“St Francis and the Birds”, Stanley Spencer 1935, Tate, London.
Yes, there are birds of the air, flowers of the field and a man in a robe, but this is image is a far cry from most paintings of St Francis. At the time although some critics approved, most didn’t and the Royal Academy rejected it. This is actually a rather rotund version of the artist’s father, who in old age liked to feed the farmyard birds and wander around Cookham while still in his dressing gown. However, he does wear his slippers. Like St Francis the old man has his arms spread wide and backwards, but unlike St Francis he faces away from the sun. It is a curious but thought-provoking image, not least because he hasn’t fed the birds as did the old man, nor is he engaging with them as did St Francis. He seems to going off for a wander and the geese, hens and birds on the roof seem to want to follow. It has been pointed out, quite rightly in my view, that this is not St Francis as a daft old man but a “daft” old man as St Francis. The setting is the backyard where the man lived. At the time, Spencer wrote to The Times that “the shapes and forms of St Francis are continuous with the surrounding shapes and forms”. There is Spencer’s odd harmony of both the physical and the spiritual world. The old man as he goes walking in his dressing gown has laid aside many of the learned customs, values of his place and time, just as St Francis had by the time he stripped off his clothes before his father and the townspeople. An old man is entering the kingdom, perhaps in his son’s opinion, not as daft as he looks but, like the saint, free.
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