My Favorite Painting at the Norton Simon
Saint Francis in Prayer
c. 1638-1639
Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598-1664)
My favorite painting at the Norton Simon is Saint Francis in Prayer. I lived inHighland Park and started visiting the Norton Simon. The museum is a gem. It’s a beautiful building covered in Heath Ceramic tiles with an extended history as the Pasadena Art Museum and a small curated collection of historic work. At first I was looking at the Bonnards and Matisses and more modern works but the more I visited the more I became attracted to the Old Masters in the European wings. Zurbaran’s paintings in particular really drew me in. It feels really fresh to me as a painting really resonates with our times. Its depth, ambiguity, drama feels contemporary.
Zurbaran’s canon includes many paintings of Saint Francis with skulls, books and other ephemera in deep thought and prayer. In each painting Saint Francis holds a skull and appears in deep thought or angst. Its like some side project and a series outside commissions that makes me think it was his real work. A series of works. Today we’d group them together call them “the Saint Francis paintings” or something. I read different things about the paintings but the one that stuck with me, and was unlike the other writings, noted that these figures were in extreme doubt, pain and wonder as he contemplates death. He looks torn about his beliefs and whether or not they’re actually true. I love this big idea in a painting. Life, death, belief, depicted with earnesty and without irony. The weight and depth is visual and emotional. It’s monumental on a modest scale.