Saint Francis

The Italian Catholic friar and founder of the Franciscan order, Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), venerated poverty and believed God to be mirrored in nature. Having cast off most of his possessions, he appears before us wearing one item that remained with him: his characteristic brown robes. In this painting, he looks up with a meditative stare, his face struck by a dramatic divine light. This light, and the glow of his halo, contrast against the darkness of Saint Francis’s surroundings, making him radiate like a candle in the dark.  

This painting is probably by an artist heralding from the Bolognese school of painting. Art in Bologna, in the north of Italy, was redefined in the sixteenth century by the Carracci family of painters: Ludovico (1555-1619), Agostino (1557-1602), and Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). Their works and theories departed from what they saw to be the excesses of Mannerist painters before them, instead professing that paintings should be based on the study of nature. This meant a directness of composition that infuses this depiction of Saint Francis.