Saint Francis of Assisi
Jorgensen, Johannes
68 THE COMMONWEAL November a6, 1924 SAINT FRANCIS OF...
...Works there is European blood in his veins, and his spiritual such as those are not only expressions of art—they are youth took place on entirely old world ground...
...The it is falling in ruin 1" Follow him to all the places of old maxim runs—ora et labora—"pny anti worV' passion (but of triumph too) which marked his short And Pedro Subercaseaux was no lazy idler~ no sight- existence...
...little Poor Man from There he sought the Saint he loved—and there he Assisi...
...Or look at the splendid cession...
...But real Italy, true, perhaps n o t rough, old-fashioned Italy—Italy of the small towns even the life and the barren mountains, Franciscan Italy to say all of Christ was more about it—Italy in the grey frock of the friar and the subject to illustratioa worn coat of the peasant...
...series, and century after century is adding fresh names But—well, another might do the same...
...Tie is in the same ocean, and his cradle stood on the shore of another relation to the Umbrian Saint as for instance Boutet ocean—yet farther away—he is a native of Chile...
...The s~ti~ And this is the reason why I appreciate so highly American became a South European...
...the first goal of his wandering desires...
...Look at the of Spain, the holy places of Italy saw the young pil- young Assisi—nierchant, praying dews...
...I think Eugene to the glones of Renaissance and Baroque art...
...The great shrines this new pictorial life of Saint Francis...
...order "Go, Francis, and build up My Church—you see, Kneeling down in prayer—and rising to work...
...You will remark (and how could you not...
...during new works even in this century...
...And this, I suppose, was just what Pedro the French Riviera, witlf 6r' uit~&iMiib&tiik?W Su~erca?seiiii u~ou1d have you...
...But de Monvel was to Isis heroine, Jeanne d'Arc...
...at San Dam:grim from over the sea dropping his staff and kneeling ano, before the old crucifix, and receiving the divine down in prayer...
...He comes to us from over u~ two artists lived it all by himself...
...demi-mondaines and suicides...
...Not that tourist-haunted Italy that goes from thing Christianity is, and what a great Christian Saint Borlighera to Sorreato rtd is only a continuation of Francis was...
...This Italy is the Italy of than the life of the Pedro Subercaseaux...
...Beginning of Italian painting, gives us the first of the Peter's with the pigna in the midst of the paradiso...
...This is no down to the splendid lifeless revocation of a story from the past...
...He was an artist, that is, a poet, whose materials ecstasy—"and if the angel had sounded one note more, are not verse and rhyme, but line and color...
...The present lines are meant as an introduc'ion (if such a one be If you feel so great a difference between the cold, necessary) to a new pictorial life of the Umbrian Saint well-drawn pictures of the Swiss painter and the Pedro Subercaseaux—this is the name of the artist— work of Subercaseaux, it is because the latter of the is no child of Europe...
...There he is at home and at ease...
...See for inof Saint Francis, all stance Francis represented as rex festi, king of the the greatest names of festival—the garments, the musical instruments, the art follow each other vessels and cups on the table—all is as it really was in in uninterrupted pro- thirteenth century Umbria...
...The apit55ions of life...
...on the Little Flowers the historical exactitude of these pictures...
...Turn the and refined art of pages of the volume, and you will find yourself not only Maurice Dads in his in full, real Italy, but also in full, real thirteenth masterly illustration century...
...rough picture on the Because this is the truth about the work of the South coffin of the Saint American painter—Saint Francis lives in it...
...Burnaud did—although with less detaiL This is not No wonder then that Franciscan inspiration is pro- the thing...
...See him—then at the end of his life, in the seeing esthete, enjoying things of beauty only to him- hut of branches and mud, listening to the angel, rapt in self...
...From the first found him...
...His it should have beeen death P'—and you will understand sketchbook was a volume of hymns on the beauty of with all your soul and all your heart, what a great Italy...
...Herr Thode, in his voluminous book on the historical reconstruction of the old basilica of St...
...68 THE COMMONWEAL November a6, 1924 SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI In the Pictures of Pedro Subercaseaux By JOHANNES JORGENSEN NO life of man...
...Church of Rome gave him his intellectual and send- They are not only speaking to the eyes—they mental education, and Roman Catholic countries were are speaking to the soul...
Vol. 1 • November 1924 • No. 3
