Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo painted The Young Beggar in 1650. The painting depicts the life of a young, poverty stricken Spaniard orphan delousing himself inside of a dilapidated building. Bartolomé was an artist from Seville, Spain during the Golden Age of the country. He was generally a more religious artist, but during 1642, he traveled to Madrid, where Spanish artists Velázquez and Zurbarán heavily influenced him. The creation of realistic art by those two artists impacted Murillo’s own art. The realism in his art, due to Velázquez and Zurbarán, combined with the rampant poverty in his hometown led Murillo to start painting everyday people who were impacted by poverty. An interesting thing that happened in his life that caused a slight shift in his subjects and style of painting was the death of four of his kids in 1649 by the plague. It is believed that The Young Beggar was painted during 1645 to around 1650, so the death of his children may have led to a change in subject for his art.
The artwork, The Young Beggar, is currently housed in the Department of Paintings: Spanish Paintings in The Louvre, though the artwork was created in Seville, Spain. Murillo produced this piece of art during a time of both extreme wealth and high economic …show more content…
The clay pitcher is painted with very faint but swift strokes that lead to a lifelike realness. The application of soft brushstrokes aids in the natural appearance of the boy, and the elegant fluidity on the young child’s face comes from the dainty fine strokes of the artist. There is a genuine pose and expression of strife in the boy’s positioning, that is more pronounced by the softer facial features and his clothing. While most everything is painted using soft brushstrokes, the artist paints the woven basket with broad brushstrokes that give stability to an unstable