St Francis in Ecstasy

Saint Francis in Ecstasy by Reni at the Bowes Museum depicts the Franciscan founder in a state of mystical rapture. Reni's luminous treatment of ecstatic saints created some of the most influential devotional images of the Counter-Reformation. Guido Reni's refined classicism and ethereal beauty made him one of the most celebrated painters in Europe during his lifetime, his graceful idealized figures expressing a spirituality that appealed equally to Counter-Reformation piety and aristocratic aesthetic sensibility.

The ecstatic saint is bathed in celestial light, rendered with Reni's characteristic smooth luminosity. The refined emotional expression captures the spiritual transport.