The Stigmatization of Saint Francis

Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata — the five wounds of Christ appearing miraculously on his body during a vision of a seraphic Christ crucified — was among the defining episodes of Franciscan hagiography and one of the most frequently depicted subjects in Italian religious painting. Orazio Gentileschi's 1601 canvas, now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, shows this subject in his early Caravaggesque phase, when his engagement with Caravaggio's new naturalism was most direct. The supernatural event of the stigmatization presented a specific pictorial problem: how to show the divine light or figure causing the wounds and the physical reality of wounds appearing without visible cause. Houston's MFA Italian holdings include several important works from the Caravaggesque tradition, and this early Gentileschi represents a key document in the development of his personal style from direct Caravaggesque practice toward his later refinement.

Canvas with strong chiaroscuro characteristic of Gentileschi's early work. The supernatural source of the stigmata — divine light or a seraphic figure — creates an unusual lighting condition that Gentileschi would have needed to resolve compositionally. Francis's kneeling or prostrate body receives careful tonal modeling. The wounds themselves, appearing without physical cause, are indicated through blood marks on hands and side.