St. Francis in Ecstasy (Bellini)

Last updated

St. Francis in Ecstasy
Giovanni Bellini - Saint Francis in the Desert - Google Art Project.jpg
Artist Giovanni Bellini
Yearc. 1480
Medium Oil on panel
Dimensions124.6 cm× 142 cm(49.1 in× 56 in)
Location Frick Collection, New York

St. Francis in Ecstasy (or St. Francis in the Desert) is a painting by Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, started in 1475 and completed around 1480. Bellini depicted the religious figure of St. Francis of Assisi in a landscape. [1] In 1852, the painting was listed on June 19 at Christie's. It was part of the 1857 Manchester Art Treasures exhibition. In 1915, Henry Clay Frick bought the painting for $170,000, [2] and it remains in the Frick Collection, in New York City.

Contents

Subject

The painting portrays Francis of Assisi, the Italian saint of the early 13th century, in an Italian landscape, stepping out in the sun from his cave, his figure anchoring the creamy celadon and golden-green landscape. The oil painting by Bellini has a length of approximately four feet with a width of around four and a half feet, depicting a natural, but dramatic scene. This painting includes one of the largest and most extensive Renaissance landscapes. [3]

Description

The painting contains a strong effect of mystical light through the use of golden rays coming from the uppermost left corner of the painting, showering over Saint Francis. The tones of brown and gold are used to illustrate the body, and a rocky niche is depicted in the shady portion. His brighter body contrasts with the darker environment of the painting. In the foreground, the focus is on a stony, dangerous, dark, and mossy cave with a shady entrance covered by twisted grapevines. Inside the cave, several possessions of the saint are represented, including a Holy Book, desk, hermit's skull, a thorny crown, and a crucifix made of stems. Although the scene is rocky, it does not look infertile. [4] In the center and the background of this painting is a walled hill with growing fields, a bridge over a running waterway, a coastal bird similar to a gray heron, a donkey, as well as a shepherd looking at his flock grazing. The landscape depicts a transformation into spring through the inclusion of growing grass. [4]

In the painting, the sky is dynamic, sparkling, and bright blue. From the uppermost left edge, the light is falling, making its way inside the scenery. There is an illuminated feel arising from the whole painting, and a sense of rays originating from stones and green fields, making it seem as if, through the holiness of St. Francis, the world is being illuminated. The painting depicts St. Francis having come out of his cave in a brown traditional robe, standing barefooted, looking upwards at paradise with widely opened arms and heaving chest. The rocks around him in the painting are converting into a stream, implying that his life has just transformed. In the painting, a mystical light is showered over St. Francis; he seems to be absorbing this light and spreading it throughout the entire painting. [4]

Materials

In Saint Francis in Ecstasy, Bellini used a combination of oil and tempera paints, perhaps having been under the influence of Antonello da Messina.The painting shows the influence of Andrea Mantegna, who was the painter's brother-in-law. It is signed IOANNES BELLINVS on a small, creased tag visible in the lower-left corner. [5] The original size of the painting was cut-down from the top side; this is evident because the painting continues completely to the end of the panel. However, the original painting would not be much larger than the present by estimation. [6] Saint Francis in Ecstasy was directed towards Art Museum Metropolitan for detailed cleaning and highly technical assessment of this painting by Scientists, Art Masters and Conservators, the painting had evidence of underdrawings. [4] The major findings such as compositional modifications, fingerprints, brushwork, sketching and the exposure of certain innovation belongs to the students of Bellini, i.e. Titian and Giorgione. [4] Though it has been cut down, it has otherwise been well-cared for since its creation. [6]

Symbolism

Bellini became sophisticated in his painting skill in the fifteenth century, the culmination of which is the Saint Francis In Ecstasy. The moment being depicted in the painting is Saint Francis's stigmatization on the mountain of La Verna. Bellini envisioned the stigmatization as a moment of human transformation into the divine. [7] The sun's rays shine on St. Francis, symbolizing him as a Seraph-Crucifix in front of the sun, which indicates the suffering image of the Seraphim. [3]

Francis lived under poor conditions during his later life and ministry and participated in isolated spiritual retreats at monasteries, as the painting shows; however, this painting is likely a symbolic representation of the saint. The animals in the picture may represent the saint's love for nature and animals. [8] The Ecstasy of St. Francis is depicting Francis in a religious ecstasy, perhaps receiving the stigmata, as Millard Meiss suggested though, when Francis is receiving the stigmata, usually an angel, a seraph or a crucifix emitting rays is depicted as well. Alternatively, he may be praying or perhaps singing his Canticle of the Sun , as Richard Turner has argued. [9]

Whatever the specific moment portrayed may be, the representation is a fresh one and does not follow any of the established iconographic motifs. [8]

Detail-Skull-Saint Francis in Ecstasy-Bellini Detail-Skull-Saint Francis in Ecstasy-Bellini.jpg
Detail-Skull-Saint Francis in Ecstasy-Bellini

In the left middle-ground is a donkey which can be interpreted as a symbol of humility and patience. In the lower right corner on a rustic reading table is a skull, representing mortality, welcomed in the last stanza of the saint's Canticle. The cave may relate Francis to Saint Jerome, who also lived in a cave or cell. The stream in the left middle-ground symbolizes Moses and the great spring, while the barren tree in the center of the painting represents the Burning Bush. The saint has left his wooden pattens behind and stands barefoot like Moses. [10]

On the green banks are a few bindweeds that open at the dawn and fade away at day's end. The small garden contains various types of medicinal plants, such as orris and mullein or Jacob's staff, and juniper. One of two fig trees is on the right-hand side of Saint Francis as leaves begin to sprout from a branch of the tree. The second fig tree is on the cliff surrounded by fruit. Each tiny flower represents St. Francis as he embraced poverty, prayer and humility. The painting represents not only the "stigmatization", but also the song, Canticle of the Sun , that St. Francis composed. Canticle of the Sun is a religious song that appreciates God's creation of nature. [9] The overall message displayed conveys Bellini's praises of the kingdom of God's creation. [5]

Landscape

In the distance rises the still-empty Heavenly Jerusalem. The overall composition is thought to be a meditation of St. Francis on the creation of the world as related in the Book of Genesis. In the distance rises the still-empty Heavenly Jerusalem. [9] Francis took refuge in Mount La Verna, a deserted place in the Apennines, outside of Areezo, Tuscany. [1]

Provenance

Zuan Michiel commissioned Bellini to create St. Francis in the 1480s. Taddeo Contarini acquired the painting after Zuan Michiel's death. [11] [12] In 1660, Bellini's St. Francis was mentioned in Marco Boschini’s dialect poem, after Boschini saw the painting in Giulio Guistiniani’s palace. [11] At the end of the eighteenth century, the picture still remained in the Cormaro Palace, according to Abbate Lanzi. The painting might have left Venice for the first time at some point between 1796 and 1852. [11] It was offered for sale at Christie’s on 19 June 1852 and claimed to have originally been made for "a convent in the Milanese." [11]

In 1915, the painting entered the Frick Collection in New York City, [13] displayed prominently in what was the living room of Henry Clay Frick, an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. [6] Frick had acquired the painting even though he had little interest in religious paintings, but he valued this painting for its extensive landscape. The painting remains in the Frick Collection and is considered one of its finest assets. [6] The painting is in excellent condition. [6] The painting was included in the 1857 Manchester Art Treasures exhibition. [14]

External media

External videos
Detail-Signature-Saint Francis in Ecstasy-Bellini.jpg
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg The Frick Collection's Colin Bailey on Giovanni Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert, Frick Collection [15]
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Bellini's St. Francis, Smarthistory [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cimabue</span> Italian artist (1240–1302)

Cimabue, c. 1240 – 1302, was an Italian painter and designer of mosaics from Florence. He was also known as Cenni di Pepo or Cenni di Pepi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis of Assisi</span> Italian Catholic saint (c. 1181–1226)

Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, known as Francis of Assisi, was an Italian mystic, poet, and Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. Inspired to lead a Christian life of poverty, he became a beggar and itinerant preacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giorgione</span> Italian painter (1478–1510)

Giorgione was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are firmly attributed to him. The uncertainty surrounding the identity and meaning of his work has made Giorgione one of the most mysterious figures in European art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giovanni Bellini</span> 15th- and 16th-century Italian Renaissance painter

Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his father, but now that familial generational relationship is questioned. An older brother, Gentile Bellini was more highly regarded than Giovanni during his lifetime, but the reverse is true today. His brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bartolomeo Montagna</span> Italian painter (c. 1450–1523)

BartolomeoMontagna was an Italian Renaissance painter who mainly worked in Vicenza. He also produced works in Venice, Verona, and Padua. He is most famous for his many Madonnas and his works are known for their soft figures and depiction of eccentric marble architecture. He is considered to be heavily influenced by Giovanni Bellini, in whose workshop he might have worked around 1470. Benedetto Montagna, a productive engraver, was his son and pupil and active until about 1540. He was mentioned in Vasari's Lives as a student of Andrea Mantegna but this is widely contested by art historians.

<i>Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy</i> (Caravaggio) Painting by Caravaggio

Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut.

<i>The Three Philosophers</i> Painting by Giorgione

The Three Philosophers is an oil painting on canvas attributed to the Italian High Renaissance artist Giorgione. It shows three philosophers – one young, one middle-aged, and one old.

<i>The Hermit Saints</i> Triptych by Hieronymus Bosch

The Hermit Saints is a religious oil on panel painting displayed as a triptych, meaning it is one whole painting composed of three separate scenes. It was painted ca. 1493 by the Early Netherlandish artist Hieronymus Bosch. The entirety of the triptych painting measures 86 by 60 centimetres. This artwork is currently being housed at the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.

<i>Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata</i> (Giotto) Panel painting by Giotto

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata is a panel painting in tempera by the Italian artist Giotto, painted around 1295–1300 for the Church of Saint Francis in Pisa and it is now in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. It shows an episode from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, and is 314 cm high by 162 cm wide. It is signed OPUS IOCTI FLORENTINI.

<i>Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata</i> (van Eyck) Two unsigned paintings completed around 1428–1432 attributed to Jan van Eyck

Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata is the name given to two unsigned paintings completed around 1428–1432 that art historians usually attribute to the Flemish artist Jan van Eyck. The panels are nearly identical, apart from a considerable difference in size. Both are small paintings: the larger measures 29.3 cm x 33.4 cm and is in the Sabauda Gallery in Turin, Italy; the smaller panel is 12.7 cm x 14.6 cm and in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The earliest documentary evidence is in the 1470 inventory of Anselm Adornes of Bruges's will; he may have owned both panels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diptych by Giovanni da Rimini</span> Pair of paintings in London and Rome

Among the paintings attributed to Giovanni da Rimini are two panels from a former diptych, dated to 1300–1305, of which the left wing is in the collection of the National Gallery, London, and the right that of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome.

<i>St. Jerome in the Wilderness</i> (Mantegna) Painting by Andrea Mantegna

St Jerome in the Wilderness is a tempera on panel painting, measuring 51 by 40 cm and attributed to Andrea Mantegna. It dates to between 1448 and 1451 and is now in the São Paulo Museum of Art.

<i>St. Jerome in the Desert</i> (Bellini, Washington) Painting by Giovanni Bellini in the National Gallery of Art, Washington

St. Jerome in the Desert is a 1505 oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Little remains of the signature on the first rock in the left foreground, but it has been confirmed as genuine during restoration and can be reconstructed as "[Johannes Bellinu]s. 1505". This is problematic, since the work's general style is linked to fashions no later than 1490, whereas Bellini's style of figures and landscapes had already begun to be influenced by Giorgione by 1500, with the backgrounds more fused and unified in terms of atmosphere. The composition makes it more analogous to his earlier works, such as the c. 1480 St. Jerome in the Desert. The Washington work may have been a collaboration, a work completed by a pupil in Bellini's studio or left incomplete and only finished by Bellini himself much later.

<i>St. Jerome in the Desert</i> (Bellini, Florence) Painting by Giovanni Bellini

St. Jerome in the Desert or St. Jerome Reading in the Desert is a 1480 oil-on-panel painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence as part of the Contini Bonacossi collection, giving it its alternative title of The Contini Bonacossi St. Jerome.

<i>Pesaro Altarpiece</i> (Bellini) Oil on panel painting by Giovanni Bellini

The Pesaro Altarpiece is an oil-on-panel painting by the Italian artist Giovanni Bellini, dated to some time between 1471 and 1483. It is considered one of Bellini's first mature works, though there are doubts on its dating and on who commissioned it. The work's technique is not only an early use of oils but also of blue smalt, a by-product of the glass industry. It had already been used in the Low Countries in Bouts' 1455 The Entombment, but this marked smalt's first use in Italian art, twenty years before Leonardo da Vinci used it in Ludovico il Moro's apartments in Milan in 1492. Bellini also uses the more traditional lapis lazuli and azurite for other blues in the work.

<i>The Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist</i> Painting by Giovanni Bellini

Pietà or The Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist is a c. 1465–1470 tempera-on-panel painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini, now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.

<i>St. Jerome in the Desert</i> (Bellini, Birmingham) Painting by Giovanni Bellini

St. Jerome in the Desert is an egg tempera painting on wood by the Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini, from c. 1450. It is held in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, England.

<i>Ecstasy of St Margaret of Cortona</i> Painting by Giovanni Lanfranco

The Ecstasy of St Margaret of Cortona is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian Baroque painter Giovanni Lanfranco, executed in 1622. It is housed in the Palatine Gallery of the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy.

<i>Madonna and Child enthroned with St. John the Baptist and St. Augustine</i> (Permeniates) Painting by Ioannis Permeniates

Madonna and Child enthroned with St. John the Baptist and St. Augustine is an oil painting by Greek painter Ioannis Permeniates. He was from Crete living in Venice. He was active during the first part of the 16th century. There are dozens of works attributed to the artist. He is a cross-over artist who painted in both the maniera greca and the Venetian style. Other similar artists were El Greco and Michael Damaskinos. Ioannis Permeniates's work was influenced by Vittore Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini. His most notable painting is the Madonna and Child enthroned with St. John the Baptist and St. Augustine. Many Italian artists painted the same subject matter. The most famous painting depicting the subjects is the Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist and St Augustine by Petrus Perusinus. The Permeniates is part of the collection Museo Correr in Venice, Italy.

References

  1. 1 2 The Frick Collection. "Cocktails with a Curator: Bellini's "St. Francis in the Desert"".
  2. Rutherglen and Hale, In a New Light, pp. 78-79.
  3. 1 2 Tempestini, Anchise (1999). Giovanni Bellini. Abbeville press. p. 112. ISBN   9780789204332.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Esplund, Lance (2011). "A Shared Moment of Transformation". The Wall Street Journal.
  5. 1 2 The Frick Collection (2011). "Giovanni Bellini's "St. Francis in the Desert" FLORA (silent)".
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 The Frick Collection (2010). "Colin B. Bailey on Giovanni Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert".
  7. Kleiner, Fred S. (2010). Gardner's art through the ages. Book C, Renaissance and Baroque : the western perspective. Gardner, Helen, 1878-1946. (13th, Backpack ed.). Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. ISBN   978-0-495-79456-1. OCLC   318536109.
  8. 1 2 "culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/st-francis-in-the-desert". Archived from the original on 13 June 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  9. 1 2 3 A similar suggestion is made by Anthony F. Janson, "The meaning of the landscape in Bellini's St. Francis in Ecstasy", Artibus et Historiae (1994:40ff); he suggests that the landscape is redolent of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
  10. Horst Woldemar Janson, Anthony F. Janson, Janson's History of Art: The Western Tradition "Giovanni Bellini".
  11. 1 2 3 4 J.M, Fletcher (1972). "The Provenance of Bellini's Frick 'St Francis". The Burlington Magazine. 114 (829): 206–215. JSTOR   876969 via JSTOR.
  12. Bellini and Giorgione in the House of Taddeo Contarini
  13. Marilyn Aronberg, Lavin; Liu, Jinyu; Gitner, Adam (2007). "The Joy of St. Francis: Bellini's Panel in the Frick Collection". Artibus et Historiae. 28 (56): 231–232. JSTOR   20067174.
  14. Hamilton, James (2015). A Strange Business. New York, NY: Pegasus Books. p. 325. ISBN   978-1-60598-870-2.
  15. "The Frick Collection's Colin Bailey on Giovanni Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert". Frick Collection. 2010. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
  16. "Bellini's St. Francis". Smarthistory at Khan Academy . Retrieved 20 February 2013.

Sources

    Further reading