St. Francis
Paul Woodroffe
Photomechanical reproduction of pen and ink drawing.
4½ x 3 inches
The Little Flowers of St. Francis , pictorial frontispiece.
This illustration encapsulates the intense spirituality of Woodroffe’s art. It represents Saint Francis’s encounter with Christ who is shown as a radiant form, in the manner of a Trecento angel, as in the paintings of Duccio and Cimabue, emanating light. The saint’s epiphany is vividly conveyed in his gesture of worship and abasement, and Woodroffe deploys a conventional iconography to highlight the contrast between eternal life (with its blazing lines) and the restrictions of the earthly condition (the skull, the dead twigs, the rocky promontory).
Click on image to enlarge it.
Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.