Murillo was now growing old. All the time which he could possibly spare
from his work he passed in devotion. He often visited the Church of
Santa Cruz, where he spent hours before the altar-piece, "The Descent
from the Cross," by Pedro Campaña. When lingering late one night, he
was asked by the sacristan why he thus tarried. He replied: "I am
waiting till those men have brought the body of our blessed Lord down
the ladder."
His last picture, the "Marriage of St. Catharine," was begun in 1680, in
the Capuchin Church at Cadiz, when he was sixty-two years of age. He had
finished the centre group of the Madonna and Child and St. Catharine,
when he fell from the scaffold on which he was climbing to his work, and
fatally injured himself. Whether this accident occurred in the chapel at
Cadiz, or in his own studio, is not positively known, but he died soon
afterward, at Seville, April 3, 1682, in the arms of his friend Canon
Neve and his pupil Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio. His wife was dead, and
his daughter had become a nun six years previous, but his second son,
Gaspar, stood beside the bed of death.
He was buried with distinguished honors, the bier being carried by two
marquises and four knights, and followed by a great concourse of people.
At his own request, he was buried beneath his favorite picture, the
"Descent from the Cross." His grave was covered with a stone slab on
which were carved his name, a skeleton, and the words, "Vive moriturus,"
"Live as one who is about to die."
During the French occupation, the Church of Santa Cruz was destroyed,
and its site is now occupied by the Plaza Santa Cruz. A tablet was
placed in the adjacent wall in 1858, stating that Murillo was buried
there. A bronze statue of the painter has been erected by the city of
Seville, near the Provincial Museum.
More than five hundred of the works of Murillo are scattered through
Europe. Self-made, he left a name honored alike for great genius and
great beauty of character. Says Emelyn W. Washburn, in "Spanish
Masters," "We shall not err when we say that Murillo is the sweetest and
richest painter of his day.... He has a glowing fancy, an eye for all
beauty of nature and life, and a lofty mind and moral purpose. His magic
pencil writes the heart of his saints on the face; none better than he
can draw the pure brow of childhood; and, above all, his conceptions
suggest a mystery hidden beneath the outward coloring.
"His name recalls Spanish art in the noon of its glory. There is in that
series of great and small artists not one who has so won the heart of
all time; none depicts so much of that personal beauty which gives life
to the past. We approach Zurbaran with somewhat of awe; Velasquez is the
grand historical painter. But in Murillo we see the mingling of the two,
with a milder grace. In him, we see the sweet singer with the golden
harp strung always before him, the man with all the chords of his fine
nature touched by the Holy Ghost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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