Is Zurbarán the Greatest Painter of Textiles in Western Art? Find out at the National Gallery!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]A huge warm welcome to Art Gallery Explorer, the vlog which explores and celebrates the London art scene. Coming up.

[00:00:13]>> [music] [music] >> I am hugely excited to be heading into the National Gallery to explore a show I've been waiting to see ever since it was announced focusing on the work of the Spanish Baroque great Francisco de Zurbarán.

[00:00:34]Zurbarán was born in 1598, but it and it was quite clear from a young age he was going to become a painter. By 1614 he was being apprenticed to an artist.

[00:00:45]It was actually in 1626 that he saw a major breakthrough when he was commissioned to paint a series of works for a Dominican monastery in Seville. And it was in Seville that he became widely loved and and moved and saw lots and lots of commissions.

[00:01:01]He became painter to Philip the IV, the King of Spain.

[00:01:06]And in some ways he's known as Spain's Caravaggio because he he has a lot of that light and dark which Caravaggio employs.

[00:01:17]He's also quite an austere painter who paints mainly religious themes.

[00:01:22]And to be fair in Britain, despite the National Gallery holding some treasures and a much beloved series of paintings of Jacob and his sons by Zurbarán residing in Auckland Palace in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, he is not that well known in Britain as an artist.

[00:01:38]Velázquez is um much more of a of a of a of a of a of a of a well-known Spanish Baroque figure.

[00:01:45]So, this exhibition is actually the first major exhibition by Zurbarán in London and I can't wait to take you inside and see a full range of his work.

[00:01:53]This is going to be a treat. It's on all the way until the 23rd of August. It's £20 to get in off-peak, £22 at weekends.

[00:02:01]Come and join me as I head inside on what is a beautiful Friday evening here in London to explore the show by Francisco de Zurbarán from the National Gallery. This is in the Sainsbury entrance to the National Gallery. So, come and join me as we head inside This exhibition is thematically curated across seven main rooms and contains some loans from all over the world.

[00:02:29]I'm going to choose some Baroque music by Bach to accompany this show.

[00:02:34]But, as I always say when watching these videos, please mute if you find it annoying or replace it with something of your own choice.

[00:02:45]I'm going to share my thoughts at the end. So, see you on the other side.

[00:02:52]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Well, I hope you enjoyed nearly every painting from this Zurbarán show from the National Gallery. There was two works that I couldn't bring you actually and I'm going to post up the description of them now. They were recently attributed to Zurbarán from a from a private collection and understandably the owners didn't want these photographed and I always respect that.

[00:13:09]So, this is what you would have seen, but apart from that I brought you every single work and what a show. I mean, this is kind of like the the historical painting show that the National Gallery does.

[00:13:20]The best in my opinion in the world. It was so satisfying and I always think about these London shows in terms of the good, the bad, and the beautiful. And if we start with the good, there was so much I enjoyed about this show. I've had to break it down into five different things.

[00:13:35]First of all, I asked in the title of the exhibition, "Is a Rembrandt the best painter of textiles in Western art?" And in my opinion, he is. It was actually weirdly the textiles, not the human faces, the clothing that that that his figures were wearing that drew me in.

[00:13:51]They were so beautifully painted.

[00:13:53]They're stunning. Look at this dress, for example. You just almost want to reach out and touch it. Or this robe, so colorful and zinging and in your eyes. Or even this this this this rough-looking bit, torn bit of St. Francis of Assisi's habit. You can almost feel it itching against your skin, can't you?

[00:14:14]And it was weird cuz even in these two stunning um depictions of the crucifixion, I was partially drawn to the loincloths cuz they were so different and so had so much care taken over them. And and it's interesting, isn't it? I don't think this is superficial cuz he wasn't as good, in my opinion, at painting faces, especially not women's faces.

[00:14:35]They kind of often morphed into this rather generic oval face um which which wasn't as satisfying, certainly not up there with great portrait painters like Rembrandt. But clothing is a fundamental part of human existence and obviously it's not superficial to say that that that is a something that you can get a lot of pleasure from in art. He was better, by the way, at painting male faces, I thought. And so I really enjoyed that um part of this show. And that was a really pleasant surprise seeing work after work where where textiles were were were produced so skillfully. And the exhibition explains his father was involved in the textile trade and and he is in later in his life, he was as well. So he had a clear interest in clothing and textiles and a very, very clear, brilliant artist's eye for depicting them and bringing them to us. So, that was the first highlight and which I really enjoyed.

[00:15:28]Secondly, and a bit more obviously, I suppose, this had a really great selection of loans. The National Gallery used its clout to pull in loans from all over Spain, from Seville, from Madrid, from Bilbao, from from Barcelona and Catalonia, as well as other places in Europe like the Louvre and Budapest and then and and it supplemented these with some good loans from America, from the Metropolitan Museum or the Art Institute of Chicago, etc. And and that was really satisfying and that makes this, in my opinion, a world-class Zurbarán show, once-in-a-generation show because the range of works on show give you, in my opinion, a complete a picture of the artist. So, I really enjoyed that and that's one of the reasons why I'll be back.

[00:16:10]Thirdly, and linked to that in a way, Zurbarán was obviously a painter of religious scenes, primarily, although there were still lifes and other other works as well. And what I really liked is he cast his net wide into the Old Testament and and across the New Testament as well.

[00:16:27]So, this isn't a case of seeing repeated Virgin and Child, far from it. He's using loads of different scenes to provide real variety and I really enjoyed that.

[00:16:37]Fourthly, I loved his capturing of food, whether it was sort of in the background like these gorgeously rendered pears in this painting or in this still life in the foreground with these lemons. I thoroughly enjoyed them. They almost made me want to reach in, pull one out, cut it in half and squeeze it on on on on some lovely sea bass or something like that.

[00:17:01]And I have to say the highlight [clears throat] was these bread rolls in the Usher painting.

[00:17:06]I think that that I was hungry having come to this show straight from work and having not eaten since lunchtime and and these things certainly made me want to reach into the painting and grab one.

[00:17:16]They look as if they've just been baked.

[00:17:17]So, that was a real highlight as well.

[00:17:19]Also, I thought there were some really dramatic set piece moments which the curatorial team have pulled together which really works. Um I love the entrance where you're confronted by a brilliant crucifixion [clears throat] painting straight away. And there's a wonderful moment where you kind of go into the main sort of row of galleries and you turn right and you see a few galleries down the colossal head staring back at you.

[00:17:45]And it's so big it doesn't feel that far away. Set piece staging like this really works and I think the drama of seeing the partial altarpiece. You come into a room and it takes your breath away. All of that really really worked well.

[00:17:59]And it was nice as a little aside to see a few works by Zurbarán son Juan as well. Um I didn't realize that he had a son who was an artist who produced still lives and who died tragically young and could have gone on maybe to start a family line.

[00:18:15]So, it's great to see some of those works as well. So, there was so much to enjoy about the show.

[00:18:21]There was very little bad as you can probably tell from my enthusiasm. But one thing I did want to put out there and I don't know those of you who have visited the show or if you do visit, let me know if you agree. Was the lighting a little bit off with a couple of the works? Some of them were beautifully lit like these two. But in a couple of places, I found the lighting actually made enjoying and viewing the work harder. And I I went round twice once for me and once to bring the show to you. And I felt this both times and I was wondering if, you know, these gallery spaces don't have the highest ceilings and lots of the works are really vast and were were made for churches or monasteries. And so, I was wondering if they were harder to light maybe than in in this new Sainsbury Wing space which I generally really enjoy by the way than than than than some other works. So, let me know if you felt in a couple of places the lighting was off.

[00:19:09]I'll give you an example here where you where I think you can see that. But let me know if I'm being a bit negative with that, but overall um the positives massively outweigh the negatives.

[00:19:19]And in terms of the beautiful, there were obviously over a dozen works I'd love to have on my wall more, um but the last work in the show, this crucified Christ with a painter, really moved me.

[00:19:32]I was already kind of very very moved having seen the Agnus Dei painting in this room, having also thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the show. But this work seemed uniquely personal and intimate and a bit post-modern as well.

[00:19:48]This idea of a painter looking up at a scene which has been rendered so much in Western art. Um it tells us a lot about Zurbarán as an artist and also is a very modern way of looking at painting. So I thoroughly enjoyed that and obviously left on a massive high having already floated into that room.

[00:20:10]Overall, I'm going to give this show, I think, a 9.5 out of 10. If you're into Baroque Spanish art, it's going to be an absolute must-see.

[00:20:19]I can always tell an exhibition has has hit that level of heights when you don't want it to end. I I I knew it was going to be seven rooms cuz I was told by a very friendly um member of National Gallery staff at the start, and I just didn't want the last room to come. I wanted it to go on and on. So that's why I'm rating it so highly. Undoubtedly, it's going to be one of the hits of the year. He's such an intense interesting painter and and as I said in my introduction, I think underappreciated, but hopefully this will change that. It certainly made me want to get on a train to County Durham and then get on a bus to Bishop Auckland and see the paintings there. Um it you know, Britain's finest collection of Zurbarán works because I've never seen those. It's one of the treasures of Britain, so I need to get up there. And if there's a fair wind, expect that over the next couple of years cuz I'm going to make an effort to having been so enthused by this show.

[00:21:13]Thank you ever so much for watching. Do comment um about what you thought about this show, especially if you visited. Um and do stay tuned for more vlogs. I did go and see the the the small but really enjoyable Stubbs show while I was at the National Gallery. So, I'll bring that to you as a sort of small and mini vlog um later in the week, hopefully. And there's lots more treats coming up on the London art scene over the next month. So, please hit that notification bell and do subscribe to get the best of the London art scene. Thank you ever so much for watching.