狂喜中的亚西西的圣方济各

The odd, unsettling pose here comes from a legend that was popular in Zurbarán's day. In 1449, so the story went, Pope Nicholas V went down into the crypt at Assisi and there found the body of Saint Francis, dead more than 200 years, still standing upright and undecayed, his face lifted toward God. Zurbarán, supplying paintings to Spanish monasteries in a century fascinated by death, relics and incorrupt bodies, paints Francis exactly that way, neither clearly alive nor clearly dead. The brown habit, patched and roughly stitched, catches a hard light against deep shadow, while the face stays half-hidden in the cowl. He returned to this figure of the standing, ecstatic Francis more than once; this version, dated 1638, later passed through the French royal collection of Louis-Philippe.