# St Francis Meditating [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [GRECO, El]() - Date: 1551-1600 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 147,3 x 105,4 cm ## Commentary St Francis Meditating c. 1595 Oil on canvas, 147,3 x 105,4 cm Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco St Francis of Assisi was the most popular saint in the Counter-Reformation period. Favoured subjects represented in painting were his stigmatisation, his ecstasy and his meditation. El Greco treated all three, and ten different compositions by the artist can be differentiated, some half-length, some full-length, some showing the saint alone, others with a companion. In this painting St Francis meditates not so much on mortality \(signified by the skull\) as on the sacrifice of Christ. In accordance with devotional practice, Francis has prepared his meditation by first reading from the Bible, shown lying on the ledge with a piece of paper marking the place. The painting is signed on a piece of paper attached with a seal to the rock lower right. ## Related artworks - [A Boy Blowing on an Ember to Light a Candle \(Soplón\)]() - [A Lady in a Fur Wrap]() - [A Prelate]() - [A View of Toledo \(detail\)]() - [A View of Toledo]() - [Adoration of the Shepherds \(detail\)]() - [Adoration of the Shepherds]() - [Adoration of the Shepherds]() - [Allegory of the Camaldolese Order]() - [Altarpiece]() - [An Allegory with a Boy Lighting a Candle in the Company of an Ape and a Fool \(Fábula\)]() - [An Allegory with a Boy Lighting a Candle in the Company of an Ape and a Fool \(Fábula\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()