www.sfgate.com        Return to regular view

St. Francis treasures
David Bonetti
EXAMINER ART CRITIC
July 29, 1999
©1999 San Francisco Examiner

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1999/07/29/STYLE4002.dtl

Paintings and other precious relics from the basilica of San Francisco's patron saint on view at the Legion

ONE OF THE most aesthetically satisfying works in "The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi," at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor through Nov. 14, is also one of the most macabre.

"Saint Francis and Four Posthumous Miracles," by an unknown 13th century artist called the Master of the Treasury, features a powerful, full-length image of the ascetic saint holding a cross and a book open to the passage from the gospel of St. Matthew (19:21) - "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give it to the poor" - that inspired him to follow a life of poverty, humility and simplicity devoted to prayer and good works.

Surrounding him, two on each side, are representations of four miracles that took place after his death. In one, a girl whose head had grown into her body is shown being cured when she placed her head on his tomb the day of his burial. In two others, cripples are being cured, and, in the most stunning, a wild woman in a stylish blue gown, her hair streaming behind her thrown-back head, is being exorcised of a demon that had possessed her.

In excellent condition for a work that dates 750 years, the panel is one of the peaks of 13th century Italian painting and one of the few real artistic masterpieces in the show.

But what makes us realize the incredible distance we have come in the last three-quarters of the millennium is that the work was painted on the board on which the dead saint's body was washed in preparation for his burial. For believing Catholics, for whom a picture functions to the degree that it leads a worshiper to faith, its putative physical connection with the saint's body adds immeasurably to its spiritual worth.

Indeed, because St. Francis was buried before the church could harvest his body for future relics, a demand for images of him immediately arose that indirectly encouraged the nascent renaissance in the representational arts that changed the nature of art and its relationship to the viewer.

The inclusion in the show of a number of jewel-embossed gilt and silver reliquaries - vessels for storing saints' body parts for purposes of veneration - underscores the corporeality that structures the Catholic faith.

"The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi" is here in the city of St. Francis as a result of a couple of coincidences, the first of which is the fact that San Francesco is the patron saint of San Francisco, the second being that both cities are subject to earthquakes.

Built on the active Apennine fault line, Assisi was struck by two major earthquakes on Sept. 26, 1997, causing two large sections of vaulting of the Basilica of Saint Francis' upper church to collapse. Those 2,000 square feet included precious frescoes by both Giotto and Cimabue, the two leading 13th century Florentine painters, that were reduced to some 50,000 fragments.

The frescoes, which included Giotto's full-length representations of Sts. Francis and Clare (the nun from Assisi who followed Francis in embracing poverty), were destroyed. A 2-by-5 inch fragment of the head of an angel by Giotto, one of the larger salvaged pieces, is a poignant memorial to what had been great works of art.

The destroyed frescoes were only a small part of the basilica's extensive mural program that amounted to a museum of the best Florentine, Sienese and Roman artists of the time. To secure the work that has survived, a $60 million restoration program is under way, and a selection of objects from the church's treasury, the collection of paintings and precious objects that have survived the centuries, many gifts from powerful churchmen and monarchs, has been sent on tour for the first time.

New York City, Paris, Milan and San Francisco were chosen to host the exhibition, the larger purpose of which is to bring attention to and raise funds for the expensive restoration project. (The Fine Arts Museums have agreed to contribute $1 from each paid admission to the restoration.)

So, "The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi" is one of those exhibitions the primary purpose of which is not aesthetic. Indeed, there are only a scant 50 works in the two galleries devoted to the show, about 20 less than appeared in New York, but the exhibition succeeds in presenting the history of St. Francis, the basilica that was built in his home town after his death, and the terrible destruction that occurred there only two years ago.

St. Francis was a revolutionary. The spoiled son of a cloth merchant, he experienced a religious conversion and challenged an institutionalized church to return to its roots and serve the poor. Francis galvanized thousands during his lifetime and even more after his death. Among the acts for which he is legendary, he preached to the birds. He still serves as an example that a church that gets too comfortable with wealth and power is not doing its founder's bidding.

In addition to rare gold-ground panel paintings, most given to the treasury in 1955 by the Anglo-American art dealer Frederick Mason Perkins, the exhibition includes tapestries, reliquaries and manuscripts. There are many large color photographs of the church, its murals and the destruction caused by the earthquake that also killed two monks. Recorded chants piped into the gallery set the mood.

The Fine Arts Museums have taken the opportunity to bring attention to the parlous state of the seismically unsound de Young Museum. (More to the point might be the fact that the Treasury show occupies the Legion's two largest galleries, where its own masterpieces by Rembrandt, Rubens, Guercino, de la Tour, Claude Lorrain and Simon Vouet ordinarily hang. If the de Young were seismically safe, the Treasury show would, of course, appear there, and there would be no need to take down some of the most important works in the Fine Arts Museums' own collection.)

To art lovers, the most appealing works in the show are the 20-odd panel paintings. Among them are a touching Madonna and Child by early 14th century Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti, a soigne Madonna by the early 15th century Florentine Lorenzo Monaco, a virile Saint Christopher by the 15th century Sienese known as il Sassetta and a tiny, diamond-shaped representation of the Franciscan St. Anthony of Padua by the great 15th century Florentine Fra Angelico.

Those whose interest in the show is religious and iconographic might want to check out two works from the Legion's permanent collection on view in nearby galleries. In "St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix" (circa 1595), El Greco brings his high-strung and nervous energy to a serene moment in the saint's life, and in "The Meeting of St. Francis and St. Dominic" (circa 1430), Fra Angelico captures one of the dramatic events in church history, when the leaders of two coinciding reform movements meet with their handlers.

©1999 San Francisco Examiner   Page C 1