Cheerful, selfless Saint Francis is forcefully present in this enthralling show of art and imagery from the Renaissance to the present inspired by the muse, mystic and social radical
saw on his pilgrimage through Umbria in the footsteps of Saint Francis. His shining phrases radiate across the gallery wall in the shape of the glowing sun Francis saw as his sister. They record not only eight days of seeing through the saint’s eyes, but the character of the man himself: his love of starry nights, of watching the Earth turn, loving his fellow beings, feeling the breeze shiver through Italian trees. It is the perfect start to this show.
Here is a Renaissance Francis, struggling out of his costly coat to press it on a poor man. Here is Brother Francis, in trademark brown habit and tonsure, opening his arms wide to a 19th-century sunrise over the mountains. Cuddlesome old Francis, his habit now a dressing gown with matching slippers, appears surrounded by Aylesbury ducks in Stanley Spencer’s Berkshire back yard.
Saint Francis Before the Sultan by Fra Angelico, 1429. Lindenau-Museum Altenburg, Germany/ Bernd Sinterhaufin which the garrulously open-hearted Francis, who has gone all the way to Egypt in hope of converting the sultan al-Kamil, is receiving a sympathetic hearing. Has there ever been a better painting of a sceptical, if gracious, audience?
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