Near this picture in the Provincial Museum of Seville hangs another fine example of Zurbarán’s originality of composition; _The Virgin Blessing Various Monks_. The white-frocked brothers are kneeling in two groups, left and right of the central figure of the Virgin. She stands robed in delicate rose, with her arms extended, each hand on the head of a monk. Meanwhile her blue mantle, fastened at the throat with a magnificent jewel, is held suspended by two cherubs, so that its volume forms a canopy of protection over the kneeling groups, and the upper part, curving like a bowl, is filled high with angel heads floating in divine glory. Here again is architectonic simplicity, allied with grandeur, in the distribution of the masses of white, rose, deep blue and golden yellow, and again an extraordinary interest of characterization.
The quality of intense, austere sincerity is represented also in _Miracle of S. Hugo_ (p. 166) which is in the same Museum. Indeed, it is in Seville that you realise the nobility of Zurbarán’s art. The examples in the Prado are by comparison commonplace; except the _Portrait of a Lady_ in one of the upper galleries. This introduces us to the character of the artist’s work after he settled in Madrid, whither he was sent for by the king. Portraits of women of fashion now occupied him. There is a good example in the Metropolitan Museum which, in pose and style of costume and low toned harmony, resembles the one in the Prado. In the latter, however, the silk fall of the drapery is drawn forward over the skirt by the lady’s hand, so that its folds are more voluminous, and the whole figure, in consequence, is freer in design than the one in New York. As for the other picture in the Metropolitan Museum, _S. Michael the Archangel_, it is very hard to credit its attribution to Zurbarán. Where else among the artist’s works can you find so palpable an attempt to imitate Raphael? It has nothing of the originality, breadth and determined naturalism that distinguish Zurbarán. If the latter really painted it, he must have done so in his student days with Roelas.
Zurbarán died in Madrid, probably in 1662. He is held in high estimation by the Spanish, but scarcely appreciated at his true worth by foreigners. To see him at his best, alongside of Murillo’s work, as you can in Seville, is to be disposed to question the latter’s claim to be considered the greatest artist of the Sevillian School. Certainly, as compared with Murillo, Zurbarán was more unequivocally the naturalist; he was at least as good a painter; a better, one may even think; and the qualities of his mind were superior. He had not the popular trait of sentiment and passion; but the higher gift of intellectuality and the rarer one of cold, dispassionate vision.