“The Virgin of Mercy of Las Cuevas”, Francisco de Zurbarán, c.1644-55, Museo de Belles Artes, Seville.
This work was painted for the sacristy of the Carthusian monastery of Santa María de las Cuevas just outside Seville. It was intended to express the preeminent place Our Lady occupies in Carthusian life. Zurbarán adopted what was by then a centuries old iconography of the Virgin of Mercy with her outstretched mantle sheltering the faithful. Here the faithful are the Carthusian monks. What is extraordinary about this work is how life-like the monks are. I first saw this image at an exhibition at the National Gallery in London entitled “The Sacred made Real” in 2010. When I stood before this painting, the monks’ faces were at eye level and the space beneath the Virgin’s mantle opened up before me. The monks’ faces and hands seem to be real flesh and and their habits look so real and voluminous that you could almost feel the texture of the heavy cloth. Indeed, the contrast between the skin and the cloth is not only visually delightful, but suggests that these are real men.. In fact, it is known that two members of the Carthusian community are portrayed in this painting. These white habited figures also give the depth to what should have been a narrow space beneath the mantle. By contrast there is the flat expanse of gold above Our Lady’s mantle which recalls an earlier way of depicting the glory of heaven. In this way, Zurbarán contrasts this life we live with the world to come. The Virgin is larger than life as was the custom, but here it means that she spans heaven and earth. It is as if the Virgin opens her cloak in heaven to protect those on earth for whom she has special care. On Friday last, we Dominicans celebrated the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary over the Order of Preachers, which is a very similar theme. Would that a Dominican friar had commissioned Zurbarán to paint the same scene with Dominicans rather than Carthusians!
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