Valerio Castello
Genoa, Italy, 1624-1659
The Angelic Consolation of St. Francis, ca. 1648
Oil on canvas.
Meditating on the Passion, St. Francis was believed to have mystically received Christ�s wounds. In this variation on the theme of the stigmata, an angel playing the violin brings the saint to a state of ecstasy and spiritual transport. Appropriately expressionistic, the style of this painting combines the lyricism of earlier Genoese painters like Bernardo Strozzi, the strained feeling of early seventeenth-century Milanese painting, and the broad modeling of Anthony van Dyck. Castello was the most sophisticated and subjective painter in mid seventeenth-century Genoa.