Page 67 - The mystery of faith

anecdotal) and is divided obliquely into two zones: the foreground with the saint, rocks and tree; and
the background where the angel floats above a wooded river landscape. Vanni’s angel appears to have
particularly inspired the brothers since they not only replicated it almost identically in an Infant Baptist
in the Wilderness in Malaga (Fig. 9), but in the present work gave their guitar-playing angel the same
widely outstretched wings and a similar split-skirted costume painted in a very Mannerist colour
combination of rose pink and verdigris.

The work is similar in technique and composition to the other dated reliefs exhibited here. In all four
sculptures, the saint is placed in an enclosed rocky or wooded foreground, before a painted landscape
on the right, or, in this case, a plastic rendering of a musical angel. However, the Saint Francis relief
shows a more angular approach to modelling, particularly in the cassock and the angel’s tunic, which
possibly derives from the engraving, but also points towards an earlier date. The brothers painted the
thick folds of the cassock with fine undulating lines, rendered with great delicacy and refinement to
reproduce the pattern of serge, a cheap type of woollen cloth. This is a technique generally associated
with the work of Pedro de Mena, who, according to art historians, inherited it from his master Alonso
Cano. However, as this work clearly shows, this was evidently not a trait exclusive to these Granadine
artists, who in fact post-date the brothers.

If we compare the work to the other three exhibited sculptures, or, indeed, to any of the brother’s
various versions of Ecce Homo, we see clear similarities in the anatomical modelling, particularly in the
pose and musculature of the angel’s legs, which closely parallel those of the 1625 Saint John the Baptist
in the Wilderness. Equally, the face of the saint is modelled and painted with remarkable delicacy and
careful attention to detail and eloquently expresses the saint’s conflicting reactions, caught between his
rapturous appreciation of the angel’s lovely music and the understandable shock of seeing it emerge
from the clouds.

Considering the varying approaches to modelling in the drapery, the saint’s face and the angel’s legs,
and the Mannerist style and palette of the angel’s tunic, we should consider this Saint Francis relief to
pre-date the Penitent Saint Jerome in Puerto Rico, which is dated to 1619.

1 J. R. LEGÍSIMA and L. GÓMEZ CANEDO, San Francisco de several other reliefs including the Saint John the Baptist
Asís. Escritos, Florecillas, Biografías, Madrid 1965, pp. Comforted by an Angel (School of Granada, collection of a
496–497. cloistered monastery, Madrid); see also B. NAVARRETTE
PRIETO, ‘La estampa como modelo en el Barroco andaluz’,
2 Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Vision to Saint Francis, included in Actas del Congreso Internacional Andalucía
1645–1646, oil on canvas, Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Barroca, first session, part of a symposium held in
Artes de San Fernando. September 2007, published in Andalucía Barroca, Seville
2009, p. 165–166.
3 A. BARTSCH, The Illustrated Bartsch, New York 1980, vol.
XVII, 196, p. 3. This engraving also served as a model for

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