“St. Francis in the Desert”
And now, one from an extraordinary Venetian Italian Renaissance artist.
“St. Francis in the Desert” is an oil on panel painting by the early Italian Renaissance artist, Giovanni Bellini, from circa 1475 to 1480. This painting was created when Bellini was just hitting his artistic stride. Part of the Venetian School, he had only just received his first appointment in 1470. This painting is remarkable for many reasons, one if which includes the extensive and detailed Venetian countryside depicted.
In this painting, Bellini paints Saint Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order. He is in ecstasy, having just received the stigmata. This event was said to have occurred in 1224 on Mount Penna in the Tuscan Apennines in Italy.
Saint Francis is standing in a landscape scene outside his meager home on a mountain side, with the idyllic country outside of Venice in the background. A mountain spring is flowing, and various animals are painted across the landscape in reference to his love of animals. He is dressed in his robes and holding out his arms in a Christ-like manner as he gazes to the sky in the top left part of the image. Saint Francis was canonized just four years later in 1228. This piece is believed to have been commissioned by Zuan Michiel of Venice.
This is a rather nontraditional image of the famous religious figure. Saint Francis is often shown in a more iconographic manner, holding his right hand up revealing the stigmata with a Bible in his left hand. Instead, Bellini uses the extensive landscape to add symbolism to the painting, such as the comparison of the mountain spring with Moses, and the large tree on the left with the burning bush. Art critics see the influence of Andrea Mantegna, who was also Bellini’s brother-in-law. Sometime since its creation, the panel had been cut across the top.
Giovanni Bellini is often credited with progressing the Venetian Renaissance art style from the Quattrocento style into that of the High Renaissance. He is regarded as a revolutionary artist, successfully transitioning from tempera paints to oil paints, resulting in rich, bright, and colorful works.
“St. Francis in the Desert” is currently in the collections of the Frick Collection in New York City in the United States.
For more on Giovanni Bellini, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
