Even though it was last summer when it was “re-presented,” after cleaning and research, at its home at the Frick Museum in NY, it is a wonderful painting to look at in springtime: Giovanni Bellini’s “St. Francis in the Desert.” A friend recently returned from a trip to Italy where she visited Assisi, and we were talking about this painting. Although I had seen it numerous times before, the last time I saw this work, Bellini’s unique concept finally dawned on my slow-working brain. I had been so enamored earlier of the natural details of the painting, the “liquid” blue rocks and the privileged view of the monk’s private retreat in the rich Italian landscape, I had missed the radical argument Bellini was making.

The subject of the painting is a matter of debate. Is St. Francis receiving the stigmata? He certainly has the wounds in the painting. Or is it some time later, is he singing his Canticle of the Sun? The scene seems to have elements of both events but doesn’t appear to depict either one exactly.

We’re so used to getting our emotional insights from actors in motion, in movies or on tv, it is good to look at a still painted figure, whose gesture is so rich and complex that is bears repeated looking and revisiting. St. Francis has stepped out of his meditation cell, as if called. Something fundamental is happening; he has left his sandals behind. Barefoot, he steps forward, as if to offer himself, or to sing on a stage, but as he does so, he is also thrust backwards. His mouth is open, but is speechless. His head is raised by what he sees, but you could say that while looking up his head is also slightly bowed in humility. His arms and hands are apart and tilted upwards, the better to absorb and contain the message he is receiving.  It is a wonderful depiction of this religious moment. And there is the remarkable surrounding scene. No wonder many people consider this one of the greatest Rennaisance paintings in the US.

As if this were not enough, Bellini did something very new with his 1480 St. Francis, something essential to the painting.

St. Francis is traditionally shown receiving his stigmata in the form of heavenly or unearthly beams of light coming from an angel, as in the earlier paintings by the Master of San Francesco Bardi, 1250, and by the more naturalistic Giotto, 1300 (click to enlarge, as with the painting on top):

         

But Bellini’s St. Francis is receiving his revelation not from beyond, but from within this world, from and through the life giving light of the sun. Bellini’s painting lets us see and feel what we know about St. Francis: In between the Dark Ages with its view of the world as a snare of temptation and evil, and the Enlightenment picture of creation as an intricate machine running on orderly laws, was St. Francis, trusting in nature as a good and beautiful place, embracing as his “brothers” and “sisters” the sun, water, wind and animals. Bellini’s painted light, subtly highlighting the saint while warming the world around him, brings both the day and interior illumination together as parts of one gift.