SALZILLO, Francisco

(b. 1707 Murcia, d. 1783 Murcia)

Salzillo (also spelled Zarcillo, Salsillo, or Salcillo), sculptor, a prolific creator of figures for the Holy Week procession. He is considered by some authorities to be the greatest sculptor in 18th-century Spain and by others as merely an excellent folk artist.

Growing up in provincial Murcia, he received his training from his father, a Neapolitan sculptor who had a studio that produced religious statues. He entered a Dominican monastery as a youth, but on the death of his father in 1727 he left to take charge of the family studio. Remaining in Murcia all his life, he produced an enormous number of polychrome religious figures with the assistance of his brothers and sister.

In Salzillo’s work the sacred persons are highly humanized, appealing to the popular audience that demanded pathos and sentimental realism. Much of his best work is in the Salzillo Museum in Murcia.

Dolorosa

The mundane rhetoric in the works of Francisco Salzillo (also spelled Zarcillo) might be interpreted as the expression of a decadence of religious feeling; but in fact it springs from a deep-rooted faith. While yet a child, Francisco Salzillo entered a Dominican monastery as a novice. When he was twenty, he left the monastery to assume direction of the atelier of his father, Vincente Nicolas Salzillo, who died in 1727. Vincente Nicolas had come from Naples to settle in Murcia at the end of the 17th century. Undoubtedly, the breath of Italianism which he brought with him was instrumental in dispelling some of the gravity that the Spanish sculptors typically imparted to their religious works. The workshop of Francisco Salzillo, who was helped by his brothers, was amazingly productive; L�on Bermudez has counted 1,792 works definitely by the master’s hand.

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Last Supper

The work of Francisco Salzillo exemplifies the impact of the Rococo idiom on Spanish sculpture of the period. He perfected his style in processional groups like the Last Super. In this ambitious composition, the twelve apostles seated around the table are distinguished by a precisely rendered psychological characterization.

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