Francisco de Goya

Saint Francis Borgia Assisting a Dying Man (San Francisco de Borja asistiendo a un moribundo)

Saint Francis Borgia Assisting a Dying Man (San Francisco de Borja asistiendo a un moribundo)
Datos Generales
Cronología
1788
Ubicación
Valencia Cathedral, Valencia, Spain
Dimensiones
350 x 300 cm
Técnica y soporte
Oil on canvas
Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
Documented work
Titular
Chapter of the metropolitan cathedral of Valencia
Ficha: realización/revisión
20 Jan 2010 / 28 Jun 2023
Historia

Between 1787 and 1788 the Countess-Duchess of Benavente and Gandía (and Duchess of Osuna) sponsored the renovation of the chapel under her patronage in Valencia Cathedral. The chapel is dedicated to Saint Francis Borgia, her illustrious ancestor, who was the Duke of Gandia and Marquis of Lombay. The first artist to work on the chapel was the Valencian painter Mariano Salvador Maella, author of the main painting of the altar, Conversion of Saint Francis Borgia. Later, Goya was commissioned to paint the two lateral paintings. On 16 October 1788 the paintings must have already been finished, since on this date Goya issued the Duchess with a bill for the work to the sum of 30,000 reales.

Análisis artístico

The scene narrates one of the most popular themes in Jesuit iconography. The setting is a dark room, lit only by a circular window half-covered by a curtain. On the right, at a prudent distance from the sick man, we can see Saint Francis Borgia dressed in a simple black habit and holding a crucifix as if it were a weapon, spraying forth the blood of Christ to attack the demons which possess the dying blasphemer. In the saint's face, framed by a halo, we can read fear, and his body leans in the same way as the figure of Bernardine of Siena in Goya's canvas depicting his sermon in the Church of San Francisco el Grande in Madrid.

The image is fully immersed in the most obscurantist Spanish tradition, and has enjoyed great popularity since it is in this work that the fantastic monsters so typical of Goya's imagination first make an appearance. The artist has substituted the putti which usually accompany his religious figures for brutish monsters, letting his imagination run wild, a prelude to the work of his later years.

The body of the dying man also shows traces of the style used in the execution of the figures in his Black Paintings. His chest is swollen, holding the demon with whom the saint does battle for the soul of the unfortunate man. His face and the colour of his skin have the look of someone already dead.

Sánchez Cantón links this painting to a work by Miguel Ángel Houasse Aparición de San Francisco Regis (deposited by the Prado Museum in the San Isidro Institute, Madrid).

Camón was surprised by the huge difference between different works by Goya carried out almost at the same time, and contrasts this work with the paintings housed in the convent of Benedictine nuns in Valladolid, which are so sweet in comparison with the violence and expressiveness of this painting.

There is no doubt that the precursor of expressionism already reveals himself in this work, without the need to hide beneath the decorous compositions - by no means of a lesser quality - which some of his patrons demanded.

Exposiciones
  • Francisco de Goya: Maleri, Tegning, Grafikk
    Nasjonalgalleriet
    Oslo
    1996
    from 10th to April 14th 1996
  • Goya y Maella en Valencia. Del boceto al cuadro de altar
    Catedral y Museo de Bellas Artes
    Valencia
    2002
    organized by Subsecretaría de Promoción Cultural de la Generalitat Valenciana, Consorcio de Museos de la Comunitad Valenciana, Arzobispado de Valencia and Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, consultant editor Benito Navarrete Prieto. From March to May 2002
  • Goya: Order and disorder
    Museum of Fine Arts
    Boston
    2014
Bibliografía
  • DESPARMET FITZ - GERALD, Xavier
    L'œuvre peint de Goya. 4 vols
    París
    1928-1950
    vol. I, p. 129, cat. 84
  • GASSIER, Pierre y WILSON, Juliet
    Vie et ouvre de Francisco de Goya
    ParísOffice du livre
    1970
    pp. 79, 96, cat. 243
  • GUDIOL RICART, José
    BarcelonaPolígrafa
    1970
    vol. I, p. 276, cat. 260
  • ANGELIS, Rita de
    L’opera pittorica completa di Goya
    MilanRizzoli
    1974
    p. 103, cat. 228
  • CAMÓN AZNAR, José
    Francisco de Goya, 4 vols.
    ZaragozaCaja de Ahorros de Zaragoza, Aragón y Rioja
    1980-1982
    vol. II, p. 62 y p. 174 (il.)
  • NAVARRETE PRIETO, Benito (comisario)
    Goya y Maella en Valencia. Del boceto al cuadro de altar
    ValenciaGeneralitat Valenciana
    2002
    pp. 96-102, cat. 11
  • ILCHMAN, Frederick y STEPANEK, Stephanie L. (comisarios)
    Goya: Order & Disorder
    BostonMuseum of Fine Arts Boston Publications
    2014
    pp. 24-25
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