Zurbaran’s masterpieces painted by the moods of men
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- Zurbaran, “San Serapio”, 1628; oil on canvas, Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund
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- Zurbaran, “Santa Casilda”, c. 1635; oil on canvas, Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
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- Zurbaran, “San Francesco”, c. 1635; oil on canvas, Milwaukee Art Museum
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- Zurbaran, “Christ crucified with a painter”, fifties of the seventeenth century; oil on canvas, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
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- Zurbaran, “Fra’ Jerónimo Pérez”, c. 1632-34; oil on canvas, Madrid, Museo de la Real Accademia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
Among the protagonists of Iberian art of the seventeenth century, the painter Zurbaran has known a great success for his ability to interpret the religious fervor of his time with everyday images, both intimate and grandiose. Even in modern times his paintings have been a source of inspiration to several generations of artists, from the Romantics to Picasso.
Why do his works still seem so contemporary nowadays?
A convincing answer was given in 1952 by the writer William Somerset Maugham (Paris 1874 – Nice 1965). In his “The Vagrant Mood”, a brilliantly colorful and varied collection of essays, he has written many pages on this artist. He explained that, in the great ranks of his monastic portraits, Zurbaran managed to paint most of the moods which men are generally subject to. In this row you can recognize the idealist, the mystic, the saint, the fanatic, the stoic, the autocrat, the fussy, the sensualist, the wolverine and the clown. It was not only the love of God that led these men to take up the monastic life. Sometimes it was because of frustrated ambitions or love delusions; sometimes a longing for peace and security, other times it was a desire, naturally enough, to rise in the world. If a boy of humble origins, poor but intelligent, did not want to seek his fortune in America or in the wars, the Church offered the only means by which he could hope to stand out.
The essay by W. S. Maugham on Zurbaran came out just after the modern rediscovery of Zurbaran. Since then, a lot has been written about this artist, but the pages by Maugham still sound fresh, an excellent example of a literary idea applied to the study of the works of an artist.
July 17, 2015
