Description
Seville's leading religious painter and great master of Spain's golden age, Murillo was one of Europe's most celebrated artists.
Murillo's rare and unusual genre scenes, which have always enjoyed great popularity, have no real precedent in Spain. His scenes of contemporary street life defy simple interpretation. Four Figures on a Step engages the viewer, who insinuates himself into a scene with an unsettling cast of characters. The young woman next to the smiling young man twists her face in a wink as she lifts the scarf over her head. Although this last gesture had alluded to conjugal fidelity since classical times, in this context it may signal his availability. The older woman protectively cradles the head of a child whose ripped pants reveal his rear, a detail that had been covered twice in paint but is now restored to its original state.
On the other hand, the mature woman also resembles the bespectacled characters in Dutch and Flemish genre paintings, among them virtuous women inspecting children's heads for lice. In these works that Murillo knew through the engravings, delousing a child served as a metaphor for the cleansing of the soul, as well as of the body. If not simply a representation of the colorful characters found in the streets of Seville, Four Figures on a Step may carry a warning and moralizing message, urging the viewer to avoid the temptations of worldly pleasures.