Francisco de Zurbarán: The Complete Story
Francisco de Zurbarán was the painter of monks and miracles, Spain's master of white cloth and hard light. Born in 1598 in Extremadura, he clothed the monasteries of Seville in canvas, exported saints to the Americas by the shipload, and painted the quietest still life of his century.
They call him the Spanish Caravaggio, which sells him short: Caravaggio painted drama, Zurbarán painted silence. Here is the monk's painter who was really a merchant.
Francisco de Zurbarán at a glance:
1598: born in Fuente de Cantos, Extremadura, son of a haberdasher; apprenticed in Seville at 15.
1629: the city council invites him to move to Seville permanently, over the objections of the painters' guild.
1633: signs his only still life, lemons, oranges and a rose, now at the Norton Simon Museum.
1649: the Seville plague kills his son and best assistant, Juan, at 29.
1664: dies in Madrid, still owed money for batches of paintings shipped to the Americas.
Seville's contract painter
A village boy from Fuente de Cantos, Zurbarán trained in Seville and won the city by contract: in 1629 the town council formally invited him to settle, over the protests of the painters' guild, and the monastic orders became his clients. His cycles for the Carthusians of Jerez and above all for the monastery of Guadalupe, painted around 1638 and 1639 and still in place, made him the official imagination of Spanish monastic life.
White cloth, hard light
No painter has ever done more with an undyed habit. His Saint Francis in Meditation in London's National Gallery is a hood, a shadow and a skull; his Saint Serapion of 1628 is an execution painted almost entirely as drapery.
And in 1633 he signed his only dated still life, Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, now at the Norton Simon Museum: three offerings on a ledge, arranged like a liturgy, the picture that made still life devotional.
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The myth: the austere monk with a brush
Zurbarán gets pictured as a painter monk, all fasting and candlelight.
The archives show an exporter: his workshop produced series, sets of saints, Roman emperors, patriarchs, by the dozen, and shipped them to churches and collectors in Peru and Buenos Aires, paintings as Seville's other transatlantic cargo.
The silence was a product line, and he ran it like a fleet owner.
Eclipsed by sweetness
In the 1650s taste in Seville swung to the soft light of the young Murillo, and Zurbarán's hard sanctity dated overnight.
He moved to Madrid in 1658, seeking work near his old colleague Velazquez, and died there in 1664, far from rich.
The rediscovery took two centuries, led by French painters and collectors who saw in his geometry something modern before its time.
Where to see Zurbarán
The Prado and Seville's Museo de Bellas Artes hold the core; the monastery of Guadalupe keeps his cycle where he hung it. The National Gallery in London has Saint Francis, the Norton Simon the still life, and the strangest outpost is English: Auckland Castle in County Durham, home to his Jacob and his Twelve Sons.
Still life as liturgy
He signed exactly one still life: lemons, oranges and a rose on a bare table edge, painted in 1633.
Three groups spaced on a dark shelf like objects on an altar. Scholars read the citrus, blossom and water as symbols of the Virgin; the picture works just as well as pure attention.
The other Zurbarán still lifes, cups and pewter lined up in a row, come from the workshop and from his son Juan. The family stared at tableware the way other painters stared at kings.
Juan, the son the plague took
Juan de Zurbarán was becoming one of Spain's best still-life painters in his own right, signing grander, darker arrangements of fruit and porcelain.
The Seville plague of 1649, which killed perhaps half the city, took him at 29.
The father's late decline was not only a matter of fashion. After 1649 the workshop had lost its second pair of hands, and its heir.
The saints in fancy dress
His female martyrs are the least austere pictures in Spanish art: Saint Casilda, Saint Margaret and their sisters parade in embroidered silks, carrying their attributes like accessories.
Tradition has it that Seville ladies modeled for them. The series shipped in batches to the Americas: holiness, in the latest fabrics.
They complicate the monk-painter cliché nicely. The man of white habits also ran what amounted to Seville's best fashion house, for saints.
The Francisco de Zurbarán questions that keep coming up
What is he known for? Monks, martyrs and white habits in hard light, and one perfect still life.
Why the Spanish Caravaggio? For the tenebrist lighting; the temperament, all stillness, is his own.
Did he really export paintings? Yes, workshop series shipped to Spanish America, documented in contracts and cargo.
When did he die? In Madrid in 1664, aged 65, his style out of fashion.
Did Zurbarán know Velázquez? They were near contemporaries from Seville and stayed friendly; Velázquez is generally credited with getting him the Buen Retiro commission in Madrid in 1634, his one big court job.
Did he die rich? No. He priced by contract and did well in the 1630s, but died in Madrid in 1664 in reduced circumstances, still chasing payment for pictures sent to Buenos Aires.
More secrets to unlock
Spanish monks in an English dining room
In 1756 the Bishop of Durham bought twelve of Zurbarán's thirteen Jacob and his Sons, painted for the American market, and hung them in his dining room at Auckland Castle as an argument for Jewish naturalisation in England. They are still there, the castle now a gallery, Spanish monastic painting arguing tolerance in an English bishop's palace for over 250 years.
