Saint Hugh in the Carthusian Refectory

Zurbarán's Saint Hugh in the Carthusian Refectory from around 1655, in the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, depicts the miracle of Saint Hugh of Grenoble's visit to the Carthusian monks who have been served meat during Lent—upon his arrival, God transforms the meat into ashes. The painting was part of Zurbarán's cycle for the Carthusian monastery of Jerez, his greatest monastic commission. The stark white habits against the simple refectory create one of the most powerful images of monastic austerity in Baroque painting.

Zurbarán's characteristic treatment of white monastic robes creates a rhythmic pattern of sculptural folds across the composition. The still-life elements on the refectory table—the pottery, the miraculous ashes—are rendered with the painter's legendary command of surface texture.