Sunshine And Shadow In Spain

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

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Contemporary with Velazquez, but influenced in his style of painting not so much by him as by Caravaggio, was the monastic painter Francisco Zurbaran (1598-1662), who, though born in the province of Estremadura, came to Seville when he was only sixteen and is generally regarded as a member of the School of Seville. He is chiefly famous for his religious pictures, and particularly for his monastic visions, among which ‘The Apotheosis of St Thomas’ in the Museum of Seville ranks as his masterpiece. His monks in white sheets often appear to be carved owing to the effect of high relief obtained by strong contrasts of light and shade, and the feeling of austerity and grandeur they display makes the paintings of Zurbaran illuminating documents of monastic life in Spain during the seventeenth century.

Among the immediate pupils of Velazquez were Juan Battista del Mazo (1600-67), who (in 1634) became his son-in-law and imitated his portraiture so cleverly that some of his paintings were at one time confounded with those by his master; and one who became still more famous, Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-82). Also born at Seville, Murillo passed through a whole gamut of influences before he developed a distinct style of his own. When he was twenty four he came to Madrid for a couple of years and when he returned he did not forget the lessons of Velazquez. From this period date those popular pictures of beggar boys and low life subjects which were the first to bring him fame. ‘The Melon Eaters’ is a fine example of this side of Murillo’s art. It charms the layman by its warm and graceful sympathy with life; it delights the artist by the skill and taste shown in the painting of the accessories. The rind of the melon, the bloom of the grapes, the wicker of the woven baskets, all are depicted not only with great beauty of color but with rare fidelity to the textures of the different objects.

Later in life Murillo altered his methods and employed a softer and more suave style, in which outlines are lost in the delicate fusion of graduated colors. The mysterious vaporous effect thus obtained was a variant of Correggio’s famous ‘smoky’ style but has been distinguished from his by being technically described as vaporoso. Among the multitude of Murillo’s religious paintings in this style the most famous is ‘The Immaculate Conception’, now in Louvre, which the French Government acquired in 1852 for the sum of £23440. The change in the type of religious presentation is market if we compare this painting with the frenzy of El Greco or the dramatic action displayed in a Titian or a Tintoretto. The storm and strife of the Reformation and counter-Reformation is passing away, and the enervation of the once combative Spain finds expression in a soft serenity that dreams of an ideal world. Not tragedy nor power, but innocence and sweetness characterize this vision of Mary, whose eyes, as a modern critic has pointed out, are not filled with inspiration and longing, but ‘astonished as those of a child gazing upon the splendor of the candles of a Christmas tree.’

Murillo was very famous in his lifetime, and the sweet sentimentality of his paintings appealed so strongly to the eighteenth and nineteenth century that for nearly two hundred years after his death he was considered the foremost of Spanish painters. Today at least three Spanish painters, Velazquez, Goya, and El Greco are rated more highly. Senhor A. de Beruete y Moret, the learned director of the Prado Museum at Madrid, has stated that:


The art of Murillo is of less interest than formerly, owing to present day preferences, which seek spirituality in art, a force, and even a restlessness which we do not find in the work of this artist....His conceptions are beautiful, but superficial. There is in them no more skillful groundwork, dramatic impulse, nor exaltation than appears at first sight. To comprehend and enjoy them it is not necessary to think; their contemplation leaves the beholder tranquil, they do not possess the power to distract, they have no warmth, nor that distinction which makes a work unique.

Historically the art of Murillo must be regarded as a sign of the decadence of Spain, and it was not till a century later that the country gave birth to another great artist; then the agony of the Wars of Succession found expression through the grim, satirical powers of Goya, whose work will be considered when we come to the art of the Napoleonic period.

The political power and prosperity of Spain rose to its zenith between the reigns of Philip II and Philip IV, and flowered in the paintings of El Greco and Velazquez. But as the power of Spain weakened and her prosperity dwindled, so also did the glory of her art begin to wane. It is not without significance that all the great painters of Spain, Murillo included, were born before 1648, the year in which the humbled Spanish empire was compelled to recognize the independence of the Netherlands by the Peace of Munster. Immediately after Velazquez we must look for the great masters of the seventeenth century, not in decaying Spain, but in Holland, victorious and independent, the country of Hals and Rembrandt.