WHERE BRUSHSTROKE GROWS FLUID AND ENERGETIC – Bartolomè Esteban Murillo and the effects of lighting

BARTOLOME’ ESTEBAN MURILLO 1/3 – He was born into a family of artists, because its uncle (Antonio Pérez) was a painter, who was married to the daughter of another Sevillian artist (Vasco de Pereira). He was the most popular Baroque religious Spanish painter, and the rich colors and broad brushwork of his later paintings were influenced by 16-century Flemish painters. Its family was financially comfortable and had a respectable social standing in Seville. Not much, as an art student and painter, is known about Murillo’s first years, but we know that Murillo got his start as a professional artist by painting decorations for festival, also creating artworks for export.

BARTOLOME’ ESTEBAN MURILLO 2/3 – The year 1645, was the turning point for Murillo, because he married the socially prominent Beatriz Cabrera y Villalobos, and he received his first important commission for a Franciscan convent. The year 1656, he had the honor of executing Seville’s largest altarpiece ever (Saint Anthony of Padua). The year 1658, Bartolomè Esteban Murillo followed the rest of Spain’s most important painters, on their way to Madrid, where he had the opportunity to study the royal collections as well as Velázquez’s paintings. In his early paintings, he employs lighting techniques, contrasting a dark, relatively abstract background with strongly illuminated figures in the foreground.

BARTOLOME’ ESTEBAN MURILLO 3/3 – Throughout the 1660s, the honors just kept accumulating for this painter, the only Spanish painter whose works were well-known outside of Spain. The year 1680, he received a commission to paint the main altarpiece for the Capuchins church in Cádiz. Murillo’s mature style evidences a syrupy sweetness most akin to the early pioneer of the Italian Baroque. While he working high up on a scaffold: Murillo fell. He died after a few months of terrible pain, and was buried into the Cathedral of Seville in front of his favorite painting, the same burial place as Christopher Columbus.             You can see more on Meeting Benches, looking for http://meetingbenches.com/2016/07/bartolome-esteban-murillo-16181682-spanish-painter-the-admiration-of-europe-unknown-and-less-esteemed-in-his-land/