Saint Francis in Ecstasy
Castiglione voraciously absorbed a range of precedents—Van Dyck, Rubens, and Rembrandt, among others—to establish unique, radical techniques of both drawing and painting. Short repeated diagonal brushstrokes build up the clothing, and rich impasto gives a tactile physicality to the still life of skull and open book. Saint Francis (1181/82–1226) is depicted on a rocky precipice, silhouetted against the evening sky at a dramatic moment of devotion to a sculpture depicting Christ’s crucifixion. By contrast, the skull and book symbolize mortality and vanities of the world.
Artwork Details
- Title: Saint Francis in Ecstasy
- Artist: Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) (Italian, Genoa 1609–1664 Mantua)
- Date: ca. 1650
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 77 × 53 1/4 in. (195.6 × 135.3 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift; Gwynne Andrews Fund; and Gift in memory of Felix M. Warburg from his wife and children, Bequest and Gift of George Blumenthal, Bequests of Theodore M. Davis, Adele L. Lehman, in memory of Arthur Lehman, Helen Hay Whitney, Jean Fowles, in memory of her first husband, R. Langton Douglas, and Gifts of Coudert Brothers and Harry Payne Bingham Jr., by exchange, 2014
- Object Number: 2014.270
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings
More Artwork
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Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
ca. 1635–40
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
1650–55
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
ca. 1647–51
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
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ca. 1638–1640
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