Saint Francis in Prayer

From the Getty Museum record

Dressed in his coarse brown habit, a cross and rosary tucked into the knotted cord at his waist, Saint Francis stands near a craggy cliff. He lifts his hands in prayer as a heavenly light beams down. In the left background, a monk-undoubtedly Brother Leo, Francis's constant companion-is absorbed in reading; a small house sits in the wooded landscape in the background. Francis is depicted at three-quarter length and pressed against the picture plane, heightening the immediacy of his ecstatic experience. The vigorous technique-employing strong brown wash, thick hatching with pen, and red wash (in the face, hands and belt)-enhance the expressive power of the image. This bold sheet is one of several drawings seemingly made in preparation for a painting (whereabouts unknown), although it is highly finished and signed (at upper right), which suggests that Pynas also considered it a work of art in its own right.