A Knot is a Knot is a Knot - Francisco de Zurbarán at the National Gallery (III)

 

If Saint Casilda’s outfit causes you to gaze upwards as if you’re taking in a show on a catwalk, Zurbaran’s two paintings of Saint Francis of Assisi initially make you itch. The girls explode with colour, whilst Francis’s palette is dour and of the monk’s cell. Yet, as with many of the works in this exhibition, the more you linger the more you marvel. 

Zurbarán, Saint Francis in Meditation, 1635-1639

Once again, heft and palpability astonish. Francis’s eyeballs roll ecstatically towards heaven, whilst garments and gravity fix him to the ground. Details are what makes this show, and with this painting you hone in on the elbow and that threadbare sleeve. Those little wisps of thread, tiny, random dabs of white; the dark hole in desperate need of a patch; the slow work of years of contemplation. Austerity has never looked so beautiful.

 

Detail from Saint Francis in Meditation, 1635-1639

To the left of this painting on the adjacent wall is another image of the saint. Francis standing is even more glorious than Francis kneeling.

Zurbarán, Saint Francis of Assisi, 1636

The garments are again rendered exquisitely. And the composition is just perfect, total and unsettling symmetry avoided with the knotted cincture balanced against the shadow of the saint on the right. Of that cincture, I grow curious and do my research. It should have three knots, representing the core Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Why four then? Perhaps it’s an echo of another Zurbarán quirk, the four nails piercing Christ’s limbs, rather than an almost universal three? But then flicking my eyes back to the right, I notice that Francis kneeling has only two knots in his cincture. I’m probably overdetermining then. Zurbarán might have just loved painting a knot, and they are, when you give it any thought, rather rose-like. Thus – anticipating Gertrude Stein – a knot is a knot is a knot …