Francisco Zurbaran
Biography:
The painter known as Francisco Zurbaran, son of a Basque merchant settled and married in Extremadura, was born in Fuente de Cantos, Spain on November 7, 1598. His artistic training began when Francisco entered the Seville workshop of Pedro Díaz as an apprentice. Villanueva, a painter of pious images, until in 1617 he decided to move to Llerena, where he lived for more than ten years doing work for various convents in Extremadura and Seville. Then, in 1629 Zurbaran heeded the invitation of the Sevillian municipality and settled in the city for the next 30 years, until in 1635 he left Seville for the first time to go to Madrid with the commission to paint the mythological series of The Works of Hercules and two battle paintings for the Buen Retiro Palace.
Then the decade of the 40, the most fruitful of his work, he has spent it making several paintings for the monarch Felipe IV, for which he sometimes signed the King’s painter. And then in the next one he began his decline, as he did not receive as many commissions as in previous times, although he continued to paint excellent works, and in 1658 he traveled for the second time to Madrid, where he permanently resides, although with financial difficulties.
In his style marked throughout his career, the strong influence of Caravaggio, José Ribera and Diego Velázquez can be found, as well as at the end of his artistic career he has also been influenced by the style of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. His first known work has been painted by Francisco when he was only 18 years old, and it is the Immaculate Conception created in 1616, being a youth work, which is what it denotes, as well as a crucified Christ from 1626, a a theme that he will repeat on numerous occasions throughout his career.
This Spanish painter has become known for his religious paintings and scenes of monastic life in the Baroque and Counter-Reformation times, and his style ascribed to the tenebrist current due to the use he makes of contrasts of light and shadows, has been characterized basically because of the compositional simplicity, realism, rigor in conception, exquisiteness and tenderness in details, wide shapes and fullness in volumes, monumentality in figures and passion in faces, tremendously realistic. The painting of isolated religious stories and images has also been very characteristic in his career, as well as his main works are altarpieces and series of canvases for convents.
Later, in the final years of the 1630s, Zurbaran made the cycle of paintings of the Monastery of Guadalupe in 1638, the only pieces that are preserved in the place of origin, in which he portrays the life of Saint Jerome and the main figures of his monastic order, such as Fray Gonzalo de Illescas, and the series for the Cartuja de Jerez of 1633, whose evangelical stories of the altarpiece are in the Museum of Grenoble.
Plays:
- (1625) Fray Diego de Deza
- (1625) Birth of the Virgin
- (1625) Saint Augustine
- (1625) Saint Lucia
- (1626) Miraculous healing …
- (1626) Saint Ambrose
- (1626) Saint Gregory
- (1626) Saint Jerome
- (1626) Santo Domingo in Soriano
- (1627) Crucified
- (1628) Immaculate Conception
- (1628) Saint Serapius
- (1629) Appearance of Saint Peter the Apostle to Saint Peter Nolasco
- (1629) Epiphany
- (1629) Exhibition of the body of Saint Bonaventure
- (1629) Family of the Virgin
- (1629) Jesus among the doctors
- (1629) The vision of San Pedro Nolasco
- (1629) Presentation of the Virgin
- (1629) Saint Bonaventure at the Council of Lyons
- (1629) San Buenaventura and Sto. Thomas
- (1630) Repentance of Saint Peter
- (1630) Blessed Cyril
- (1630) House of Nazareth
- (1630) Surrender of the Virgin …
- (1630) Immaculate Conception
- (1630) Child of the Thorn
- (1630) Holy Family
- (1630) Saint Andrew
- (1630) Saint Bruno and Urban II
- (1630) Saint Carmel
- (1630) San Francisco
- (1630) Saint Joseph with the Child
- (1630) Saint Peter Thomas
- (1630) Santa Agueda
- (1630) Saint Elizabeth of Portugal
- (1630) Virgin of Mercy
- (1630) Virgin girl in ecstasy
- (1630) Vision of San Alonso Rodríguez
- (1630) Vision of Saint Anthony of Padua
- (1630) Vision of Blessed Alonso R.
- (1631) Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas
- (1631) Coronation of Saint Joseph
- (1631) Don Juan Martínez Serrano
- (1631) Fray Alonso de Sotomayor
- (1631) Eternal Father
- (1631) Saint Gabriel
- (1631) San Ramón Nonato
- (1631) Santa Casilda
- (1631) Holy Face
- (1631) Saint Margaret
- (1632) Immaculate Conception
- (1632) Saint Bonaventure at the Council of Lyons
- (1633) Still Life
- (1633) Still life of pots
- (1633) Still Life of Quinces
- (1633) Fray Francisco Zumel
- (1633) Fray Hernando de Santiago
- (1633) Fray Jerónimo Pérez
- (1633) Fray Pedro Machado
- (1633) Saint Andrew
- (1633) Saint Bartholomew
- (1633) Saint Peter
- (1633) Saint James the Greater
- (1634) Crucified
- (1634) Defense of Cádiz
- (1634) Hercules closes Gibraltar
- (1634) Hercules stops the course of the Alpheus river
- (1634) Hercules fights with Anteus
- (1634) Hercules fights with the boar of Erymanthus
- (1634) Hercules fights the Nemean lion
- (1634) Hercules fights the Cretan bull
- (1634) Hercules fights the hydra of Lerma
- (1634) Hercules kills King Geryon
- (1634) Hercules and the keeper
- (1634) Death of Hercules
- (1634) Surrender of Seville
- (1635) Agnus Dei
- (1635) Don Alonso Verdugo de Albornoz
- (1635) Saint Francis in ecstasy
- (1635) Saint Paul
- (1635) Saint Peter
- (1635) Saint Catherine
- (1635) Saint Eufemia
- (1635) Santa Eulalia
- (1636) Adoration of Saint Joseph
- (1636) Blessed Enrique Suso
- (1636) Still Life
- (1636) Christ blessing
- (1636) Burial of Saint Catherine
- (1636) Immaculate
- (1636) Saint Anthony the Abbot
- (1636) San Lorenzo
- (1636) Saint Apollonia
- (1636) Saint Lucia
- (1637) Crucified
- (1637) Burial of Saint Catherine
- (1637) Immaculate
- (1637) Saint John the Evangelist
- (1638) Adoration of the Magi
- (1638) Adoration of the Shepherds
- (1638) Angel Turiferario
- (1638) Annunciation
- (1638) Battle of Jerez
- (1638) Blessed John Hougton
- (1638) Blessed Nicholas of Albergati
- (1638) Crucified with Saint Luke
- (1638) Immaculate Conception
- (1638) Mass of Father Cabañuelas
- (1638) Martyr
- (1638) Salvador blessing
- (1638) Saint Antelmo
- (1638) San Artaldo
- (1638) Saint Bruno
- (1638) Saint Hugo of Lincoln
- (1638) San Juan
- (1638) Saint John the Baptist
- (1638) San Lorenzo
- (1638) Saint Luke
- (1638) San Marcos
- (1638) Saint Matthew
- (1638) San Román and San Barulo
- (1639) Appearance of Jesus to the Father …
- (1639) Supper at Emmaus
- (1639) Circumcision
- (1639) Fray Gonzalo de Illescas
- (1639) Martyrdom of Santiago
- (1639) Saint Francis in prayer
- (1639) Saint Jerome scourged
- (1639) Temptation of Saint Jerome
- (1640) Flight into Egypt
- (1640) Immaculate Conception
- (1640) Saint Augustine
- (1640) San Diego de Alcalá
- (1640) Saint Francis of Assisi
- (1640) Saint Jerome with two saints
- (1640) San Luis Beltrán
- (1640) Santa Casilda
- (1641) Crucified
- (1641) Mystical betrothal of Saint Catherine
- (1641) Saint Bartholomew
- (1641) San Blas
- (1641) Saint Bruno
- (1641) Saint Francis of Assisi
- (1641) Saint Jerome
- (1641) Saint John the Evangelist
- (1641) Saint Matthew
- (1641) Saint Peter Martyr
- (1641) San Pedro Nolasco
- (1641) Saint Catherine
- (1641) Saint Dorothea
- (1641) Saint Agnes
- (1641) Saint Lucia
- (1641) Santa Marina
- (1641) Saint Ursula
- (1641) Santo Domingo
- (1641) Saint Thomas
- (1641) Virgin with two mercearies
- (1641) Madonna and Child
- (1641) Virgin of the rosary
- (1643) Saint Ildefonso receiving the chasuble
- (1645) Saint Francis of Assisi
- (1650) Annunciation
- (1650) Portrait of a young man
- (1650) Virgin girl in prayer
- (1653) Christ carrying the cross
- (1655) Saint Hugo in the Carthusian refectory
- (1656) Immaculate Conception girl
- (1658) Saint James of the Mark
- (1658) Holy Face
- (1658) A Doctor of Laws
- (1658) Madonna and Child
- (1658) Madonna with Child and Saint John
- (1659) Rest on the Flight into Egypt
- (1659) San Francisco
- (1659) Saint Francis praying
- (1660) Holy Face
- (1660) Saint Thomas of Villanueva
- (1660) Virgin girl praying
- (1661) Christ collecting his garments …
- (1661) Immaculate
- (1661) Immaculate Conception
- (1661) Virgin with Saint Francis
- (1662) Virgin, Child and Saint John
- (1664) Almanzor
- (1664) David
- (1664) Don Gonzalo Bustos de Lara
- (1664) Immaculate
- (1664) San Diego de Alcalá
- (1664) Saint Francis in prayer
- (1664) Saint John the Baptist
- (1664) Santa Casilda
- (1664) Virgin sleeping girl