Francisco Zurbarán - The Spanish Caravaggio
Zurbaran was born at Fuente de Cantos in Extremadura
, a province on the border with Portugal. His father was a haberdasher who sent his son, then aged 16, to Seville to work as an apprentice to the artist Pedro Diaz de Villanueva. None of Villenueva's paintings have survived but Zurbaran's earliest painting, Immaculate Conception, shows similarities to the style of Velasquez and the works of Jose de Ribera.
In 1617, Zurbaran moved to Llerena, the most important city in the region, where he married Maria Paet, a woman nine years his senior. The couple had three children, but by 1624, Maria Paez had died. Zurbaran remarried quickly, this time to Beatriz de Morales, a wealthy widow and daughter of the patrician of Llerana. His career took off shortly afterwards. In early 1626, Zurbaran agreed to produce a series of 21 paintings within eight months for Seville's San Pablo el Real monastery, and in 1629, he was invited to return to the city.
In 1634, Zurbaran visited Madrid, where he helped to decorate a room in the Buen Retiro palace by painting a series of the Labors of Hercules and scenes from the defense of Cadiz. One painting, created in 1638 for the Carthusian monastery at Jerez, is signed "Painter to the King." In the same year, Zurbaran painted a ceremonial ship that the city of Seville had presented to the royal court. But those were the only royal commissions that Zurbaran received. He remained primarily a painter of religious subjects.
It was his style that made Zurbaran so popular with the monastic orders in Seville and surrounding areas who supplied him with commissions. The naturalism and the details of the dress worn by the saints, monks and apostles seen in Zurbaran's paintings added a moving level of realism to their passion and their miracles. The approach met the guidelines for artists laid down by the Council of Trent, a clerical meeting that lasted almost twenty years and which produced a policy for the Counter-Reformation.
Beatriz de Morales died in 1639, and the quality of Zurbaran's artwork began to decline. Commissions were still coming in but they were now completed at least in part by assistants employed in his workshop. Five years later, Zurbaran married for third and last time. His new wife, Leonor de Todera, was also a wealthy widow.
By now though, little remained of Zurbaran's reputation. Murillo's interior design of Seville's Franciscan church had shown that it was possible to create religious work that was realistic and inspirational but also cheerful and upbeat. Zurbaran was going out of fashion. His financial situation deteriorating, he moved to Madrid in 1658 where he produced his last work, The Virgin and the Child with St. John. He died in poverty in 1664.
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Francisco Zurbarn - The Spanish Caravaggio
By: Mark Feldman
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