‘Painter of Kings, King of Painters’: Francisco de Zurbaran
Words by Madeleine McClean
Just outside of the gallery are paintings of red, black, white and green and portraits of forgotten faces, Bacon faces, twisted by the bombings. In the distance, Westminster wears Monet’s shroud of smog and watches all the bright yellow jackets shepherding the scene. Trafalgar Square is loud with grief and anger as drums and speakers boom. Amidst a tentative ceasefire agreement, I have found myself amongst thousands gathered in support of Gaza.
Inside the National Gallery it is almost as crowded - an overnight exhibition of Van Gogh’s ‘Poets and Lovers’ is sold out and a towering Parmigianino (‘the little one from Parma’) is on display. But in Room 30, a quiet, contemplative figure holds his own. He leans over a bench with a skull in his hand and a book by his arm, his eyes and his hands turned up as though speaking to God. He is St Francis of Assisi, in Meditation (1639). He is ‘the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation’, according to the current Pope, whose name he holds as a pledge to follow in his humble footsteps. As the Italian patron saint of animals and the environment, he is often portrayed with a bird, usually in his hand. But this time there is no bird, there is the shadow of a chapel in the distance, a glimpse of trees, a few lonely rocks and an immense darkness, out of which the figure is sculpted. I am looking at a man looking inwards. It is as though I have travelled through the pitch well of his mouth and the dizzying vacuum of the skull sockets to the space inside where he holds his holy communion, as they echo the darkness of the canvas where he gestures to God with his stigmata outstretched. This ability to make the invisible tangible, this invitation into the spiritual cavity is what I love about the Baroque Counter-Reformation artist Francisco de Zurbaran. Likened to a ‘Spanish Caravaggio’, his use of light is just as striking and dramatic, creating what curator Ignacio Rivero referred to as ‘a unique visual language in which he combined pure naturalism with a poetic modernity’. His style developed in response to the conclusion of the Council of Trent (1563) that Catholic art should be ‘simple, moving and encourage devotion’. Which it largely does, ‘creating hallucinatory work that can move even a staunch atheist like [me]’, as Jonathan Jones once admitted.
Zurbaran, ‘St Francis in Meditation’ (1639), The National Gallery
Two paintings further along the same wall is another Zurbaran. Gone are the ascetic robes of St Francis lost within a mystic wilderness, this sitter now is dressed as a wealthy shepherdess with colourful Spanish saddle bags and a lambskin jacket. ‘Saint Margaret of Antioch’ (1631) gazes formidably at the viewer; this is a woman who, according to the medieval Golden Legend, had been devoured by Satan in the form of a dragon and burst forth from the belly of the beast. No wonder she is as unfazed by us than by the creature at her feet, she is not media to be simply consumed. Typical of Zurbaran, she is painted in isolation and without spatial reference, emphasising her personal experience and giving her a universal, allegorical feel as the patron saint of childbirth. Her foot is planted dangerously close to the picture plane as she threatens to reach out with her crozier and pull us into her world, if only to nurture us in the strength of her faith. The contrast in light is not quite as starkly Tenebrist as seen in the face of St Francis, but the background is nonetheless split into a half-dark half-light that reminds us of the interplay of forces that she has experienced and mediates, from the dark, primordial womb to the light of birth and re-birth. Zurbaran’s fleshy-tongued dragon is also magnificent, even as it seems a little unsure of its own power in the light of this saint.
Zurbaran, ‘St Margaret of Antioch’ (1630), The National Gallery
Walk on a little further to a smaller room, almost empty, and you will come across the last Zurbaran in the National (the fourth, another Francis, is currently being displayed elsewhere). ‘A Cup of Water and a Rose’ (1630). So simple, so lyrical, such beauty in stillness. Whilst this is only the fragment of a larger painting, the disciplined composition is characteristic of Zurbaran; he can conjure more monastic simplicity in a cup and a rose than a monk in a hair shirt. Despite its unassuming size it carries much symbolic weight, as the water refers to the Virgin Mother and the flower recalls her title of ‘Mystic Rose’. Furthermore, the rose is thornless, perhaps referencing the Immaculate Conception. The background is austere and so our eyes follow the pink to the lighter shades of pink to the grey brim of clear water to the white brim of polished silver and back to the rose, the white of the rose reflected in the silver. The rose is delicate, diaphanous, swooning. It’s a really beautiful painting and I would encourage you, should you ever find yourself in the National Gallery, to stand in front of it and enter its meditative space. Despite the general hubbub it hums like a silent singing bowl and draws you in.
Zurbaran, ‘A Cup and a Rose’ (1649), The National Gallery
Juan de Zurbaran, his son, must have been equally enamoured by this duo; in a visual homage to his father, a similar cup is placed in his ‘Still Life with Lemons in a Wicker Basket’ (1649), which can be found in the same room. His work is undoubtedly impressive but does not quite carry the same spiritual force as his father; perhaps he can be relegated to the ranks of an earl within the court of painters. Personally, despite his fall from favour in the later years of his career, I’m inclined to agree with his patron King Philip IV of Spain that Francisco de Zurbaran was a ‘painter of kings, king of painters’.
Zurbaran’s signature on a highly realistic cartellino from ‘St Francis in Meditation’ (1639)
Juan de Zurbaran, ‘Still Life with Lemons in a Wicker Basket’ (1649), The National Gallery
MORE ZURBARAN, outside of the National Gallery:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/857034 ‘Agnus Dei’, currently on loan to The Met
https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-crucified-christ-with-a-painter/c6d2806e-af1a-49a5-a651-5ad2983b1d7d ‘The Crucified Christ with a Painter’, Museo del Prado
https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/francisco-de-zurbarans-christ-on-the-cross
REFERENCES:
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/francisco-de-zurbaran-a-cup-of-water-and-a-rose
https://www.studiointernational.com/zurbaran-master-of-spains-golden-age
“Zurbarán’s Crucifixion.” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 49, no. 3 (1955): 48–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4119636.
Kinkead, Duncan T. “The Last Sevillian Period of Francisco de Zurbarán.” The Art Bulletin 65, no. 2 (1983): 305–11. https://doi.org/10.2307/3050324.
