Flowers against the Loin - Francisco de Zurbarán at the National Gallery (I)
It’s the crucifixions that floor you at the National Gallery’s Francisco de Zurbarán exhibition. Walking reverently
into the first room, Zurbarán’s oil painting Christ on the Cross dominates
and rises before you. It’s a moment that seems to cause time to stand still.
Ten minutes later, you’ve barely found time to look at the other two paintings
in this space. The understated lighting feels redundant and your eyes move up
and down Christ’s splayed and sinewy body. His loin cloth – the first
indication that Zurbarán was a master of clothing and material – serves as a
lamp to light up the shadows.
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Zurbarán, Christ on the Cross, 1627 |
I’ve already returned to the exhibition
three times, yet still I linger most of all with this painting, and if
anything, the even more luminous 1635 version of the crucifixion, one that draws
out the prolonged pain and suffering even further with the faint, dried streaks of blood running
down Christ’s chest. Here too, the loin cloth billows and flowers.
Zurbarán, Christ on the Cross, 1630-1640
It’s that word flowers that seems
most appropriate to the garments in both these paintings. And a quiddity to the
shades and folds of white that summon a much later artist, Georgia O’Keeffe. To
select at random, just one of the many white flowers that O’Keeffe painted, I
trawled the internet (I neglected to keep a close eye or take photos on my 2016
visit to
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Georgia O'Keeffe, Abstraction White Rose, 1927 |
Abstraction White Rose seems like
it has been lifted directly from Christ’s modesty. Every time I return to the Spanish artist, I see the
folds of an O’Keeffe flower. And if I
ever make it to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, in her billowing petals I’ll see Zurbarán.
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