Meditate with Francisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664)

Funny face-to-face. Holding in his hands joined a skull, the man dressed in a brunette bure contemplates the fate of his brother in humanity who has already crossed death.

The format of the work, all in length, brings back to this intimate place where the cold inert of the bone affects the fragile heat of the hands. Almost a summary of the intense and contrasting spiritual life in the heart of this Spanish 17th century where the young painter Zurbaran works, already renowned.

Religious congregations abound-Dominicans, Jesuits, Mercédaires, Franciscans-while the Spanish Empire extends beyond the seas, founding colonies and new dioceses. With as many churches that must be decorated with pious works.

Zurbaran, using his workshop, thus produced a long series of paintings representing François d’Assise, the patron saint of the Franciscans who is also his.

While his palette will light up in the years that will follow, for the moment the Spaniard Zurbaran is still marked by the work of his elder, the Italian Caravaggio (1571-1610). It was he who initiated him, through his work, with a subtle dialogue between light and shadow, as an expression of inner mystical experience.

Seized by its right side, the light reveals yellow, beige, brown bursts of this poor bure which takes the Poverello. Until the white of the mineral reflection on the skull. There remains the darkness which is born from the folds of the habit and the hollow of the impressive hood, extinguishing the face, barely outlined.

“Remember that you are fatal!” Already said the philosophers of Antiquity, who invited in return to enjoy existence. For François d’Assise, the answer goes further: the light comes from the radical conversion to God and the brother whom he puts on our way. And in our hands.