“Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis” by Benozzo Gozzoli is a story about Francis, collected not in one moment, but in many episodes, where both action and mood are important. The artist loves intense action: the characters are almost always busy with something - walking, gathering, reaching for meaning, arguing, helping, praying. There is a lively pace to every scene, as if the viewer is right there and watching the story unfold before their eyes.
Gozzoli is especially expressive in details: faces and gestures suggest the character of Francis - calmness, inner fire, attention to people and nature. The environment works as a continuation of the story: architecture, paths, landscape motifs create a sense of travel and spiritual path. Light and color help to separate the semantic zones of the picture, and the composition directs the eye from the main event to secondary figures - those who help, observe or become witnesses.
In general, the work is perceived as a kind of “chronicle of faith”: it shows the spiritual through everyday actions and human intimacy.
This fresco is a part of the church of ‘San Francesco’ in Montefalco. It was created by - Benozzo Gozzoli in 1452 and he used his artistic skills here for depicting the moment Saint Francis received the stigmata. Francis kneels on a rocky hillside - arms raised and his face turned upward. Beside Saint Francis, a companion friar is sitting quietly with an open book and watching the scene rather than taking part in it. Behind them, Gozzoli created a small, dreamlike landscape: dark pine trees, a walled monastery with red sloping roofs, and a night sky scattered with gold stars and long streaked clouds. The whole scene was placed inside a lunette which is an arched shape framing used by Francis at the centre. The composition has its balance of depicting both stillness and drama in the painting here which is typical of how Gozzoli handled sacred subjects in his fresco cycles.
