Stigmatisation of Francis of Assisi

The event behind this picture was already 400 years old when Rubens painted it. In 1224, on a mountain in Tuscany, Saint Francis of Assisi was said to have received the stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Christ appearing on his own hands, feet, and side. In the Catholic Flanders of Rubens's day, freshly re-energised after the religious wars, that kind of intense personal devotion was exactly what the Franciscan friars wanted over their altar. He made this for their church in Ghent, one of three canvases for the same building. Most painters show Francis swept up in ecstasy. Rubens turns his face toward us instead, mouth open, more shaken than blissful, a raw human reaction to something overwhelming.