Page 56 - Vision & Ecstasy - Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione's St. Francis.

© THE MATTHIESEN GALLERY, LONDON
© THE MATTHIESEN GALLERY, LONDON

Fig.14 G.B. CASTIGLIONE Fig.15 G.B. CASTIGLIONE
St Francis in Ecstasy (detail),The Matthiesen Gallery, St Francis in Ecstasy (detail),
London. The Matthiesen Gallery, London.

Any discussion of the Saint Francis in Ecstasy must begin with its manifest relation to the Immaculate Conception
for Osimo.19 The figure combines the orientation and facial type of the Saint Francis in the altarpiece
with the more contained posture, generically devout attitude, and incidental features, like the open book, of
Saint Anthony.The setting practically repeats a topography of blanched limestone and basically redistributes
the vegetation with its telling juxtaposition of thistle, symbolizing human suffering (Fig. 14), and ivy,
faithfulness (Fig. 15). The low viewpoint, continuous diagonal ascent, and slight recession of the composition
are essentially unchanged from that area the altarpiece. And because this Saint Francis is approximately the
same size as the corresponding passage, the painting appears at first and in general to be an excerpt. In fact,
both composition and size strongly suggest that this painting too was conceived for a public location, and
probably as an altarpiece. In basic subject, form, and function, then, this Saint Francis is a pointed and close
variation upon the painting in Minneapolis.

19. Brigstocke 1980, p. 293; Newcome inWarsaw 1990, p. 255; Standring in Genoa 1990, p. 145.

58