ZURBARÁN, FRANCISCO de. — Painter, born at Fuente de Cantos (province of Badajoz in Extremadura) on 7 November 1598 and died in Madrid after 28 February 1664.
His initial artistic training took place in Seville with the humble santaro P. Diaz de Villanueva and subsequently with Juan de Roelas. He went to Madrid in 1633 and formed a friendly relationship with Velazquez, from whom he learned certain technical devices, without renouncing his personality as an austere realist, in contrast with the Baroque pomp of his age. He was influenced by Francesco de Herrera the Elder and, after 1634, by Ribera, and in his finest period (approximately 1630–1640) displayed Caravaggesque tendencies more strongly than any other master of Seville. In that city he carried out his prolific activity chiefly in the service of Franciscan, Dominican, Mercedarian, and Carthusian friars. After the death of his first wife (1639), Z. adopted even more austere modes; but in the final decade of his career, with the intention of accommodating the prevailing tastes determined by Murillo, he largely repudiated the virile and solid structure of his earlier compositions, adopting light coloring and soft impastos, and thus losing his individuality. As a whole, Z. remains one of the most characteristic representatives of Iberian mysticism and asceticism and, in strictly painterly terms, one of the most sincere and vigorous masters of the European seventeenth century.
Among the compositions that attest to his exceptional ability to interpret the settings and customs of monastic life, mention should be made of S. Ugo nel refettorio dei Certosini (Seville) and the three paintings inspired by s. Bonaventura, namely: Il Santo presiede un Capitolo di frati minori and i Funerali del Santo (both in the Louvre), and Il Santo mostra a s. Tommaso d'Aquino un crocifisso (Berlin, 1629). Other eminent works, endowed with singular constructive harmony, are l'Apoteosi di s. Tommaso d'Aquino (1631), in the Museums of Seville and Grecoole, the Murillesque Adorazione dei pastori and the Circoncisione di Gesù. In the series of the Fatiche di Ercole (Prado), the depiction of the mythical hero sweeping the stables of Augeas stands out for its strong realism, while worthy of consideration, for the originality of their dramatic conception, are the sorrowful Cristo dopo la flagellazione of
Breslau, the Estasi di s. Francesco di Assisi of Boston, and the hooded Monaco in preghiera of the National Gallery in London. Z.’s gifts as a portraitist are concentrated in the superb virile head in the Brunswick Museum, the Dottore dell'Università di Salamanca (Gardner collection, Boston), and the Padri Gerolamo Perez, Pedro Machado, and Francisco Zumel (Academy of Madrid). Concrete portrait-like distinctness of features appears in several full-length evocations of highly venerated figures, such as the succinct S. Bruno vescovo di Grenoble (Cadiz) and the beautiful ss. Casilda (Prado), Apollonia (Louvre), Margherita (National Gallery in London), Elisabetta (Horme collection in Montreal), and Rufina (Spanish Society of America in New York).