Murillo: The Self-Portraits
Nice exhibition
at the National Gallery focusing on two self-portraits of Murillo and putting
them into context.
Telegraph
The show marks
the 400th anniversary of the birth of Murillo and is probably the first time
the two self-portraits have been together since they were sold by his son in
1709 as they had remained in the studio. Murillo was best known in his own life
time for his portraits of which only 16 have been identified and 6 of them are
in this show along with examples of his genre work which is better known now.
In the earlier
self-portrait he shows himself as a gentleman rather than an artist. He has a
handsome with long dark hair. In the later one he does show himself as an
artist with the tools of his trade on the faux plinth outside the stone frame
with his hand protruding over the edge of that frame. I loved the baroque stone
frames which he paints around the portraits often chipped to show the passage
of time.
The two genre
pictures were lovely especially the one of two women ay a window using the
Flemish idea of an illusionistic window. We do feel like we are looking in on
them from the street.
Closes on 21 May
2018
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