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The word “visionary” is done to death but the Spanish painter of the 17th century Francisco de Zurbarán wants it: he paints spiritual things by nature and natural things by spirituality. The space becomes different in its own world, the distance dissolves and removes the barrier between you and the image. The first scene in the dreamlike bliss of this show defies imagination. A monk wearing white kneeling kneels before a living person hanging upside down, his hands and feet nailed to the inverted cross: it is a vision as real and close to us as it is to the terrifying monk, caught in the penumbra of the bronze fire, a stream of light from the smoke from heaven.
The Apparition of Saint Peter by Saint Peter Nolasco from 1629 has been borrowed by a Prado and shows Nolasco receiving a vision of the original Saint Peter who asked to be crucified for not imitating Christ. Nolasco could not go to the temple of Saint Peter in Rome, so the founder of the church appeared to him at home in Spain. You might think that this is the art of human consciousness, the stuff of prayer cards. But one thing is certain: Zurbarán believed in it and painted it with such conviction that it becomes real. You can see why Salvador Dalí loved this artist and modeled his past life and crucifixion: for Zurbarán is an early surrealist. Several of the newly created paintings in the exhibition include a giant wall-filling skeleton, perhaps painted for theatricality: it is mocking but detailed, full of character, strangely alive.
Zurbarán, who was born in 1598 and spent the greatest years of his career in Seville, worked in the age of the Catholic revival, in the Catholic world of Catholic Europe: The military faith of Spain was rooted in centuries of religious wars that gradually drove out the Muslim rule. Seville, whose church bell tower was originally built as a minaret, boasted among other Christian orders the Mercedarians, founded by Nolasco, who specialized in rescuing Christians who had been captured by Muslims (all religions had turned into slaves of the opposing religion throughout the Mediterranean). However, the people of Seville did not know much about art. Not only the city, where the famous painter Zurbarán lived, had a history of Islamic architecture but also produced an amazing artist. Diego Velazquez. Gold from the Americas rushed to Seville and the wealth helps explain the beauty of Zurbarán. No other artist has ever made loincloths more beautiful. Christ Crucified above you, a pale body is visible in the darkness, but above his groin dances the flower-like pattern of a freshly washed white cloth.
Once you allow yourself to be taken in by this beautiful garment, you begin to see Zurbarán’s eye for textiles everywhere. The whiteness of the holy clothes looks at him. Saint Serapion, who was tortured to death in the Mercedarian mission to save Christians, his battered body is hidden in a white cloth. Amid acres of white cloth are the blue, silver, bronze and red vestments of Saint Casilda of Toledo, the Muslim queen who (it was said) gave bread to Christian prisoners. When he was caught, the bread miraculously turned into flowers – which Zurbarán shows with the same vision, turning this image of the saint into a spring festival. It’s a popular piece of art – another reason the show is so captivating. You are in the presence of great public art, with a passion that must have affected the working class of 1600s Seville as much as it will affect you.
However there is a difficult, visible border in Zurbarán. He is an amazing mystic, a mystical Catholic artist who paints with scientific accuracy. He lived in the age of Galileo when the telescope was spreading the new idea of accurate observation: yet he takes that science of reality and turns it into a fantasy, turning natural observation into a revelation of the mystery of nature.
You can see this clearly in the paintings of his life. The upper room not only reveals the newly identified models, but also sets them in a beautiful setting against the beautiful fruit and flower pictures of his son Juan. While Juan de Zurbarán’s grapes focus on the beauty of the world, his father’s life is still ruthlessly isolated by isolating natural and artificial elements in the most sophisticated settings. Lemons, oranges and a pink rose that rest on a shiny metal plate next to a glass of water are followed in the distance by the black. It’s amazing, terrifying, yet at the same time captured by the mind like a mirror. Zurbarán says, in ordinary things, a glass of water, a flower, in which you see the mystery of God. They live on the edge of Europe but you think they might have moved on John Donne: Zurbarán is a metaphysical poem in paint.
But what does this skill have for non-religious people? A life-and-death necessity and mystery with few equals. In Zurbarán’s most dramatic “life” a lamb is set aloft to be slaughtered. You don’t feel like it’s already dead or you’re naively anticipating its future. Obviously the Agnus Dei represents Christ, but it is also a real lamb, slain by a man, painted alive with such perfection it could be a vitrine model. Each fold and knot of its fur is soft and thick enough to touch. Zurbarán pulls you into the picture plane so you can empathize with his pain. You can’t ask for more of a masterpiece.
