Saint Francis in Meditation

Francis, and the attribute nobody can hold

Most saints are named by an object. Francis of Assisi is named by marks on his own body — the stigmata, wounds corresponding to those of the crucified Christ — which is a sign that cannot be set down. Around it the tradition supplies things that can: a plain habit knotted with a cord, a skull, a crucifix, sometimes a book. A meditation subject leans on the second set, because meditation needs something to be directed at.

What the record holds

The entry is dated 1606 and gives the Museo Civico Ala Ponzone, Cremona, Italy as its location. The dimensions are 130 x 90 cm, an upright at half-length scale. It is filed under male portraiture and Religion, with the styles given as Baroque and Tenebrism; the measured colour family is brown.

A brown reading, and why it fits

The measured colour family here is brown, which for this subject is a consequence of costume rather than of mood: the habit the convention gives him is undyed wool. 611 works make up this catalogue, and 11 of the titles contain the name Francis. Three of them are by this painter. Two of those — the meditation recorded here and a prayer subject — are separated in the record by 4 years and by 8 centimetres of width, a closeness the fields state and nothing more.