Giovanni Costa

Brother Francis and Brother Sun (Frate Francesco e Frate Sole), 1878–85, Oil on canvas, Castle Howard Collection, York; Reproduced by kind permission of the Howard family

‘Like a Bridegroom Leaving his Chamber’

Commentary by Arnika Groenewald-Schmidt

Cite Share
Read by Ben Quash

St Francis of Assisi is shown greeting the sun with open arms as it rises behind Mount Subasio in his native Umbria.

Inspired by the Fioretti (‘little flowers’)—tales of the saint’s life written in the Middle Ages—the Italian landscape painter Giovanni (Nino) Costa chose to present the saint at a specific and symbolic time of day. He is in the act of pronouncing his Canticle of the Sun, a praise poem in awe of God’s creation. Like Psalm 19:4–6, the Canticle of the Sun pays special tribute to the sun as the bearer of light and life alluding to the cycle of day and night as well as of birth and death.

Experiencing and rendering this cycle and the beauty of God’s creation lay at the heart of Costa’s work. While not religious in the common sense, the artist believed in the notion of God revealing himself in nature. St Francis to him and many others was the perfect mediator between nature and a spiritual realm and in her comment on this painting nineteenth-century critic Julia Cartwright (1887: 148) concluded that:

it is the presence of Francis which gathers all these separate beauties into one grand and complete whole; it is his song of thanksgiving which lends a deeper meaning alike to the dawn flush which mantles the hilltops, and to the flowers which spring up under his feet.

Costa painted several pure Umbrian landscapes ‘permeated by the Franciscan spirit’ that celebrate the beauty of the place and its spiritual connotations (Agresti 1904: 270). In Brother Francis and Brother Sun, however, he goes further by introducing the friar seen from behind as a point of reference for the viewer and an invitation to step into the landscape to experience and praise its beauty in the same way as the protagonist.

Writing about another of Costa’s Umbrian views of about the same period, his biographer Olivia Rossetti Agresti described how the painter got up every morning at 4 am ‘to seize the precise moment of this effect of light, which lasted only a few minutes’, accounting for the importance of truth to nature for the artist (Agresti 1904: 235–36).

 

References

Agresti, Olivia Rossetti. 1904. Giovanni Costa: His Life, Work and Times (London: Gay and Bird)

Cartwright, Julia. 1887. ‘The Art of Costa’, Portfolio, 18: 147–151

See full exhibition for Psalm 19

Psalm 19

Revised Standard Version

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

19The heavens are telling the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

2Day to day pours forth speech,

and night to night declares knowledge.

3There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

4yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tent for the sun,

5which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,

and like a strong man runs its course with joy.

6Its rising is from the end of the heavens,

and its circuit to the end of them;

and there is nothing hid from its heat.

7The law of the Lord is perfect,

reviving the soul;

the testimony of the Lord is sure,

making wise the simple;

8the precepts of the Lord are right,

rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the Lord is pure,

enlightening the eyes;

9the fear of the Lord is clean,

enduring for ever;

the ordinances of the Lord are true,

and righteous altogether.

10More to be desired are they than gold,

even much fine gold;

sweeter also than honey

and drippings of the honeycomb.

11Moreover by them is thy servant warned;

in keeping them there is great reward.

12But who can discern his errors?

Clear thou me from hidden faults.

13Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins;

let them not have dominion over me!

Then I shall be blameless,

and innocent of great transgression.

14Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable in thy sight,

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

More Exhibitions