Saint Francis in Meditation

What is happening in Saint Francis in Meditation?

A man in a rough brown habit kneels on a bare floor against a dark, empty wall. His hood is pulled so far forward that most of his face is lost in shadow. All we see are his lips, slightly open, and the line of his beard. His eyes, hidden under the hood, seem to look upwards. In his clasped hands he holds a human skull against his chest.

This is Saint Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order, painted by Francisco de Zurbarán in the late 1630s. There is no landscape, no vision of angels and no birds, nothing of the gentle Francis of popular imagination. There is only a man alone with death, in prayer.

Why is his face hidden?

The hood is the most striking thing in the painting. Its point rises high above the head and its edge throws a deep shadow over the eyes and nose. By hiding the face, Zurbarán turns Francis into something more than a portrait: an image of anyone praying, turned completely inwards.

The open mouth adds to the effect. Francis seems to be speaking, praying aloud or sighing, in a moment of intense feeling. We cannot see his expression, so we have to imagine it.

What you can see, and what is interpretation: the shadowed face, the open mouth and the upturned head are clearly painted. Whether Francis is in ecstasy, in sorrow or simply in prayer is not shown. The painting leaves that open, and viewers have read it all three ways.

Why is he holding a skull?

The skull is a reminder of death, a memento mori. In the religious culture of seventeenth-century Spain, meditating on death was a central spiritual exercise: thinking about your own end was meant to free you from attachment to the world and prepare your soul. Francis holds the skull close, against his heart, as if it were something precious.

The light falls on the skull and the hands, which are the brightest parts of the painting after the patched sleeve. Zurbarán makes sure that whatever else we notice, we notice death.

What do the patched habit and the cord mean?

Look at the sleeve. The habit is torn and patched with a lighter cloth, a sign of the absolute poverty Francis chose when he gave up his family's wealth. Zurbarán paints the rough, worn wool with the same attention he gave to silk and brocade in his paintings of female saints.

Around his waist is the simple cord of the Franciscan friars, which hangs down and trails on the floor. Franciscans traditionally tie knots in it for the three vows of their order: poverty, chastity and obedience.

Did Zurbarán paint Saint Francis more than once?

Many times. Saint Francis was one of his favourite subjects, and he and his workshop painted him kneeling, standing and in meditation in a number of versions, now in museums across Europe and the Americas. The kneeling Francis in London is one of the most admired, for its simplicity and for the extraordinary shadow of the hood.

It came to the National Gallery in London in the nineteenth century, at a time when Spanish painting was just being discovered outside Spain, and it helped to make Zurbarán's name known in Britain.

Saint SerapionZurbarán, 1628Saint Luke as a PainterZurbarán, c. 1650Agnus DeiZurbarán, c. 1635 to 1640

Read more about the painter and his other masterpieces in our guide to Francisco de Zurbarán.

Where is Saint Francis in Meditation?

The painting is in the National Gallery in London. It is oil on canvas, 152 by 99 centimetres, painted between 1635 and 1639.

We paint Saint Francis in Meditation by hand in oil on canvas, at the original size or the size that suits your wall, with the deep shadow of the hood and the worn wool of the habit built up in layers. See the hand-painted reproduction.