Spanish school of the XVIII century. Following models of BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN MURILLO

Spanish school of the XVIII century. Following models of BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN MURILLO (Seville, 1618-1682).
"The Good Shepherd".
Oil on canvas.
Relined.
Measurements: 61 x 48 cm, 75 x 60 cm (frame).
Following models of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, copy of the original of the Prado Museum. Murillo has gone down in history as one of the great painters of children's themes, and this not only for his famous genre scenes starring children, but also for representations like this one, in which the Child Jesus appears in the biblical metaphor of the good shepherd who feeds and cares for his sheep. This is a type of image of great success among the Sevillian society of the time, and whose devotional effectiveness has remained intact through the centuries. In this type of work, which in many cases was intended for private worship, the author showed himself to be a true master when it came to combining a wise and delicate style with a gentle and sweet content. However, owner as he was of a powerful sense of composition, he endowed them with remarkable monumentality and balance. The ruins of architecture that appear in the background have a double meaning. On the one hand, they are part of a Virgilian tradition that is manifested in literature and the plastic arts and that likes the image of the shepherd among the fallen remains of a splendorous past. On the other hand, Christian iconography frequently used the reference to classical ruins as a symbol of defeated paganism.