What draws me to the sober drama of Zurbarán’s paintings?
To those monks who show us the exact demarcation of good and evil on the line separating their starched white habits from the inky darkness of their rapt visions?
To the female saints who turn martyrdom into their Geisha-like stiffness of brocade and taffeta?
Above all, what draws me to his sparse, orderly and luminous still lifes?
It could be my tendency to hoard and collect; it could be the dashes of yellow, orange and green filling my house with rainbow. It could be that I cannot conceive of even the most cursory improvised meal without parsing it as first and second courses followed by desert. It could be the soul whisper I heard on a frosty night that sank into my bones unsettling my avowed atheism.
Opposites attract, they say.
There is a certainty in Zurbarán that stills the air. If art could give proof of the existence of God beyond the subjective passions of the artist or the viewer, I think it would be his that would be taken to the lab. The universe would be as fixed and numinous as the micro galaxy in this composition and the sky would taste yellow and sour like the blood of a lemon.
A Fistful of Olives 