FRANCISCO DE ZURBARAN 1/3 – He baptized in a church of Extremadura November 7, 1598, was the son a wealthy merchant. Large monastic cycles, devotional works and still lifes, are what he has given us, forever. He was the artist who painted the Counter-religiosity of the Spanish Church of the 17th century. Since 1614 he works as an apprentice in Seville, in the workshop of a painter of devotional images. Two years later, he founded his first painting format (an Immaculate Conception), painted for a convent.
FRANCISCO DE ZURBARAN 2/3 – Shortly after he married María, greater than he is ten years old, and from their marriage were born two daughters and a son. After his wife’s death he remarried a widow. In 1626 he obtained by the prior of a convent the offer to do twenty-one paintings. In 1637, with the title of painter to the king, he is in Seville, where his artistic expression comes to great quality. In this city, he made two pictorial cycles (one for the Carthusian monastery of Jerez, the other for the Hieronymites of Guadalupe), characterized by violent light contrasts.
FRANCISCO DE ZURBARAN 3/3 – Starting in 1650, the commission began to decline, because many potential buyers begin to turn to the young rising star Murillo. But he continued to paint, especially for buyers of Mexican colonies. Along with the representation of the human figure, observing his paintings, you too can perceive spiritual ecstasy and asceticism. His last years were not so successful and he died in Madrid in poverty.
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