_Francesco de Herrera, the elder_ (Spanish: 1576-1656).
Francesco de Herrera, the elder--so called to distinguish him
from a son of the same name who was also a painter--was the
first to throw off the timid conventional style hitherto in
vogue, and to adopt the bold and vigorous manner which became
characteristic of the school of Seville. He drew, we are told,
with charred reeds, and painted with a housepainter's brush. It
is said that on occasions he would employ a servant to smear
the paints on his canvas with a coarse brush, and then himself
shape the rough masses into figures and draperies. In the
Louvre there is an important picture by Herrera, "St. Basil
dictating his Doctrine," of which Théophile Gautier said that
it was "dashed off with an unimaginable fury of the brush, and
blazed with the flashing of some auto-da-fè." In the Earl of
Clarendon's Collection are three powerful pictures (shown at
the New Gallery, 1895-96) representing scenes in the life of
St. Bonaventura. But most of Herrera's extant works, in oil and
fresco, remain at Seville. The vigour of his style was equalled
by the impetuosity of his temper. Pupils flocked round him,
but the violence of his outbursts drove them away. Among this
number was Velazquez. He perverted his talent as an engraver
of medals to the work of coining, and when suspected of this
offence fled for sanctuary to the Jesuits' College. There he
painted a picture which was shown to Philip IV. "What need,"
said the King, "has a man gifted with abilities like yours of
silver and gold? Go, you are free; and take care that you do
not get into this scrape again." He could not, however, change
his violent habits, and his children, we are told, robbed him
and fled from his house. In 1650 Herrera removed to Madrid,
where he had the pleasure, or mortification, of seeing his
former pupil, Velazquez, at the height of his fame.
A work in the painter's less impetuous style, but marked by the vigour
characteristic of the Spanish and Italian "naturalists."