Zurbaran Paintings
1598 - 1664 Painter, Spain, Baroque
Still life with Oranges, Lemons and Rose, 1633
Oil on canvas, 23 1/2 x 42 1/8 inches (60 x 107 cm)
Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena Still Life Paintings
In the oeuvre of Zurbaran, religious themes predominate, with particular emphasis on asceticism. Zurbaran also painted many still-lifes - Still life with Oranges, Lemons and Rose, which, however, reflect the same qualities of asceticism, quiet contemplation and introversion for his choice of objects indicates the transience of human life.
Zurbaran does not do so by presenting a clock, a skull or an hourglass. Instead, on a brilliantly polished table, Zurbaran shows us a pewter plate with lemons, a basket of oranges complete with leaves and blossoms, and a fine china cup on a silver saucer on which lies a rose in full bloom. Though lemons signify wealth in a Netherlandish still life, they have a very different meaning here, in the country where they actually grow. Even so, they are not represented as the fruits of daily life, but presented with all the solemn celebration of an offering on an altar.
As in the paintings of his contemporary Sánchez Cotán, Zurbaran isolates the individual objects from one another - even the composition appears to be a conscious though not excessively artificial arrangement. Against the dark background, the objects are completely static, and appear to be torn out of the context of everyday life. The human beings to whom they apparently belong have no place here.
