Word: zurbarans
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Spain is a land of mystery where the dust of isolation has often settled on men's work and obscured their lives. In this sense no artist is more typically Spanish than Francisco de Zurbaran, one of Spain's great masters. Until 1905, about all that was known of him came from a yellowed packet of papers and a few disputed paintings found in out-of-the-way monasteries. That year, the first Zurbaran exhibit in modern times was held in Madrid, and the experts marveled that so little was known of the artist whom King Philip...
After 50 years of research, art experts know a little more about Francisco Zurbaran and his work. He was born in 1598 in Estremadura, probably of Basque stock like Goya, and went through life a solitary figure burning with religious zeal. Working alone, he matured swiftly, specialized in stone-cold, almost harsh pictures of monks, saints and bishops, soon held commissions from the church...
...Zurbaran was best at such stone-cold, stone-solid figure pieces as the Monk. A somber ascetic, the 17th Century Spaniard never strayed from his native land or from his passionately simple, sculptural style. Like Velasquez, he was a realist who painted only from models, but while Velasquez was concerned chiefly with color, Zurbaran cared only for form...
...year, and the public's favorite painting at both museums is a religious figure. One painting is as still as death; the other crackles with fiery life. Some 500,000 St. Louisans visit their museum annually, and their particular pride & joy is Francisco de Zurbaran's Monk with a Skull, which cost only $3,000 in 1941. The pink-stuccoed De Young Museum, in beautiful Golden Gate Park, draws a million people a year; their favorite, judging by reproduction sales, is El Greco's stormy St. John the Baptist...
...Greco found realism a bore, and scorned the restraint that made Zurbaran a minor master. To be great, he needed neither. The shapes El Greco painted were generally shaky and his colors were often curious. More concerned with spirit than with matter, he merged the two in pictures as moving as any ever painted...