Francisco de Zurbarán

Spanish painter

• Born: November 7, 1598 (baptized)
• Birthplace: Fuente de Cantos, Spain
• Died: August 27, 1664
• Place of death: Madrid, Spain

Zurbarán was a leading painter of baroque Seville and painter to the king of Spain. He is famed for his intense naturalism, inspiring religious paintings, and probing portrayals of monastic life.

Early Life

The son of a small-town shopkeeper, Francisco de Zurbarán (fran-SEES-koh day-zuhr-bah-RAHN) left his Extremadura mountain home of Fuente de Cantos in 1614 to pursue his fortune in the prosperous and vibrant city of Seville, then the third largest in Europe. Several of Spain’s greatest baroque painters began their careers in Seville, including Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and Alonso Cano (1601-1667), who were students in the workshop of art theorist and painter Francisco Pacheco (1564-1654) while Zurbarán was apprenticed to the obscure painter Pedro Díaz de Villanueva.

Though little is known about his teacher, Zurbarán’s work shows knowledge of Seville’s leading naturalistic painters, including Pacheco, Velázquez, Juan de Roelas, and Francisco de Herrera, the Elder. Villanueva’s shop may have exposed Zurbarán to the art of polychrome sculpture, and a document of 1624 suggests that Zurbarán worked as a sculptor, which helps to explain the physicality and rich tactility of his figures and surfaces. Unfortunately, no works from his student years or early solo career survive.

Heading homeward in 1617, Zurbarán settled in the Extremadura mountain-town of Llerena, where he married María Páez by early 1618. She gave birth to two daughters and a son, Juan, but died in September of 1623. Soon thereafter, Zurbarán married the daughter of a prominent local family, Beatriz de Morales, whose status brought the artist prestige. Widowed again in 1639, Zurbarán was married for the third and final time in 1644 to Leonor de Tordera, with whom he had six children, most of whom died young. His son Juan would be the only of his offspring to become a painter, though he, too, died before his father, of plague in 1649.

Life’s Work

On January 16, 1626, Zurbarán was commissioned to paint twenty-one canvases for the Dominican convent of San Pablo el Real in Seville. The young artist accepted quite modest remuneration, for he received about three to four times less than his Sevillian counterparts for similar work. However, this project earned him important recognition in Seville, and he quickly began to win more lucrative commissions from patrons attracted to his powerfully naturalistic religious works.

Following Pacheco’s theory that religious images should “perfect our understanding, move our will, [and] refresh our memory of divine things,” Zurbarán aimed to stir viewers’ emotions with riveting naturalism and intense immediacy, as seen in his Christ on the Cross (or Crucifixion), commissioned in 1627 by the Dominicans at San Pablo to hang in their sacristy. Zurbarán did not portray the historical event of the Crucifixion but only the lifeless body of Christ, which hangs on the cross before an empty, dark background. Without any competing narrative detail, Zurbarán directs the spectator’s attention to the pain, suffering, and ultimate gift of Christ’s sacrifice. Greatly admired, this painting earned Zurbarán an invitation from Seville’s city council to reside there permanently despite protests from local painters who demanded that he take Seville’s official guild entrance exam, which he had avoided at the end of his apprenticeship. Zurbarán refused the exam, and the city council dismissed the guild’s complaint. Unimpeded by his rivals’ challenge, Zurbarán became Seville’s preeminent painter in the 1630’s.

Zurbarán’s next major commission came in August of 1628 from the Sevillian monastery of Nuestra Señora de la Merced for twenty-two biographical narratives portraying their Order’s founder, Saint Peter Nolasco. The high sum earned for these works—almost four times the amount received two years earlier from the Dominicans—demonstrates Zurbarán’s improved reputation. His workshop, by this time quite busy with numerous projects, received a commission in 1629 to complete a series of canvases for the Franciscan College of San Buenaventura, left unfinished by Francisco de Herrera, the Elder. While this change of artists most likely resulted from Herrera’s inability to fulfill his contract on schedule, it also signals Zurbarán’s increasing status in Seville.

Like his Italian predecessor Caravaggio (1571-1610), Zurbarán recognized the expressive possibilities of honest naturalism and dramatic lighting, adapting these elements to create a powerful and personal artistic style, seen in his compelling portrayal of St. Serapion (1628) or his subdued image of St Francis in Meditation. The impressive image of St. Serapion was a second commission from the Mercedarians, painted in 1628 for their Sala de Profundis, a room where deceased monks were placed for viewing before burial. Zurbarán’s St. Francis in Meditation , most likely painted between 1635 and 1640, was probably also for monastic patrons. In both paintings, surface details of simple clothing and individualized physiognomy emerge from deep shadows. Each saint’s figure fills its canvas, as Zurbarán pushes his subjects toward the spectator to invite close inspection and deep contemplation, offering a solemnity and quiet drama that appealed to his monastic patrons. Zurbarán’s dark backgrounds are typical of early seventeenth century Sevillian painting. His innovation lies in his intense lighting, which enhances the sculptural quality of his figures and furthers their sense of immediacy and presence.

Zurbarán excelled not only as a painter of sacred images but also of hauntingly beautiful still lifes. Like his countrymen Juan Sánchez Cotán (1561-1627) and Juan van der Hamen y León (1596-1631), Zurbarán depicted carefully arranged objects with great attention to texture, color, and optical effects. Zurbarán’s strong contrasts of light and dark give humble objects a power that belies their real-world values, creating mystical compositions that invite viewers to contemplate nature and divinity through simple forms. Typical of these works is his 1633 Still-Life with Oranges , in which a plate of lemons, a basket of oranges, and a cup of water are brought vividly to life through exquisite attention to surface detail.

In 1634, Zurbarán traveled to Madrid to join Velázquez in the decoration of the Hall of Realms at the Buen Retiro Palace with royal portraits, contemporary battles, and mythological scenes. Zurbarán painted two military victories of King Philip IV as well as ten Labors of Hercules. This trip allowed Zurbarán to explore the royal collections, where he studied canvases by Titian, Peter Paul Rubens , and Velázquez. After his service, Zurbarán received the esteemed title of painter to the king, demonstrating his continuing success.

Upon his return to Seville in 1635, Zurbarán continued to receive monastic commissions and worked for more than ten different religious orders, including the Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans. He also made numerous altarpieces for local churches, and devotional works for private meditation. One of his most important commissions was for the Hieronymite monastery of San Jerónimo in Guadalupe. Canvases from this series show Zurbarán’s debt to his fellow countryman Jusepe de Ribera (1588-1652), whose work was well known and loved in Seville. The emaciated figure who dominates Life of St. Jerome (1638-1639) shares Ribera’s brutal naturalism, and Zurbarán ably captures the essence of ascetic life, providing his Hieronymite patrons an excellent exemplar for their meditations.

Seville experienced serious economic decline in the 1640’s, which required Zurbarán to look elsewhere for patrons. He found eager clients in the Americas and exported several hundred canvases to Lima (now in Peru) and Buenos Aires (now in Argentina). Zurbarán’s participation in the New World art market may also have been driven by competition from Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1618-1682), a younger “rising star” in Seville whose idealism began to attract local audiences more than the severe austerity of Zurbarán.

Though his motivation remains unclear, Zurbarán left Seville in May, 1658, for Madrid, where he painted at least three large canvases for the Franciscan monastery of Alcalá de Henares and twelve small works for private devotional use before his death in 1664 at the age of sixty-five.

Significance

Despite his waning popularity toward the end of his career, Zurbarán is heralded as one of Spain’s greatest painters. Throughout his career, Zurbarán remained interested in simple forms and clear compositions, always attentive to the details of optical experience. His devotional images instill their subjects with a power and significance highly conducive to thoughtful religious meditation. Whether through mundane objects or characters from monastic history, Zurbarán imbued his paintings with a respect for texture and form that maintains his appeal.

In addition to training his son Juan as a still life painter, Zurbarán had profound influence on modern European artists, such as Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), who were attracted to Zurbarán’s bold forms and restrictive palette.

Bibliography

Baticle, Jeannine. Zurbarán. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. A catalog from the only comprehensive American exhibition of Zurbarán’s works.

Brown, Jonathan. Francisco de Zurbarán. 1974. Rev. ed. New York: Abrams, 1991. The standard monographic study of Zurbarán’s works in English.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Painting in Spain, 1500-1700. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. This work places Zurbarán within the context of Spain’s Golden Age.

Delenda, Odile, and Luis Garraín Villa. “Zurbarán sculpteur: aspects inédits de sa carrière et de sa biographie.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 131 (1998): 125-138. This article fleshes out the artist’s early life and suggests that Zurbarán worked as a sculptor. In French with English summary.

Jordan, William B., and Peter Cherry. Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya. London: National Gallery Publications, 1995. The authors provide historical context for Zurbarán’s still life paintings.

Navarrete Prieto, Benito. Zurbarán y su Obrador: Pinturas Para el Nuevo Mundo. New York: Spanish Institute, 1999. An exhibition of Zurbarán’s works created for the Americas. Includes English translation.

Tomlinson, Janis. From El Greco to Goya: Painting in Spain, 1561-1828. New York: Abrams, 1997. An insightful overview of Spanish painting.