(From the Louvre, Paris)
This is one of the masterpieces of the Paris collection, beautiful
alike in conception, colouring and composition, with all the merits of
the artist in evidence, and the most of his weaknesses conspicuous by
their absence.
[Illustration: PLATE III.--THE HOLY FAMILY]
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Without the means for pursuit of serious study and with urgent need for
present pence, the young painter was forced to do as the lowest members
of his class were doing, and he did work not unlike that with which
needy gentlemen adorn street corners in our own year of grace. To be
sure he did not choose a pitch and decorate it with busts of the
reigning family, the ruling minister, a church, a ship at anchor, and a
flock of sheep in a snowstorm, but he purchased the cheapest and
coarsest cloth he could buy, cut it up, stretched it, and painted
pictures for the Fair.
At least once a week there would be a Fair in the Triana or Macarena,
every day would witness the arrival there of country farmers and
dealers with something to buy or sell; and when a man's store or purse
was full, when he had eaten well, and was conscious of the joy of life,
he would often consent to become a patron of the arts in response to
the petition of some needy son of the brush who showed him a flaming,
flaring picture of a Madonna or a Holy Family, or produced a piece of
unspoilt saga-cloth and offered to paint a portrait almost as quickly
as the itinerant photographer of Brighton beach or Margate sands can
prepare the counterfeit of his victim with the aid of evil-smelling
collodion plates. Such pictures were always to be bought at the Feria,
though the writer has not found itinerant artists at the Fairs of
either Seville or Cordova in the past few years--perhaps they can make
more money by painting "genuine Murillos" for small dealers and owners
of shops that sell second-hand goods. Doubtless, the young painter was
a quick worker, his gifts in those days were readily expressed, and
when he lacked a commission from any of the visitors to the Fair he
prepared a few canvases for traders who sent them to the religious
houses of South America, where the influence of Spain was so widely and
heavily felt. It is not easy to guess how long he would have been
content with such work, but when he had followed it for about two years
a great change came into his life, and for the first time he became
acquainted with better things.
In the studio or workshop of Juan del Castillo he had formed a
friendship with a lad from Granada, one Pedro Moya, who, on leaving
Castillo, seems to have followed art and war and to have served his
native land in the Low Countries, where there were ample chances for
the soldier of fortune who had the good luck to pass unscathed across
the stricken field. Moya's talent was stimulated by a chance
acquaintance with Van Dyck's work, and in order to study this great
master he retired from the army and left for London, where Van Dyck,
then in the last year of his life, admitted him as a pupil. When Van
Dyck had passed away, Moya found his occupation gone, so he left our
fogbound shores for his native Andalusia, took up his residence in
Seville, and renewed his friendship with his old friend and
fellow-student. Murillo soon found in his friend's work qualities he
had never seen before; they revealed the poverty of his own efforts,
and filled him with an overmastering desire to travel and to learn. It
was easier to feel the desire than to respond to it. Italy, then as
now the Mecca of the Spanish artist, was far beyond his reach, but he
had heard stories of the success that had come to his fellow-countryman
Velazquez in Madrid, and thought that if he could go to him he would
gain a little of the advice and instruction of which he stood so much
in need. With this idea he entered into an arrangement with a picture
exporter, who carried on a large trade with South America, and
undertook to paint a large number of works at a special price. Working
at high pressure he completed the order, received his pay, placed his
young sister under the care of friends, and shook the dust of the
Macarena from his feet. His road lay towards the North, and once in
the capital of Spain, he presented himself before Velazquez.
We do not know much about the private life and character of the
greatest of Spanish painters, but the little that is known is all to
his credit. He did not hesitate to take the raw, ill-trained lad of
five-and-twenty under his protection, though his only claims upon the
Court painter were his talent and such kinship as may be said to exist
between two men, the one distinguished, the other unknown, who hail
from the same city. What Velazquez did was done thoroughly. As soon
as he was satisfied of the _bonâ fides_ of his visitor, he gave him a
home, examined his work, and pointed out its defects, procured his
admission to the royal galleries, and advised him to copy the work of
Ribera and Van Dyck. These opportunities were all Murillo required.
He could not have seen or hoped to see Velazquez very often, for the
Court painter was a man whose leisure was much restricted, but he
settled down to his work, and for two years or more was a painstaking
copyist who lacked no opportunities. Velazquez, not content to do all
he could unaided, had even shown his pupil's work to his own patron the
Duke of Olivares then still at the zenith of his power and, either
directly or through Olivares, had brought it before the notice of the
king. When Velazquez returned from Lerida in 1644, Murillo had made so
much progress that his patron thought he was quite fit to complete his
studies in Italy, and offered him the necessary introductions and money.
All lovers of Murillo must wish that he had availed himself of the
opportunity, but in the circumstances it is not altogether surprising
that he did not. Doubtless, he had heard Seville calling through all
the days and nights of his sojourn in Castile. Madrid is not a
pleasant city to those who know the South, and then, too, the young
painter would have been lonely, and must have remembered that his
sister, his only near relative, would be anxiously awaiting his return.
He had learned a great deal; he may have felt that his gifts such as
they were would secure him a good living in his own city, perhaps he
felt he had assimilated as much as he could express for many years to
come. We cannot tell what was in his mind, though to those of us who
have fallen under the spell of Seville there is not much difficulty in
forming an opinion about it, and we are inclined to think that his
decision offended his splendid patron, for the two great Sevillians
never met again. Henceforward Murillo's home was to be in the city of
his birth, and his work was to be limited by the commissions that the
city could yield him. Doubtless, he travelled gladly to the South to
take up his residence in the Plaza de Alfaro, and display his latest
work to men who might possibly become his patrons. He had left Seville
unknown and undistinguished, now he had enjoyed the advantage of
training under the greatest Sevillian of all.
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