T00961_9
St Francis and the Birds 1935 - Stanley Spencer

"St Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscans, is popularly remembered for being able to talk to birds, and pray with them.

Here he is shown as an old man, dressed in a Franciscan robe, talking to birds on a farm.

The strangeness of Spencer's paintings in the 1930s implies some personal interpretation, perhaps here in the way the saint separates the boy and girl.

This was one of two paintings rejected by the Royal Academy in 1935.

(From the Tate display caption September 2004)