we study the kings of Spain, Charles V. and the Philips, we shall see two things that greatly influenced the art of Spain. First, they were fond of art and spent great sums of money in buying fine paintings by Italian and Flemish masters. Both t.i.tian and Rubens were favorites in Spain, and many of their pictures were painted expressly for Spanish monarchs. Then, these rulers were vain and had a great liking for having their portraits painted. This vanity extended to the Courtiers and even to the dwarfs, several of whom were usually connected with the court as a source of amus.e.m.e.nt. There are portraits of some of these diminutive creatures so skillfully painted that we cannot help wishing that more worthy subjects had been used. Thus the vanity of monarchs and their courtiers gave a direction to Spanish art which can be accounted for in no other way--their greatest artists are always great portrait painters. So we see that, while genius in artists is indispensable, yet is this same genius largely influenced by climate, by religious enthusiasm, and even by the whims of kings and queens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: aeSOP. _Velazquez._]

Although Murillo stands out a superlatively great and beautiful artist, yet we must not forget that Velazquez, only eighteen years his senior, and like himself a native of Seville, lived during the greater part of Murillo's lifetime and divided honors with him. As has already been indicated, Velazquez's art was of a very different sort from Murillo's. He was born into a home of plenty, and very soon went to Madrid as court painter. We know how he gained renown for all time by the accuracy of the portraits he painted of various members of the court of Philip IV.--the king, the minister, Count Olivarez, the princes, the dwarfs, and the buffoons. We remember, too, how he thought that very ordinary personage, "_The Water-Carrier of Seville_," with his wrinkles, his joy, and his beggarly customers, a subject worth painting. Then we recall a goodly list of other commonplace subjects which he treated so truthfully that they will always stand among the great pictures of the world,--"_The Spinners_,"

where women labor in a dingy room, "_The Topers_," "_The Lances_,"

representing the great surrender of Breda, and the "_The Maids of Honor_." Nor can we forget his ideal portrait of "_aesop_," with his book under his arm. How well we know that book of fables! The rugged, good-natured face, homely as can be, holds us, as by a spell, and if we have not already done so, we read his book because we _must_, after looking into that dear old face.

One of the loveliest things we remember of Velazquez was his kindness to Murillo when he came to Madrid, a poor art student. Although Velazquez was rich and his pictures in demand, he took a keen interest in the young Murillo, who should one day stand beside him--they two the greatest artists of Spain. By the duties of his office, he was obliged to take an active part in the festivities attending the marriage of Louis XIV. and the Infanta, Maria Theresa, in 1660. The fatigue and exposure caused his death. We are reasonable in presuming that thus was Spain robbed of ten years of a strong artist's life and work. Incomparable loss when we think of what his countrymen gained in watching a pa.s.sing pageant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHEDRAL, SEVILLE, SHOWING THE GIRALDA TOWER.]

Spain is a land of unique cities. Perhaps this is because in so many of them the works of Christianity were grafted on to works originally built or begun by the Moors. As we study the wonderful buildings of Spain, we cannot forget, however much we may abhor the religion of the Arabs, that they were marvellous builders and profound scholars.

When the Spaniards sent them from their country, after they had lived there for seven hundred years, they lost their best citizens, and the most beautiful and highly cultivated part of Spain was henceforth to be comparatively desolate. On all the great section of Andalusia, the most southern part of Spain, the Moors left marks in buildings and in cultivation, that it will take centuries yet to sweep away.

Of all the cities of this division, and it includes a goodly number of Spain's most important towns, Seville, "the pearl of cities," the birthplace of both Velazquez and Murillo, appeals most strongly to everyone. Many superlative adjectives rise to our lips as we think of its whiteness, of its sunny vineyard slopes, its orange and olive groves, its salubrious climate, and its ancient a.s.sociations. We think of its wondrous cathedral, next in size to St. Peter's, of its storied bell-tower, the Giralda, of that fairy palace, the home of generations of Moorish kings, the Alcazar, of the Golden Tower by the river's edge, where Christian rulers stored their treasure. And then to our vision of Seville the beautiful, we add the silver Guadalquivir which divides, and yet encloses this dream city of Andalusia. If we are not interested in art, still must we be enthusiastic over Seville, for its bewitching little women with their l.u.s.trous eyes, their glossy dark hair, held by the ever present single rose. If it be entertainment we seek, then Seville will furnish us the national bull-fight in all its perfection. If the more refined delights of music attract us, still more is this our chosen city, for here is the scene of, Mozart's "_Don Juan_" and "_Figaro_," of Bizet's "_Carmen_,"

and many are the shops that claim to have belonged to the "_Barber of Seville_."

It is most pleasing to our sense of appropriateness that out of this beautiful white city of Andalusia, should have come, at about the same time, the two greatest Spanish painters, the one to give us real scenes and people, the other to give us ideals of loftiest type.

Here in the closing days of 1617, Murillo was born. His father and mother were poor people. The house they lived in had formerly belonged to a convent, and it was rented to them for a very small sum, on condition that they would keep up the repairs. Even this Murillo's father found to be a heavy burden. He was a mechanic and his income very small.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GRAPE EATERS. _Murillo._]

Our artist's full name was Bartolome Esteban Murillo. His last name seems to have come from his father's family, though it was even more common in those days to take the mother's name for a surname, as in the case of Velazquez. We know almost nothing of his early years except that he was left an orphan before he was eleven, under the guardianship of an uncle. Perhaps we should mention that Murillo early showed his inclination to make pictures by scribbling the margin of his school books with designs that in no wise ill.u.s.trated the text therein. With this as a guide his guardian early apprenticed him to Juan del Castillo, another uncle, and an artist of some repute. Here he learned to mix colors, to clean brushes, and to draw with great accuracy.

When Murillo was about twenty-two, Castillo removed to Cadiz, down the river from Seville, and the young artist was thrown wholly on his own resources. Life with him in those days was merely a struggle for existence. He took the method very generally taken by young artists.

He painted for the _Feria_ or weekly market. Here all sorts of producers and hucksters gathered with their wares. We can imagine that men of this sort were not very particular about the art objects they purchased. They demanded two things--bright colors and striking figures. Murillo, in common with other struggling artists, turned out great numbers of these little bits of painted canvas. Some of them have been discovered in Spanish America, whither they were undoubtedly taken to a.s.sist in religious teaching.

If there was hardship in this _painting for the feria_, as people slightingly spoke of such work, there were also immense advantages. As he painted he could observe the people who came to buy and the people who came to sell, and, mayhap, that other numerous cla.s.s in Seville who neither buy nor sell, but beg instead. From this very observation of character must have come largely that skill which is so marked in his pictures of beggar boys, who, with a few coppers, or a melon, or some grapes, are kings of their surroundings. Then the demand for striking figures cultivated a broad style in the artist which added greatly to his later work.

A fellow pupil of Murillo's had joined the army in Flanders. When he returned he told such wonderful stories of the country and its art works, that Murillo was more than ever inspired to go abroad to Rome or to Flanders. He at once set about earning a little money to a.s.sist him in the journey. Again he painted a great number of saints and bright landscapes on small squares of linen, and sold them to eager customers. Thus he provided himself with scant means for the journey.

He placed his sister in the care of a relative, and then started off afoot across the Sierras to Madrid, without having told anyone of his intentions. His little stock of money was soon exhausted, and he arrived in Madrid exhausted and desperately lonesome. He at once searched out Velazquez, his townsman, who was then rich, and honored in the position of court painter to Philip IV. Velazquez received him kindly, and after some inquiry about mutual acquaintances, he talked of the young painter's plans for himself. Murillo spoke freely of his ambition to be a great painter, and of his desire to visit Rome and Flanders.

Velazquez took the young painter to his own house, and procured for him the privilege of copying in the great galleries of the capitol and in the Escurial. He advised him to copy carefully the masterpieces in his own country. There were pictures by t.i.tian, Van Dyck, and Rubens, and Murillo began the work of copying them at once. When Velazquez returned after long absence, he was surprised at the improvement in Murillo's work. He now advised the young painter to go to Rome, but he had been away from Seville for three years, and he longed to be again at home in his beautiful native city. During his absence he had learned much in art and in the ways of the world. He had met many distinguished artists and statesmen in Velazquez's home.