Page 62 - The mystery of faith

JERÓNIMO FRANCISCO GARCÍA
AND MIGUEL JERÓNIMO GARCÍA,
CALLED THE ‘HERMANOS’ GARCÍA

(Granada c. 1580 – 1634?)

2. Saint Francis of Assisi in the Wilderness with a Music-Making Angel

Terracotta, polychromed
50.5 x 40 x 13 cm (approx. 19 ¾ x 15 ¾ x 5 ¼ in.)

W ithin a makeshift hollow by a twisted tree trunk, Saint Francis of Assisi is seated, almost
semi-prone and leaning to the left, his hand clasped in prayer, his gaze turned upwards
and beyond the composition. On the right, at the rim of the hollow is a closed bible or
prayer book and, apart from the cassock, it is the only reference to his monasticism. The
strongly modelled cassock conceals the saint’s feet and his body is drawn into a strong diagonal, which is
mirrored by the horizon line, but is in opposition to the pose of the angel that emerges in high relief from
the background, seated upon clouds and playing a guitar-like instrument. The scene specifically refers to
an episode in the saint’s later life, when, exhausted almost to the point of despair, an angel appeared and
serenaded him and his spirit was uplifted by its heavenly music. The fact that both Francis and the angel
focus their gaze upwards, outside the composition, adds to the work’s overall sense of mysticism.

Saint Francis of Assisi (1181–1230) was born of an aristocratic Umbrian family and famously eschewed
his birthright to devote his life to Christ. While still a young man he founded the Franciscan order
(1209), an evangelical confraternity that became renowned for the severe simplicity, humility and
voluntary poverty of its friars. Three years before his death, physically exhausted and ill, Francis ceded
control of the community to retire in prayer and contemplation. Throughout his life, Francis reportedly
experienced visions, the most important being his vision of the crucified Christ, on which occasion he
received the stigmata, the marks of Christ’s wounds, which became a standard feature of his
iconography.

This angelic vision in the wilderness is noted as an important event in Francis’s hagiography, and first
appears in 1261 in the Leyenda maior by Saint Buenaventura (1217–1274), where he describes how
Francis, weary and suffering from chronic illness, wished his soul to be lifted by music but since his
solitude made this impossible, heaven sent down an angel to soothe and entertain him.1 Allegedly, when
Francis heard the celestial music, he looked around him to see who was playing and seeing no one,
eventually looked up in the sky and saw a music-making angel that appeared to advance from and
retreat into the clouds, according to the intensity of its playing. The angel’s music was so sweetly
ethereal that it filled Francis with the Holy Spirit, and he felt as if he had already ascended into heaven.
Francis then returned to the monastery and related his vision to his brother friars, who, in turn, spread
word of it as proof of his sainthood.

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