A Procession of Virgin Martyrs -Francisco de Zurbaràn

Francisco de Zurbaràn, Saint Rufina, 1635

Francisco de Zurbaràn, Saint Rufina, 1635

There are two full length, life size female portraits in the Hispanic Society's collection in New York hanging amongst their Spanish Golden Age masterworks section. The two portraits appear almost as pendants painted using the same color palette, with both figures composed in a similar pose looking up towards the same point outside the picture frame.   These two figures are actually, Saint Lucy, ca. 1630  and Saint Rufina, ca. 1635, by Francisco de Zurbaràn.  

Renowned for his monastic commissions, (I wrote in depth about this in an earlier post) the most popular works from Zurbaràn's oeuvre were his series of female saints.  Also known as the virgin martyrs, each one comes with a very interesting legend attached to their name. Saint Lucy’s name Lucia, means light in Latin and it is supposed to herald the Light of the World, which is why she is appealed to against disorders of the eye and carries her eyes as her attributes.  There are also embellished versions of her story where she rips out her eyes to send them to her suitor.  Saint Rufina, who was martyred in Seville in the 3^rd century, was a potter who refused to sell her wares to be used for a pagan celebration and as a result was executed for being a Christian.

El Greco - A 16th century Maverick

El Greco, Disrobing of Christ (El Espolio), 1577-79
(Cathedral of Toledo, Sacristy)

El Greco, the quintessential painter of the Spanish Reformation is one of the most remarkable figures in the history of art.  What makes El Greco so interesting is his success at a time and place where religious imagery was strictly regulated to conform to the edicts of the Counter-Reformation and the erudite style of his imagery that defies classification.   Born Domenikos Theotokopoulous in Crete, a colony of the Republic of Venice, in 1541, El Greco started his artistic life as a Byzantine icon painter, before moving to Venice  to study the works of Titian and Tinteretto. Three years later, he moved to Rome where he tried to further his education and exposure but at his lack of success in securing any altarpiece commissions, he decided to move to Toledo, Spain where he stayed till the end of his life. All the different styles he was exposed to seems to have been subsumed in El Greco's paintings, the early post-Byzantine training, the narrative compositional structure, painterly brushwork and the use of oil glazes he learned in Venice and exposure to the High Renaissance works of Michelangelo and Raphael as well as contemporary Mannerist art in Rome.