Considerable though it be, Herrera’s artistic achievement does not
constitute his chief claim to fame; for his name will ever be best
known as that of the first master of the greatest of all Spanish
painters, Don Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez. But before
discussing the pictures by, or catalogued under the name of, Velazquez
at the Louvre, we must consider the work of two other painters of
the Naturalistic school: Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1661) and José
de Ribera, called “Lo Spagnoletto” (1588-1656). Zurbarán, a pupil of
the Sevillan Juan de las Roelas, was essentially a painter of church
pictures, his favourite subjects being types of monks and scenes of
monkish life. There is something so sincere and convincing in his
unrelenting realism, that even his pictures of rapturous ecstasy and
strongly emphasised emotion impress one as truthful renderings of types
observed by the artist in the streets and churches of monastic Seville.
The sombre passion with which his subjects are instinct is reflected by
his colour and masterly chiaroscuro. Zurbarán became Court Painter to
Philip IV. in or before 1633, in which year he added the words “_Pintor
del Rey_” to his signature on one of his pictures; and in this
capacity he painted at Madrid his only known secular pictures, a series
of ten Scenes from the History of Hercules.
Two admirable pictures from his brush figure in the Louvre Catalogue as
_St. Peter Nolasque and St. Raymond de Peñafort_ (No. 1738) and _The
Funeral of a Bishop_ (No. 1739). As a matter of fact they represent
two scenes from the life of St. Bonaventura: _The Saint presiding at a
Chapter of Minor Brothers_, and _The Funeral of St Bonaventura_. The
second of these companion pictures which were originally in a convent
at Seville is particularly striking for the unconventionality of its
composition, the strong character of the heads, and the masterly
treatment of the chiaroscuro. Note again the placing of the heads
almost in a horizontal line right across the canvas, and the anxious
avoidance of empty spaces. The third picture that stands to Zurbarán’s
name is the figure of _A Lady of Fashion in the Character of St.
Apollonia_ (No. 1740), a work of not very striking merit.