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Simply divine: the extraordinary supernatural visions of Francisco de Zurbarán
He painted sea battles, the labours of Hercules and breathtaking still lifes. But, as a major new exhibition makes clear, it was in his thrilling depictions of the spiritual that the Spanish master showed his true genius
TL;DR
- Francisco de Zurbarán, a key 17th-century Spanish artist, is the subject of a major exhibition at the National Gallery, London.
- His work is characterized by a paradoxical quality, making the immaterial appear solid and tangible, and often depicting multiple planes of reality.
- Zurbarán's religious art, created for wealthy religious foundations, aimed to evoke devotion, a purpose amplified by the Counter-Reformation.
- Beyond religious works, he also painted secular scenes, including military subjects and mythological figures, as well as intimate still lifes.
- His still lifes, like his religious paintings, invite viewers to contemplate the tangible and the otherworldly simultaneously.
- A final painting in the exhibition, depicting a painter before a crucifixion, suggests a meditation on the act of painting as devotion and a means of seeing the divine.