Saint Bonaventure by Murillo

Saint Bonaventure, y Bartolome Esteban Murillo

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In 1665 Murillo began the most extensive pictorial commission that he made in his life. These are the works that would make up the main altarpiece, the small collateral altarpieces in the presbytery and the paintings in the side chapels of the Capuchin church in Seville.

 This work was found in the main altarpiece of the temple, forming a pair with Saints Justa and Rufina. The location of both saints in the decoration of the altarpiece would be motivated because Saint Bonaventure is one of the main saints of the Franciscan Order while Saint Leandro was, according to tradition, the founder of the temple that rose where the patrons of the city were martyred, a place that would later be occupied by the Capuchin church. It would, therefore, be an allegory of the symbolic handover of the temple by Saint Leander to Saint Bonaventure. 

That is the reason why it appears with a model of the old temple, with a Gothic design, which Murillo must have known through an engraving. The solemnity and gravity of the composition has tried to be softened by the master thanks to the gestures of both saints, arranged in a dialoguing attitude. Thus Saint Leander appears in profile and Saint Bonaventure from the front, the former directing his gaze towards the latter as if wanting to convey a message to him. 

The figure of Saint Leandro had already been painted by Murillo for the sacristy of the cathedral, following the same iconography here, with his archiepiscopal staff and showing a cartouche where he alludes to his fight against the Arians while a small angel holds his miter that alludes to the status of bishop. Saint Bonaventure is represented with the typical Capuchin tonsure and beard, the brown habit and the red hood. The lights used create a formidable atmospheric sensation that characterizes Murillo's mature stage.

Read also St. Bonaventure and St. Anthony (1670)

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