monks at meal in a grotto

This scene of monks at a meal in a grotto belongs to Magnasco's extensive series depicting monastic life in wild, desolate settings. His obsessive return to themes of hermits and monks in extreme environments connected to the Counter-Reformation's renewed emphasis on ascetic spiritual practice, but his treatment was always more expressionistic than devotional — the monks' physical extremity serving aesthetic rather than purely religious purposes. The grotto setting, associated with early Christian hermits who withdrew to desert caves, provided Magnasco with a compositional format that combined dramatic natural forms with the suggestion of primitive Christian withdrawal from society's corruptions.

The grotto setting is rendered with Magnasco's agitated brushwork, the flickering, elongated figures of the monks almost merging with the rocky environment in a style that anticipates the expressive distortions of modern painting.