Devotion –and passion– meant that, in full confinement, the Franciscan convent Luis Esteban Larra Lomas (Cañizar de Argaño, Burgos, 1964) began to count the paintings that the Prado Museum has with Saint Francis of Assisi as the protagonist or, if anything, in the company, for example, of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. “I would dare to say that Saint Francis of Assisi is not only the most painted religious figure in the Madrid art gallery, but among all the characters, including civilians, lay people, to understand us,” says the religious.
Larra came to account 173 paintings of Saint Francis of Assisi, including those not exhibited, that form part of the so-called ‘disperse meadow’ or simply remain stored. “It was a great surprise,” he adds. If we compare him with saints and saints of special importance in the history of the Church due to their popularity or devotion, without a doubt the figure of Saint Francis stands out in number of paintings over all of them”. And he cites only a few: 79 of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 62 of Saint Anthony of Padua, 49 of Saint Teresa of Jesus, 36 of Saint Dominic de Guzmán or 17 of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
Among all of them, has chosen twelve, with those who have written ‘Saint Francis of Assisi in the Prado Museum’ (PPC), an “artistic and spiritual guide” that Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi defines in the prologue as “truly fascinating”. “I had to have some criteria,” continues the author. The choice of the twelve is because they were the ones who at that time – when this book came out, in the middle of the pandemic, since we were confined, in March 2020, until I got the virus and had to quarantine, in November of that same year – were exhibited in the Prado Museum”.
The authors, fundamentally baroque: Nicolás Francés, the Master of Hoogstraten, Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina, Vicente Macip, Alonso Sánchez Coello, El Greco, Carracci, Gentileschi, Ribalta, Ribera, Zurbarán and Murillo. “There is one by Tiepolo that I would have liked to include, but at that time it was not on display. The twelve are, furthermore, by different authors, although some themes are similar”, he continues.
A look of devotion
“The most repeated themes because of that baroque spirituality in which they were born, they are the three who have to do with the stigmatization of Saint Francis, an event that occurred on Mount Alvernia in September 1224, two years before his death. Let’s say that there is a before, a during and an after of the stigmata”, adds Larra Lomas, theologian, journalist and also author of ‘Francisco de Asís, el santo que todo lo brother’ (San Pablo, 2019).
The look of Luis Esteban Larra Lomas is not, however, only artistic: it is, above all, one of devotion and immeasurable passion. “I think it comes from my soul and heart; after having contemplated, after spending hours and hours with my external and internal eyes, with all my senses in front of those images, the conclusion is that I am facing a Francis in love, a passionate Francis in every way”, he recognizes, inviting us to pay special attention to the revealing hands and faces of the saint of Assisi.
“A Francisco full of light, full of seduction, who invites you to look at his face -Explain-. Each of the faces, their details, the glances, the eyes, belongs to a man who attracts, a man who seduces, because he is a man who is in love, who invites you to fall in love with him and with whom he has fallen in love, who He is neither more nor less than Christ.”