Page 272 - The mystery of faith

applications. While Salzillo utilized tried and tested formulae for his Saint Francis of Paola, which
derived from experimentation in the earlier Saint Anthony, the resolute dynamism of Saint Anthony’s
pose is here replaced by a more serene composure for the founder of the Minims, who championed
humility and abnegation (even if Francis was, in fact, a counsellor of princes and kings). In the Saint
Francis of Paola the facial expression is more serene, the expression more ascetic, with its prominent
cheekbones, the sense of fatigue in the hooded eyes, the tender and sweet set of the mouth,
complemented by the lush beard, and in particular the manner in which the hair texture is deliberately
contrasted with the smoothness of the skin in colour and depth of carving. This sense of contrast makes
the beard the main motif of this saint’s images, and speaks to both Francis’s role as a solitary hermit
and to the calm beauty of his holiness.

An attribution of the present sculpture to Salzillo is supported not only by the work’s explicit references
to the boceto in Murcia, but also by the polychromy and estofado technique in the saint’s robes. The
habit of the Minims is rendered as black sackcloth, given weight and texture by thin stripes of gold
painted symmetrically. These create the chromatic contrast, which was so popular during the eighteenth
century, and set off the decorated borders of the hood, sleeves, scapular and hem of the cassock. Both
features connect our sculpture to another work made by Salzillo for the Minim Convent of the
Alcantarilla, near Murcia.

In the eighteenth century, Salzillo’s contemporary Luis Santiago Bado wrote the first biography of the
artist in which he cited three masterpieces as existing in Alcantrilla. These he listed as El Nazareno, La
Virgen de la Aurora, and San Francisco de Paolo.6 When Ceán Bermúdez quoted Bado’s text in the
reference for Salzillo included in his famous Diccionario, he again made note of ‘la buena estatua de
San Francisco de Paola’.7 Even Sánchez Moreno made note of this work in a brief overview of the artist
in which he cites Baquero Almansa.8 Unfortunately, this sculpture and its associated commissioning
documents have been lost, but the repeated reference to its existence confirms that there was a
connection between Salzillo and the Minims.9 Also noteworthy is the fact that none of these references
to the sculpture of Saint Francis of Paola in Alcantarilla mention the piece as being dressed, that is, an
imagen de vestir.

In the present Saint Francis of Paola the treatment of the saint’s habit – the skilful sense of proportion
in the drapery folds and the natural observation of how the sleeves fall in spherical folds – perfectly
complements the extraordinary head, illustrating the saint’s intense facial expression and ‘hundred-
yard’ gaze of spiritual contemplation. The face is, in fact, the focal point of the entire composition and
expresses those particular qualities of prayer, meditation and self-imposed solitude that identify this
saint. The pose and gesture of the soft, delicate, hands help to align the head in an axis that centres the
focus upon the face, allowing the facial expression to radiate from the central axis of the pose, an effect
that is enhanced by the gentle contrapposto of the standing figure.

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