In our age of frenzied excesses, overconsumption and the perennial pursuit of fame, wealth, power and status reign supreme. Yet the world is more or less crumbling beneath our feet: climate change, the extinction of countless animal species and ongoing wars almost make us feel we have reached a point of no return, giving us the impression of being trapped in an existence without any kindness, empathy, compassion, meekness and humility.
Maybe, right because of the challenges we are currently facing in the world, it would be worth revisiting a spiritual figure such as St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). The preacher, peacemaker, advocate for the poor, early environmentalist, poet and social revolutionary is currently being rediscovered in an exhibition at London's National Gallery.
Curated by the National Gallery Director, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, and the Ahmanson Research Associate Curator in Art and Religion at the National Gallery, Dr Joost Joustra, "Saint Francis of Assisi" (6 May - 30 July 2023; free admission) provides us with a renewed and updated perspective on the Saint, through 40 works of art from European and American public and private collections, spanning more than seven centuries.
The purpose of the event is looking at how Saint Francis captured the imagination of artists and how his image evolved over centuries, while considering the perpetual appeal he has had across time, continents, and various religious traditions.
"Francis's spiritual radicalism, his commitment to the poor and human solidarity, his love of God, nature and animals, which we might call embryonic environmentalism, as well as his striving for peace between enemies and openness to dialogue with other religions, are themes that still resonate with us today and make him a figure of enormous relevance to our times," Finaldi, explains.
The son of a prosperous silk merchant, Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone better known as Francis of Assisi, was a wealthy young man, who experienced war and imprisonment. After an illness, dissatisfied with the world, he reconsidered his life.
A mystical experience of Christ at San Damiano church and his encounter with a leper radically changed him: he forsook all his possessions, inheritance, and patrimony and took up the life of a penitent following in the footsteps of Christ, creating the order of Friars Minor.
In 1224, he experienced the stigmata, wounds that appeared on his body in the same locations as those on Christ's body during his crucifixion.
After his death, the Friars Minor spread throughout Europe, establishing friaries and building Franciscan churches. This led to a flourishing of artistic and architectural production in the period preceding the Renaissance. In a way, this was a paradox as an order of mendicant friars devoted to poverty created some of the most magnificent churches of the later Middle Ages, complete with monuments, funerary chapels, altarpieces, and frescoes.
Francis became indeed a "global phenomenon" and "a continuous source of artistic fascination", Dr Joustra highlights. Indeed, according to art historians, in the century following Francis' passing, as many as 20,000 depictions of him were created, and this number does not even account for those present in illuminated manuscripts.
Visitors to the exhibition are welcomed by Antony Gormley's "Untitled (for Francis)" (1985), that captures the pose of the enraptured saint marked with the stigmata, but, in the rooms dedicated to the exhibition, they will discover a variety of artworks and objects, from Medieval painted panels to relics like a silvered horn given to Francis as a symbol of peace by Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil.
The first room features more classical representations of the saint such as Francisco de Zurbarán's "Saint Francis in Meditation" (1635-1639), portraying the saint deep in contemplation in his patched habit.
The curators invite visitors to make a connection here between humble materials such as Saint Francis' robe in the painting and the humble mud that Richard Long elevated in "River Avon Mud Crescent" (2023).
Visitors interested in more classical pieces will instead enjoy Sassetta's panels for the San Sepolcro Altarpiece (1437-1444), that can be considered as "visual biographies" of the saint, following in the footsteps of the early written biographies by Thomas of Celano and Saint Bonaventure.
The colours of these scenes are particularly intriguing with the beige and brown tones of the friars' attires clashing with the bright pinks and vivid reds of the scenes portraying Saint Francis renouncing his earthly father and the saint before Pope Honorius III.
The third room features some of the earliest works dedicated to Francis, but also later works, including "Saint Francis of Assisi with Angels" by Sandro Botticelli.
Following the Council of Trent, Francis became one of the most frequently depicted saints, with paintings exploring his mysticism in new ways. These include El Greco's "Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata" (1590-5), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's "Saint Francis embracing the Crucified Christ" (1668-9), and Caravaggio's early masterpiece, "Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy" (about 1595).
Portrayed by the artist in his 20s, it is an intimate and dramatic painting showing an angel tenderly cradling the saint experiencing the stigmata, on his hands and feet.
The painting, full of intense emotion and physicality, is often interpreted as a depiction of the transcendental love between Saint Francis and God.
For Francis nature was a divine reflection: creatures were brothers and sisters for him; he preached to the birds and spoke to a wolf threatening the town of Gubbio. In his poetic work, the "Canticle of the Sun", he praised God for the celestial bodies of the sky, the elements of earth, and all the living creatures that inhabit it, exalting their divine essence.
These poetical, radical and joyous stories inspired great art: Matthew Paris portrayed Francis speaking to a gathering of birds; Sassetta showed him shaking the wolf's paw, but there are also Giovanni Costa's "Frate Francesco e Frate Sole" (1878-86), and Andrea Büttner's minimalist yet colourful woodcut on paper "Vogelpredigt" (Sermon to the Birds, 2010) on display here. Giuseppe Penone's Arte Povera work "Albero porta-credo / Door Tree-Cedar" (2012), a cedar trunk incorporating within it a sapling, is instead a hymn to nature, intended as a gift to future generations.
Francis' humble way of life and his belief in a Church that should live a life of poverty, humility, and simplicity, meant that he was often seen by some members of the Catholic hierarchy, as a threat to their power and authority.
The Saint was indeed a visionary with the innocent heart of a child, but was also a tremendously disruptive force. In the exhibition, Francis' radical choices are explored in Room Six with objects such as the extraordinary relic of Francis's brown sackcloth habit and hempen belt from the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence, juxtaposed to "Sacco" (Sack) by Alberto Burri (1953). In the latter, a piece of worn out sack cloth seems to be perforated by a red circle, that, contextualised in this exhibition, becomes a reference to St Francis' stigmata.
A small section of the exhibition is also dedicated to Saint Clare (1194 - 1253), one of the first followers of Francis and includes Giovanni di Paolo's "Saint Clare Rescuing a Child Mauled by a Wolf" (1455-60) and Josefa de Óbidos's "Nativity Scene with Saint Francis and Saint Clare" (1647).
At the end of the exhibition visitors realise that there isn't just one Saint Francis, a holy man revered with devotion by believers, but many different ones, all of them inspiring for Christians and non-Christians, pacifists and environmentalists, utopians and revolutionaries.
This message is also symbolised by a rather unexpected item included in the event, a Marvel comic entitled "Francis, Brother of the Universe" by John Buscema (1980) that pre-dates Marvel's Christian superhero, Illuminator (that debuted in the '90s). This piece of religious Pop Art turns Saint Francis into a modern superhero with no bulging muscles and no amazing costume, but with powers that contemporary society frequently neglects.
As Finaldi states, "The history of the images of Saint Francis, is also the history of how Francis has been perceived over time; a variety of Francises have emerged across the centuries as different aspects of his persona have been emphasised, adopted, promoted, and inevitably also, appropriated and manipulated. This exhibition explores some aspects of this fascinating story."
Fashion-wise the event perfectly fits with the monastic trend, besides the exhibition is sponsored by Brunello Cucinelli, the Italian king of cashmere and the promoter of humanistic capitalism, consisting in a fair and sustainable profit, harmonised with giving back to ensure a balance between profit, human dignity and ethics.
The exhibition opens this weekend, coinciding with King Charles' coronation, an anachronistic, superfluously pompous and redundantly ostentatious grandiose display of wealth, considering the cost of living crisis in the UK (and the rest of the world...). In the face of all this, London's National Gallery exhibition about Saint Francis of Assisi, is a reminder of the delicate balance that exists between humanity and the environment and an encouragement to face today's challenges with grace and kindness, treading gently on the Earth. For it is not the accumulation of things that defines our legacy, but the lasting influence we leave on the hearts and minds of those we touch.
Image credits for this post
Francisco de Zurbarán
Saint Francis in Meditation
1635-9
Oil on canvas
152 x 99 cm
© The National Gallery, London
Sandro Botticelli
Saint Francis of Assisi with Angels
about 1475-80
Tempera and oil on wood
49.5 × 31.8 cm
© The National Gallery, London
Antony Gormley, born 1950
Untitled (for Francis), 1985
Lead, fibreglass and plaster, 190 x 117 x 29 cm
Tate, London
© Antony Gormley / photo: Tate
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1571 - 1610
Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, about 1595-96
Oil on canvas, 94 x 130 cm
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund
© Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art / photo: Allen Phillips
Sassetta
San Sepolcro Altarpiece (NG4757-NG4763)
Saint Francis renounces his Earthly Father
1437-44
Egg tempera on poplar
87.5 × 52.4 cm
© The National Gallery, London
Sassetta
San Sepolcro Altarpiece (NG4757-NG4763)
The Wolf of Gubbio
1437-44
Egg tempera on poplar
87 × 52.4 cm
© The National Gallery, London
Horn with rods, 1219 – 1350
Ivory, wood and silver support, 40 x 40 x 7 cm
Museo del Tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco, Assisi
© Photographic archive of the Sacred Convent of S. Francesco in Assisi, Italy
Matthew Paris, about 1200 - 1259
Chronica maiora II, c.1240-55
Manuscript
Corpus Christi College (University of Cambridge)
© Parker Library, Corpus Christi College Cambridge
Luc Olivier Merson, 1846 - 1920
The Wolf of Gubbio, 1877
Oil on canvas, 88 x 133 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille
© RMN-Grand Palais (PBA, Lille) / René-Gabriel Ojeda
Frank Cadogan Cowper, 1877 - 1958
Saint Francis of Assisi and the Heavenly Melody, 1904
Oil on canvas, 92.7 x 75.2 cm
Private collection
© Courtesy the owner
Giuseppe Penone, born 1947
Albero porta-cedro / Door Tree-Cedar, 2012
Cedar wood, 317.5 x 101.6 x 101.6 cm
Gagosian & Marian Goodman Gallery
© Giuseppe Penone / photo © Josh White: JWPictures.com. Courtesy Gagosian.
Habit of Saint Francis
Community of the Friars Minor Conventual of the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence
© Community of the Friars Minor Conventual of the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence / photo: Giusti Claudio
Alberto Burri, 1915 - 1995
Sacco, 1953
Sackcloth canvas, oil on canvas, 90 × 104 cm
Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini, Collezione Burri
© Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, Città di Castello – photo Alessandro Sarteanesi
Giovanni di Paolo, active by 1417; died 1482
Saint Clare Rescuing a Child Mauled by a Wolf, 1455-60
Tempera and gold leaf on panel, 20.6 x 28.1 cm
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Edith A. and Percy S. Straus Collection, 44.571
© The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Thomas R. DuBrock
Andrea Büttner
Vogelpredigt (Sermon to the Birds), 2010
Woodcut on paper, 180 x 240 cm
Private collection
© Andrea Büttner. DACS 2023
Mr John Buscema
Francis, Brother of the Universe, Marvel Comics, 1980
© Disney. All rights reserved
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