MURILLO, (Sp. moo-til'yo), Bartolotne Esteban, bar-to'16-ma as-ta:ban, Spanish painter: b. Seville, 31 Dec. 1617; d. there, 3 April 1682. He began his art educa tion under Juan del Castillo, and in 1642 sought wider experience in Madrid, where his towns man Velasquez was enjoying a brilliant career. By the latter he was dissuaded from a contem plated visit to Rome and secured facilities for studying in the Royal Galleries and in the Escorial. Here he placed himself for three years under the inspiration of Ribera, Titian, Rubens, Vandyke and Velasquez himself. In 1645 he returned to Seville where he undertook to paint 11 separate pictures for the cloister of Saint Francis in illustration of Franciscan his tory. These works proved the foundation of his renown. The principal pieces of this series are 'Saint James Distributing Alms' (now in the Academy Fernando, Madrid); the so-called 'Angel Piece' (in the Louvre) ; 'The Death of Saint Clara' (in the Dresden Gallery). These strike the note of the early Seville school, be ing warm in tone, and exhibit Murillo as draw ing his types of beauty from the lower orders of the Spanish people. Of even more trans parent coloring are his 'Saint Leander and Is idore' in the sacristy of the cathedral at Madrid; 'The Birth of Mary' (in the Louvre); and the 'Vision of Saint Anthony' (in Seville Cathedral, 1656); both of these latter belong to the middle period of his artistic develop ment. In 1665 he his four pictures for the church of Santa Maria pa Blanca, among them being his 'Church Triumphant); 'The Im maculate Conception) (in the Louvre) • and 'The Foundation of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome' (in the Madrid Academy). In 1668 he painted his 'Madonna Hovering in the Clouds Surrounded by Eight Saints of Seville' (in the chapter-house of Seville Cathe dral); and about 1670 his 'Holy Family with Elizabeth and The Infant Baptist' (in the Louvre). His most brilliant period was be tween 1670 and 1680; and ,in 1674 he had com pleted the eight vast pictures illustrating the 'Corporal Works of Mercy.' These were in tended for the church of the Caridad Hospital, and are remarkable for splendor of coloring and strength of design; the faces are lifelike in expression and the composition and per spective faultless. His 'Saint Elizabeth of
Hungary Nursing the Sick' (in the Madrid Museum) belongs to this period. In 1676 he executed 20 pictures for the Capuchin mon astery at Seville, 17 of which are now in the local museum. It was at this time he painted the famous 'Immaculate Conception' which Marechal Soult took to France and sold to the nation for 615,000 francs. It is now in the Louvre, and is the work by which this painter is most popularly known. While Murillo was engaged at Cadiz in painting 'The Betrothal of Saint Catherine' for the high altar of the Capuchin Church, he fell from the scaffolding and died as the result of his injuries. The work was completed by his pupil Osorio with no par ticular success.
Murillo left about 400 pictures, including his devotional paintings and the many repre sentations of the 'Immaculate Conception,' one of his favorite and characteristic subjects. His most important works in the United States are the altar-piece in the cathedral of Saint Peter's at Cincinnati and at the Window' in the Widener collection, Philadelphia. He was the greatest of Spanish religious painters be cause his Madonnas are real Spanish women and only raised by the magic of his brush into sainthood or apotheosis. But he was a great genre painter also. He knew the gypsies and beggars of Spain as well as he knew the saints. He could paint landscape and portrait, flowers and fruit, maidens and children of that Seville which he loved so well and never left for France or Italy. Unswayed by the influence of the dazzling schools of Tuscany or Flanders he has confined himself to Spanish faces, to Spanish atmosphere and scenery, and has real ized a manner and color of his own. If he sacrificed in this way anything of vigor or variety he gained far more in originality, sin cerity, verisimilitude and an individuality which is truly national.
Consult Calvert, A. F., a biography and appreciation) (New York 1907) ; Hurll, E. M., (Boston 1901); Tubino, F. M., (Murillo, su epoca, su vida, sus quadros' (Se ville 1864) ; Lefort, P., 'Murillo et ses &eves' (Paris 1892).