Francisco de Zurbarán had a Hollywood sense of drama

It seems suitable that just round the corner from the Zurbarán exhibition at the Palais des Beaux Arts is the Musée Magritte. Surrealism was in the air of 20th-century Belgium, just as much as it was in the atmosphere of Spain. And of course in many cases its leading figures — Buñuel, Dalí, René Magritte — were lapsed Catholics. Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), in contrast, was one of the most striking examples in art history of the unlapsed Catholic. His paintings express the faith of the Spanish counter-reformation at full strength, but the results are often as disconcerting in their way as a painting of baguettes raining down from the sky.

In Zurbarán’s world, however, there are more likely to be showers of roses than of bread. Pink and white blooms have obviously just fluttered down on St Francis in the ‘Miracle of Portiuncula’ (c.1630–1). They are carefully arranged at regular intervals on the steps around Francis, who raises his eyes to the vision above in which Christ and the Virgin have appeared to present him with an indulgence.