Spanish 1618-1682 Bartolome Esteban Murillo Galleries Murillo began his art studies under Juan del Castillo in Seville. Murillo became familiar with Flemish painting; the great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was also subject to influences from other regions. His first works were influenced by Zurbaran, Jusepe de Ribera and Alonso Cano, and he shared their strongly realist approach. As his painting developed, his more important works evolved towards the polished style that suited the bourgeois and aristocratic tastes of the time, demonstrated especially in his Roman Catholic religious works. In 1642, at the age of 26 he moved to Madrid, where he most likely became familiar with the work of Velazquez, and would have seen the work of Venetian and Flemish masters in the royal collections; the rich colors and softly modeled forms of his subsequent work suggest these influences. He returned to Seville in 1645. In that year, he painted thirteen canvases for the monastery of St. Francisco el Grande in Seville which gave his reputation a well-deserved boost. Following the completion of a pair of pictures for the Seville Cathedral, he began to specialise in the themes that brought him his greatest successes, the Virgin and Child, and the Immaculate Conception. After another period in Madrid, from 1658 to 1660, he returned to Seville. Here he was one of the founders of the Academia de Bellas Artes (Academy of Art), sharing its direction, in 1660, with the architect, Francisco Herrera the Younger. This was his period of greatest activity, and he received numerous important commissions, among them the altarpieces for the Augustinian monastery, the paintings for Santa Mar??a la Blanca (completed in 1665), and others.  Related Paintings of Bartolome Esteban Murillo :. | The Young Beggar (mk05) | Boys foot of the slope | Cantaloupe and grapes to eat the children | A Girl and her Duenna | Rural girls and flower basket |
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Lubin Baugin
1610-1663 French Lubin Baugin Gallery French painter. He became a master in the painters guild of Saint-Germain-des-Pras in 1629. From c. 1636 he was in Italy, but he is known to have been in Paris again in 1641; in 1645 he became a member of the Acadmie de St Luc, and in 1651 he was also a member of the Acadmie Royale after the temporary amalgamation of the two institutions. Like many of his generation he was deeply influenced by the art of the Fontainebleau school.
Robert Whale
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BARRA, Didier
French painter (b. 1590, Metz, d. 1644, Napoli French painter, active in Italy. He was for a long time confused with FRAN?OIS DE NOM?, and the work of both artists was thought to be by a Mons? Desiderio, a 'highly praised painter of perspectives and city scenes' (de Dominici). It is now generally accepted that Mons? Desiderio was the pseudonym of Didier Barra (1982 exh. cat.), son of Cl?ment Barra. Didier Barra left Metz probably c. 1608, when his name appeared for the last time in the city archives. From c. 1630 he was active in Naples, where he came into contact with landscape and townscape painters from northern Europe. De Dominici wrote that he was associated with Belisario Corenzio. The point of departure in reconstructing Barra's oeuvre is the Panoramic View of Naples (Naples, Mus. N. S Martino), which is signed and dated Desiderius Barra ex civitate Methensi in Lotharingia, F. 1647. The picture is a precise and panoramic view of Naples from the sea, from a single viewpoint, enriched by lively brushwork and with spirited scenes of shipping in the foreground. Its topographical precision suggests that Barra was influenced by the engravings of large views of Naples made by Alessandro Baratta ( fl 1629-30), and he may himself have trained as a cartographer. On the basis of this picture, several views of Naples have been attributed to Barra.