Painter of Monks: The Enduring Legacy Of Spanish Master Francisco de Zurbaran
(REVIEW) The Baroque painter Francisco de Zurbarán is celebrated today as one of the greatest masters of the Spanish Golden Age. His many paintings of friars, nuns and saints for the churches and religious orders of Andalusia earned him the sobriquet “painter of monks.” A favoorite subject was Saint Francis of Assisi and nearly 50 paintings of the 13th-century friar by Zurbarán or his assistants are known to have survived.
His paintings are currently the focus of the major exhibition “Zurbarán: Reinventing a Masterpiece” at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in France, which provides a rare opportunity to view key works from his career alongside reinterpretations of his Saint Francis pictures by artists from the 19th century to the present day. Shining a light on the enduring relevance of Zurbarán’s religious themes, it reveals the different ways in which his art has captured the imaginations of historical and contemporary artists alike.
The exhibition centers on Zurbarán’s iconic 1636 painting “Saint Francis of Assisi,” which was inspired by a curious Franciscan legend. In 1449, Pope Nicholas V visited the monastery of Assisi where, in the church’s crypt, he is said to have encountered the miraculously preserved body of Saint Francis, standing upright with his eyes raised heavenwards.
Taking inspiration from paintings on this theme by Eugenio Cajés and Alejandro de Loarte and sculptures by Gregorio Fernández, Zurbarán chose to depict Francis in a dark and shallow niche. His brown habit covers his entire body except for his face, the solemn expression of which conveys his spiritual devotion. An ethereal light illuminates one side of his body, casting a shadow against the wall. The strong contrast between light and dark, which characterises many of Zurbarán’s paintings of the saint, is an essential component of the picture’s emotional power.
The work was so well received that Zurbarán and his workshop repeated it several times. For the first time, “Saint Francis of Assisi,” held in the Lyon museum’s permanent collection, is being shown alongside two significant versions of the composition from the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Photos courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
All three masterpieces adopt the same simple format and in each the statuesque saint seems at once dead and alive; his immobile body and absence of extraneous detail give the pictures a striking meditative quality.
In most of Zurbarán’s paintings, the saint is painted standing or kneeling against either a dark background or landscape; sometimes his hood covers his head, sometimes it rests on his shoulders. In some, he holds a skull, as if meditating on death, in others, he looks upwards towards heaven.
One of the most intense of these is “Saint Francis in Meditation” (1635-39), which is on loan to the exhibition from London’s National Gallery. In a dimly lit cell, the kneeling saint prays alone, his eyes gaze heavenwards while his hands cradle a skull. Painted life-size and with characteristic chiaroscuro, the saint is absorbed in meditation, physically present but spiritually elsewhere.
The solitary devotional practice modeled here was popularized by the Spanish priest Ignatius of Loyola in his “Spiritual Exercises,” published in 1548. In his writings, Ignatius recommended meditating in the seclusion of a darkened room, aided by a symbol of one’s mortality, such as the skull that Zurbarán has painted here and which was first introduced to Spanish pictures of Francis by El Greco, one of the Counter-Reformation’s most prolific artists.
El Greco’s large-scale paintings of the saint, which variously depict him receiving the stigmata or absorbed in prayer, had a profound influence on Zurbarán’s art. So did Zurbarán’s own Catholic faith and the Counter-Reformation’s emphasis on piety and devotion is reflected in the spiritual intensity of the religious figures he portrayed.
Besides the many important commissions for churches, monasteries and convents, Zurbarán produced smaller devotional paintings for private individuals, the subjects of which included the Holy Face of Jesus, Saint Francis or Agnus Dei (Lamb of God). The role that painting played in spreading religious fervour during the Spanish Golden Age is alluded to in Zurbarán’s “The Crucified Christ with a Painter” (1650), on loan from the Prado Museum in Spain, which depicts Saint Luke dressed as a pious artist, gazing up at Christ on the cross.
Zurbarán was also a master of the still life genre and while the number of his independent still lifes is quite small, there are countless paintings that contain everyday objects, each one painted with the same careful observation as the central figures. But it is his paintings of Saint Francis that have been most influential, inspiring several generations of artists, many of whom are included in the Lyon exhibition.
“Saint Francis of Assisi” became widely known in the 19th and 20th centuries through the distribution of reproductions, and the painting has been the subject of numerous appropriations and reworkings over the years. Take, for instance, Javier Bueno’s “Execution of a Spanish Peasant” (1937), which borrows heavily from Zurbarán’s composition in its portrayal of a peasant executed by nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. The humility of Francis is contrasted with the rebelliousness of the fighter, the saint’s trust in God contradicted by the hopelessness of the latter, who stands blindfolded, awaiting his fate.
One of the more intriguing aspects of the exhibition is the inclusion of contemporary works that echo Zurbarán’s saints, whether intentional or not. A prime example is the painstakingly rendered paintings of Canadian artist Karel Funk, whose anonymous figures in hooded jackets recall Francis in his capuche. Interestingly, the elongated hood worn by friars was once associated with punishment and shame before becoming a symbol of devotion and piety.
Today, the modern hoodie is equated with delinquency and antisocial behavior, a symbol of male posturing rather than obedience to God. Funk’s enigmatic paintings play brilliantly on this tension between holiness and worldliness, as does Xavier Veilhan’s intimidating sculpture of a hooded male figure, “Xavier (capuche)” (2006).
It’s not only artists who have taken inspiration from Zurbarán. Leading figures in the fashion world, including Cristóbal Balenciaga and Madame Grès, also looked to the artist’s many depictions of Saint Francis, and several of their designs are displayed in Lyon. As evidenced by their garments, Balenciaga and Grès both shared an enthusiasm for restrained forms enlivened by exacting pleats and earthy colors, which are reminiscent of Francis’s habit.
That Zurbarán’s images of Saint Francis have continued to resonate with artists and designers over the centuries is a testament to the power and timelessness of his artistic vision. “Zurbarán: Reinventing a Masterpiece” is a bold and innovative exhibition, allowing visitors to gain a greater understanding of how the artist’s works have been received and responded to as each new generation discovers the “painter of monks” for themselves.
“Zurbarán: Reinventing a Masterpiece” is on view at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, France, until March 2. Visit the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon website for more information.
David Trigg is a writer and art historian based in the U.K. He is the author of “Money in Art” (HENI). You can find him on Instagram @davidtriggwriter.