Francisco de Zurbarán
Francisco de Zurbarán | |
---|---|
Spanish | |
Known for | painting |
Movement | Baroque Caravaggisti |
Patron(s) | Philip IV of Spain Diego Velázquez |
Catholic Counter-Reformation |
Catholic Reformation and Revival |
|
Francisco de Zurbarán (
He was the father of the painter Juan de Zurbarán.[4]
Biography
Zurbarán was born in 1598 in Fuente de Cantos, Extremadura; he was baptized on 7 November of that year.[5][6][7] His parents were Luis de Zurbarán, a haberdasher, and his wife, Isabel Márquez.[6][7] In childhood he set about imitating objects with charcoal.[8] In 1614 his father sent him to Seville to apprentice for three years with Pedro Díaz de Villanueva, an artist of whom very little is known.[9]
Zurbarán's first marriage, in 1617, was to María Paet who was nine years older. María died in 1624 after the birth of their third child. In 1625 he married again to wealthy widow Beatriz de Morales. On 17 January 1626, Zurbarán signed a contract with the prior of the Dominican monastery San Pablo el Real in Seville, agreeing to produce 21 paintings within eight months.
Towards 1630 he was appointed painter to Philip IV, and there is a story that on one occasion the sovereign laid his hand on the artist's shoulder, saying "Painter to the king, king of painters".[14] After 1640 his austere, harsh, hard-edged style was unfavorably compared to the sentimental religiosity of Murillo and Zurbarán's reputation declined.
Beginning by the late 1630s, Zurbarán's workshop produced many paintings for export to South America.[3]
On 7 February 1644, Zurbarán married a third time with another wealthy widow, Leonor de Torder. It was only in 1658, late in Zurbarán's life, that he moved to Madrid in search of work and renewed his contact with Velázquez.[3] Popular myth has Zurbarán dying in poverty, but at his death the value of his estate was about 20,000 reales.[16]
Style
It is unknown whether Zurbarán had the opportunity to see the paintings of Caravaggio, only that his work features a similar use of chiaroscuro and tenebrism (dramatic lighting). The painter thought by some art historians to have had the greatest influence on his characteristically severe compositions was Juan Sánchez Cotán.[17] Polychrome sculpture—which by the time of Zurbarán's apprenticeship had reached a level of sophistication in Seville that surpassed that of the local painters—provided another important stylistic model for the young artist; the work of Juan Martínez Montañés is especially close to Zurbarán's in spirit.[17]
He painted his figures directly from nature, and he made great use of the lay-figure in the study of draperies, in which he was particularly proficient. He had a special gift for white draperies; as a consequence, the houses of the white-robed Carthusians are abundant in his paintings. To these rigid methods, Zurbarán is said to have adhered throughout his career, which was prosperous, wholly confined to Spain, and varied by few incidents beyond those of his daily labour. His subjects were mostly severe and ascetic religious vigils, the spirit chastising the flesh into subjection, the compositions often reduced to a single figure. The style is more reserved and chastened than Caravaggio's, the tone of color often quite bluish. Exceptional effects are attained by the precisely finished foregrounds, massed out largely in light and shade.[14] Backgrounds are often featureless and dark. Zurbaran had difficulty painting deep space; when interior or exterior settings are represented, the effect is suggestive of theater backdrops on a shallow stage.[18]
Zurbaran's late works, such as the Saint Francis (c. 1658–1664; Alte Pinakothek) show the influence of Murillo and Titian in their looser brushwork and softer contrasts.[19]
Artistic legacy
In 1631, he painted the great
Between 1628 and 1634, he painted four scenes from the life of
In 1835, paintings by Zurbarán were confiscated from monasteries and displayed in the new Museum of Cádiz.[citation needed]
His principal pupils were Bernabé de Ayala, Juan Caro de Tavira, and the Polanco brothers; others included Ignacio de Ries.[citation needed]
Zurbarán was the subject of a major exhibition in 1987 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which traveled in 1988 to Galeries nationales du Grand Palais in Paris.[27] In 2015, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid presented Zurbarán. A New Perspective.[28]
Gallery
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Santo Domingo en Soriano, 1626, Santa María Magdalena, Seville[29]
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Saint Serapion, 1628, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford
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Immaculate Conception, 1630, Museo del Prado, Madrid
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The Death ofLouvre Museum, Paris
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The Young Virgin, 1630, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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Saint Casilda of Toledo, 1630-1635, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
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Saint Margaret as a shepherdess, 1631 National Gallery, London
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The Defence of Cádiz against the English, 1634, Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Hercules and the Hydra, 1634, Museo del Prado, Madrid
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A Doctor of Law, 1635, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
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Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, c. 1635, Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Saint Luke as a Painter before Christ on the Cross, c. 1635–1640, Museo del Prado, Madrid
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The Annunciation, 1637–1639, Museum of Grenoble, France
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Saint Rufina, c. 1635–1640, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
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Agnus Dei, c. 1635–1640, Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Saint Francis of Assisi in His Tomb, 1630/34, Milwaukee Art Museum
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The Holy Family, 1659,Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest
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Still Life with Pots, c. 1650, Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Saint Francis, c. 1658–1664, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
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The Virgin Mary as a Child Praying, c. 1658–1664, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
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Saint Francis in Prayer, 1659, Museo del Prado, Madrid
References
Citations
- ^ Bussagli & Reiche 2009, p. 95.
- ^ Pérez 2004, p. 147.
- ^ a b c d Ressort & Jordan 2003.
- ^ "Two new paintings now on display". National Gallery. 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
- ^ Harris 2005, p. 208.
- ^ a b Gállego & Gudiol 1977, p. 135.
- ^ a b Baticle 1987, p. 53.
- ^ Rossetti 1911, p. 1056.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 13.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 16.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 73.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 127.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 18.
- ^ a b c Rossetti 1911, p. 1057.
- ^ "Zurbarán paintings : Art and exhibitions at Auckland Castle". The Auckland Project. Archived from the original on 28 July 2020. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
- ^ Goodwin 2015, p. 474.
- ^ a b Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 15.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, pp. 60–61.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, pp. 20, 67.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 82.
- ^ Mallory 1990, p. 116.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, pp. 79–80.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 74.
- ^ Gállego & Gudiol 1987, p. 86.
- ^ "Hercules as a Symbol of the Spanish Monarchy". Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado. Archived from the original on 13 December 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
- ^ MacKenzie (2018). "Write on Art:"Saint Francis"". Art UK.
- ^ Gilbert 1987.
- ^ "Exposición – Zurbarán. A New Perspective". Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
- ^ "Santo Domingo in Soriano". artehistoria.com (in Spanish). 2017. Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
Sources
- Baticle, Jeannine (1987). "Francisco de Zurbaran: A Chronological Review". In Baticle, Jeannine (ed.). Zurbaran. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Bussagli, Marco; Reiche, Mattia (2009). Baroque & Rococo. New York and London: Sterling. ISBN 978-1-4027-5925-3.
- Gállego, Julián; Gudiol, José (1977). Zurbarán, 1598-1664. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 9780436172205.
- Gállego, Julián; Gudiol, José (1987). Zurbará. London: Alpine Fine Arts Collection, Ltd. ISBN 0-88168-115-6.
- Gilbert, Creighton (December 1987). "Zurbarán, for the most part". The New Criterion.
- Goodwin, Robert (2015). Spain: The Centre of the World 1519–1682. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4088-4357-4.
- Harris, Ann Sutherland (2005). Seventeenth-century Art and Architecture. Laurence King. ISBN 978-1-85669-415-5.
- Mallory, Nina A. (1990). El Greco to Murillo: Spanish Painting in the Golden Age, 1556-1700. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-435531-5.
- Pérez, Javier Portús (2004). The Spanish Portrait: From El Greco to Picasso. Museo Nacional del Prado. ISBN 978-1-85759-374-7.
- Ressort, Claudie; Jordan, William B. (2003), "Zurbarán, de family", Grove Art Online, ISBN 9781884446054
- public domain: Rossetti, William Michael (1911). "Zurbaran, Francisco". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 1056–1057. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
- Zurbarán, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF)