Franciso de Zurbarna(1598 – 1664) life, paintings, Spain

 

 

Franciso de Zurbarna(1598 – 1664)

                   Francisco de Zurbarán was a Baroque painter born in 1598 in a small town of Fuente de Cantos in Spain.who is most famous for his paintings of clergy members such as nuns and monks. Zurbarán was such a great painter that he has been nicknamed 'the Spanish Caravaggio'. He was also a friend and contemporary of the famous Baroque Spanish painter, Diego de Velázquez Zurbarán was the leading painter in Seville. His pictures were mostly painted for Spanish religious orders. The distinctive style of Zurbarán was influenced by the realism of Caravaggio.His best work is both very direct and intensely spiritual.

 Childhood

             His parents were Luis de Zurbarán, a haberdasher, and his wife, Isabel Márquez.He was the youngest of six children - four brothers and a sister - but little else is known about his childhood.In childhood he set about imitating objects with charcoaL. It seems, however, that Zurbarán must have demonstrated an aptitude for drawing at an early age given that his family was willing to support his pursuit of art as a career.

Early training

            In January 1614 his father arranged formal training for him in Seville where he entered into a three-year apprenticeship. Under the guidance of Díaz de Villanueva, Zurbarán interacted with leading artists of the day including Francisco Herrera the Elder. It is true that Velázquez was considered the greatest painter of Spain's Golden Age, but Zurbarán was considered more representative of the period given that Velázquez would work exclusively for the royal court in Madrid whereas Zurbarán consistently produced ecclesiastical and monastic subjects for his patrons in the south (the heartland) of Spain.They both became court painters to King Philip IV, although Velázques was definitely better remembered in history books.

Zurbarán's early training had a lasting impact on the direction of his art. According to art historian Odile Delenda, "the workshops of Seville were extremely busy at the time due to the demands of the religious orders to decorate their new ecclesiastical buildings and also to renew the ornamentation of the established houses in conformity with the dictations of the Council of Trent". It was by executing these religiously themed works that Zurbarán learned his craft. Indeed, he would tackle religious themes throughout the majority of his career even though historians have been left puzzled as to whether or not the artist was himself a man of devout faith. Having had a practical, rather than academic, training, however, Zurbarán's mature style was honed by assiduously studying the works of past masters, not least the works of Caravaggio.

Mature period

                   On the completion of his apprenticeship in 1617, Zurbarán turned down the opportunity to enter Seville's city guild of painters choosing instead to return home where he established a business as a painter in the town of Llerena. Though his business thrived, his personal life was beset with tragedy. His first marriage to MaríaPáez Jiménez, a woman nine years his senior, in 1617, lasted just six years due to her premature death. María left her husband with three young children, including a son Juan, who would also become an artist. In 1625, shortly after María's death, Zurbarán married another older woman, Beatriz de Morales, who came from a wealthy family. However, their only child, a daughter, died in infancy.

Zurbarán was actually a highly prolific painter and he was especially favoured by the Church and different orders of monks, like the Dominicans, a commission to paint a series of twenty-two paintings of the life of SaintPeter Nolasco. actually helped him become an established painter. In fact, Zurbarán focused almost exclusively on religious painting, often depicting monks, saints, and other Biblical figures. 

 In 1630 he refused to sit the exam necessary for admittance into the Seville Guild of Painters, seemingly unwilling to submit to the "petty" behavior of the city's artistic elite. His reputation had grown enough however that the City Council continued to support him on the grounds that it was more advantageous to have a painter of such skill and vision working in Seville.

 He worked on mythological paintings that were analogous with the King's glory.In 1630, the king put his hand on the artist's shoulder and said "Painter to the king, king of painters," which must have been a very “when everybody is gagging over Velázquez but the king knows what's up”moment for Zurbarán.

 

Political troubles in Seville had already resulted in a reduction of local commissions. While the new enterprise proved prosperous, it was offset by further personal tragedy when his second wife died in May of 1639. Five years later, a 46-year-old Zurbarán entered into his third and last marriage to Leonor de Tordera, a widow who was eighteen years his junior. She would give birth to six children, but only one, a daughter, would survive beyond infancy. Zurbarán's terrible personal loss was only compounded in 1649 when Juan lost his life to the plague which was ravaging Seville.

Zurbarán was often called the 'Spanish Caravaggio',^[2] even though we actually can't tell if he'd ever been in contact with a Caravaggio painting. However, since he largely remained a provincial artist throughout his life, it is quite unlikely, especially in these early stages of his career. He painted his figures from live models in order to achieve the most 'believable' realism possible. 

 Later period

During the last decade of Zurbarán's life, his beloved city of Seville become less receptive of his work as his style fell out of favor due to the rising popularity of other Spanish artists.

 

Zurbarán was a Baroque painter. Baroque art, especially in the Catholic countries of Europe, like Italy and Spain, was characterised by a strong emphasis on religious themes. This was mainly due to the Catholic Counter-Reformation, whose guidelines were decided at the Council of Trent (1546-63). Here, in an effort to literally turn people away from the Protestant Church and 'back' to Catholicism,^[3] the clergy appointed artist with the task of creating artworks that would be so emotional and so involving that the spectator would have no other chance but to engage with the work of art and, through it, find their way back to the 'true' faith. The Baroque artist was to make the Biblical scenes look like real life, as if the audience could actually enter the scene and personally experience the sacred apparitions or other Biblical stories. This was meant to induce profound, real emotions in the spectator, to the point of giving up Protestantism.

 

Zurbarán, being a Spanish Catholic himself, and given the history of Spain and its undying efforts to conserve Catholicism (think Spanish Inquisition), it comes as no surprise that his works reflected the efforts of the Counter-Reformation.

Death

              Toward the end of his life, he moved to Madrid, where he died in 1664, at the age of 65. According to a folk myth, regardless of his wives's fortune and him being a court painter, Zurbarán died in poverty. We now know that this is not true, but it makes one think what could have caused this legend to even come about. Either way, Zurbarán remains one of the greatest painters of the Iberian peninsula and his legacy carried on through generations of Spanish artists.

 

IMPORTANT ARTS BY FRANCISO DE ZURBANA

Franciso de Zurbaran was well known for his detailed religious artworks for monasteries and churches.

•  He used the chiaroscuro effect very well, allowing him to paint realistic paintings.
•       He was apprenticed to the painters padre Diaz de Villanueva at age of 16.
•         These paintings have since been scattered; most are still in Spain in the Seville Cathedral, the Prado Museum, and
•     one is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, in Bordeaux.
•       18 Baticle, 102. This painting is currently at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut      

Contents

•      Introduction

•      Childhood

•      Early Training

•      Mature Period

•      Late Period

•      Death

•      Famous Painting

•      Conclusion

 

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