Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/506

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476 Painting Roelas's pupils. He executed chiefly historic subjects. Bermudez praises the correctness of his drawing and his Venetian-like colouring. Pedro de Moya (1610 — 1666), who was at first a pupil of Juan del Castillo, enlisted in the Flemish army, but still continued to practise art. Having seen and admired the works of Van Dyck in the Low Countries, Moya, in 1641, went to London in order to study under the great artist, who unfortunately died a few months after his arrival. He then returned to Granada, where he executed several works of merit. The Louvre possesses an Adoration of the Shepherds by him. Bartolome Esteban Murillo, the most renowned painter of the Spanish school, was born at Seville, and baptized on the 1st of January, 1618. He passed a melancholy youth in ignorance and neglect. Juan del Castillo, a distant relation, gave him, out of charity, his first lessons in an art, in which he was to find fortune and renown. But Murillo soon lost his teacher, who went to live in Cadiz, and for a long time he had no master but himself. Deprived of an intelligent guide and of all regular study, obliged to live by his pencil before he had learned to use it, he was compelled to paint hastily-executed works, either for sale in the weekly fair, or for exportation to America. Murillo was already twenty-four years old when the painter Pedro de Moya passed through Seville on his return from London to Granada, bringing copies of Van Dyck, of whom he had received a few lessons. At the sight of the works of Moya, Murillo was in ecstasies, and felt his true vocation. With a few reales in his pocket, acquired by much labour, and without asking advice or