SAINT FRANCIS BY ORAZIO GENTILESCHI AND THE BIRTH OF CARAVAGGISM

The painting depicting Saint Francis by Orazio Gentileschi, recently attributed to the artist, is a work of rare importance.
It testifies that the innovations developed in Rome by Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, spread rapidly in the 17th century, together with the growing devotion to the Saint of Assisi.

Saint Francis by Orazio Gentileschi

Gentileschi, Orazio (1562-1647): Saint Francis Held by an Angel Rome Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica *** Permission for usage must be provided in writing from Scala.

The spiritual renewal inaugurated in the early 13th century by St. Francis of Assisi had a great and lasting influence on the arts.
The radical Franciscan message also provided vital lymph in the early 17th century for the Caravaggesque “movement”: a phenomenon linked, at least in its early days, to precise ethical, religious and philosophical values. The ambition to return to a new poverty of the Church and recover an authentic life inspired by the principles of the Gospel took shape, for the first time in the history of European art, in images that recalled contemporary reality.

THE IMAGE OF SAINT FRANCIS IN THE 17TH CENTURY

In depicting the image of the saint of Assisi, it was fundamental for 17th century artists to be familiar with certain prayer practices that were widespread at the time, such as the vigils performed by Capuchin friars before the remains of their brethren.
These were austere moments and in the paintings of that time, in fact, those scenes are reproduced by including St. Francis as the protagonist, and this is how he is also depicted by Caravaggio and later by Orazio Gentileschi.

Ecstatic, penitent or contemplative, St. Francis is enveloped in an atmosphere constricted by strong contrasts, emphasised by grazing lighting.

SAINT FRANCIS BY ORAZIO GENTILESCHI

Orazio Gentileschi’s Saint Francis appears to us in a dark night illuminated only by the saving glow of divine light. The saint, exhausted, sinks into the arms of an angel with falcon or dove wings, having received the gift of the stigmata.

The painting is intense but also testifies to the moment when Orazio Gentileschi approached the poetic and stylistic innovations developed by Michelangelo Merisi.
The work was in fact executed from life and with the model posed: a working method that Orazio had certainly learnt directly from Caravaggio (around 1599-1600).
And indeed, if one compares Gentileschi’s painting with Caravaggio’s Saint Francis in Meditation, which is part of the Prado Museum’s collection of works, the similarities are many.