or in
any place where they would attract attention. Thus it often happened on
festival days that a good work would command fame for an artist, and gain
for him the patronage of some cathedral chapter or generous nobleman.
Castillo removed to Cadiz in 1640, and Murillo, who was very poor, could
only bring himself before the public, and earn sufficient for the bare
necessities of life by thus exposing his pictures in the market of the
Feria, as it was called, in front of the Church of All Saints. He
struggled along in this way for two years. Early in 1640, Murillo met with
an old fellow-pupil, Moya, who had been campaigning in Flanders in the
Spanish army, and had there become impressed with the worth of the clear
and strong style of the Flemish masters. Especially was he pleased with
Vandyck, so that he followed him to England, and there studied as his
pupil during the last six months of Vandyck's life. Moved by Moya's
romancing stories of travel, adventure, and study, Murillo resolved to see
better pictures than were to be found at Seville, and, if possible, to
visit Italy. As a first step he painted a quantity of banners, madonnas,
flower-pieces--anything and everything--and sold them to a ship owner, who
sent them to Spanish America; and it is said that this and similar trades
originated the story that Murillo once visited Mexico and other
Spanish-American countries. Thus equipped with funds, and without
informing his friends (his parents were dead), he started on foot across
the mountains and the equally dreaded plains for Madrid, which he entered
at the age of twenty-five, friendless and poor. He sought out Velasquez,
and asked him for letters to his friends in Rome. But Velasquez, then at
the height of his fame and influence, was so much interested in the young
enthusiast that he offered him lodgings and an opportunity to study and
copy in the galleries of Madrid. The Royal Galleries contained carefully
selected pictures from the Italian and Flemish schools, so that Murillo
was at once placed in the very best possible conditions for success.
Murillo thus spent more than two years, mostly under the direction of
Velasquez, and worked early and late. He copied from the Italian and
Flemish masters, and drew from casts and from life. This for a time so
influenced his style that even now connoisseurs are said to discern
reminiscences of Vandyck and Velasquez in the pictures painted by him on
his first return to Seville. A