It seems to be the consigne
among critics to say it lacks "style." They say it is a family scene in
Judaea, voila tout.
Of course, and it is that very truth and nature
that makes this picture so fascinating. The Word was made flesh, and not
a phosphorescent apparition; and Murillo knew what he was about when he
painted this view of the interior of St. Joseph's shop. What absurd
presumption to accuse this great thinker of a deficiency of ideality, in
face of these two glorious Marys of the Conception that fill the room
with light and majesty! They hang side by side, so alike and yet so
distinct in character. One is a woman in knowledge and a goddess of
purity; the other, absolute innocence, startled by the stupendous
revelation and exalted by the vaguely comprehended glory of the future.
It is before this picture that the visitor always lingers longest. The
face is the purest expression of girlish loveliness possible to art. The
Virgin floats upborne by rosy clouds, flocks of pink cherubs flutter at
her feet waving palm-branches. The golden air is thick with suggestions
of dim celestial faces, but nothing mars the imposing solitude of the
Queen of Heaven, shrined alone, throned in the luminous azure. Surely no
man ever understood or interpreted like this grand Andalusian the power
that the worship of woman exerts on the religions of the world. All the
passionate love that has been poured out in all the ages at the feet of
Ashtaroth and Artemis and Aphrodite and Freya found visible form and
color at last on that immortal canvas where, with his fervor of religion
and the full strength of his virile devotion to beauty, he created, for
the adoration of those who should follow him, this type of the perfect
Feminine, -
"Thee! standing loveliest in the open heaven! Ave Maria! only Heaven and
Thee!"
There are some dozens more of Murillo here almost equally remarkable,
but I cannot stop to make an unmeaning catalogue of them. There is a
charming Gypsy Fortune-teller, whose wheedling voice and smile were
caught and fixed in some happy moment in Seville; an Adoration of the
Shepherds, wonderful in its happy combination of rigid truth with the
warmest glow of poetry; two Annunciations, rich with the radiance that
streams through the rent veil of the innermost heaven, - lights painted
boldly upon lights, the White Dove sailing out of the dazzling
background of celestial effulgence, - a miracle and mystery of theology
repeated by a miracle and mystery of art.
Even when you have exhausted the Murillos of the Museum you have not
reached his highest achievements in color and design. You will find
these in the Academy of San Fernando, - the Dream of the Roman Gentleman,
and the Founding of the Church of St. Mary the Greater; and the powerful
composition of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, in her hospital work. In the
first, a noble Roman and his wife have suddenly fallen asleep in their
chairs in an elegant apartment.
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