Italian school, XVIII century.

Italian school, XVIII century.
"St. Francis of Assisi".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Measurements: 42 x 33.5 cm; 63 x 53 cm (frame).
This work reflects the survival of the great baroque models developed in Italy during the previous century. The painting follows in an evident way the composition created by Guido Reni for the Coppola chapel of the Girolamini Church, realized in 1622, one of the most influential images of the Franciscan spirituality in the Italian sphere. However, this reinterpretation introduces significant variations that transform the visual and emotional sense of the scene.
While in Guido Reni's model the saint appears integrated in a landscape, in this version the figure of St. Francis of Assisi emerges from an almost absolute darkness. The suppression of the landscape concentrates all the attention on the saint's spiritual experience and accentuates the introspective and meditative character of the composition. The directed illumination highlights the face and hands, creating a strong light contrast inherited from the Italian tenebrist tradition, very present in Baroque religious painting. From the stylistic point of view, the work combines the idealized elegance typical of Guido Reni with a more dramatic and recollected sensibility. The softness of the modeling of the face and the delicacy of the expression contrast with the intensity of the enveloping darkness, generating a closed atmosphere. This type of representation fully responded to religious ideals after the Council of Trent, where the image should move the faithful and favor interior contemplation.

Saint Francis appears accompanied by his most characteristic attributes: the cross and the skull. Both elements refer to the reflection on death, penance and the renunciation of earthly goods, fundamental ideas in Franciscan spirituality. The skull also functions as a symbol of the transience of life and meditation on the salvation of the soul, a recurring theme in the devotional art of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The painting is thus an interesting example of how the Italian school of the 18th century continued to reinterpret the great Baroque models of the previous century, adapting them to a more intimate and emotional devotional sensibility.