Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose

• Francisco de Zurbarán, Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, 1633
• Key facts

  Size: 62.2 x 109.5 cm

  Medium: oil on canvas

  Location: Originally Spain; now in the Norton Simon Museum, California,, USA
• Description

  To devout Spanish Catholics in the 17th century, the apparently humble objects portrayed here contained significant religious meaning. The measured placement of the three motifs, for example, would have been instantly understood as an allusion to the Holy Trinity. The painting has also been interpreted as an homage to the Virgin, with the oranges, their blossoms, and the cup of water symbolizing her purity, and the thornless rose referring to her Immaculate Conception.
• Iconography

  The three sets of objects are thought to allude to the Virgin Mary and/or the Holy Trinity.1 The cup of water and the thornless rose in full bloom evoke the purity and innocence of the Virgin Mary (specifically the Immaculate Conception). The orange blossom is reference to fertility. The table acts as a symbolic altar. The laity would have understood the symbolism of these seemingly humble objects – particularly the allusion to the Holy Trinity.
• Composition and Light and Colour:

  The painting shows three groups of objects (a saucer of four citrons, a basket of oranges, and a saucer holding both a cup of water and a rose) which are severely frontalised and resting on a table against a tenebristic background. Each group is equidistant from one another and form a perfectly balanced pyramid.
• The objects are set close to the picture plane and are illuminated by a raking light falling from the viewers’ left. Zurbarán’s crisply delineated style provides the image with a crystalline clarity.
• Zurbarán uses colour descriptively and dramatically in so far as the yellow citrus, pale oranges, crowning orange blossom, white porcelain mug and pewter dish advance from their dark background. Zurbarán models the objects using chiaroscuro to achieve a three-dimensional realism. As the Norton Simon museum states, the weight of the rough-skinned citrons are conveyed using hints of green and russet; meticulous attention to detail that helps distinguish them from their lemon relatives.
• Style

  Spanish Baroque Naturalism (hard-edged and austere). The National Gallery in London state that the artist was ‘influenced by the realism of Caravaggio’.
• Historical context

  Religiously strict Catholic Spain was dominated by the Inquisition who employed artists as censors, including Francisco Pacheco in Seville, and Zurbarán’s entire oeuvre conformed to its demands
• Historical context

  During seventeenth-century Catholic Spain, still life works, and other genres, were less called for than their religious counterparts. The subject matter of painting and sculpture in the seventeenth century was essentially religious – unsurprising given the nation’s monarchy (Philip III/IV) considered itself the ‘bastion’ of Catholic faith in Europe. Works were intended to instruct the masses and the Council of Trent affirmed the legitimacy of using images to inspire veneration.
• Materials and processes

  Zurbarán used a variety of brushes; however, small ones were used to create believable detail and he disguised his marks to suspend the viewers’ disbelief. He used chiaroscuro to model his objects and distinguish between textures. He used broad brushes for the velvet black background and light-reflective table. Tenebrism lends gravitas.
• Quote

  According to art historian, Ann Sutherland-Harris, “[b]y 1633, when Zurbarán painted this picture, collectors favoured more lavish displays that offered more visual entertainment.”4 She also states that this painting is the most famous of its type in the era.
• Influences


  Sánchez Cotán was Zurbarán’s contemporary and he, ahead of Zurbarán, isolates objects from one another to the point that the arrangement looks sacramental and carefully constructed. The objects appear overly static and similarly ritualistic.