3-072-078 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Hermits (Anachorets), between 1712-1715. The artist drew upon stories about early Christian pious hermits (anchorites), who frequently left for deserts or other secluded places to pray in solitude and contemplate God and the Nature He created. They would often meditate on the vanity of the world and human earthly life and death, which the painting emphasises with a figure of a monk holding a human skull in his hand. Due to prolonged isolation, mortification through fasting and often painful atonement rituals, hermits experienced various aberrant mental states that manifested themselves with illusions and flights of fancy in which various monsters would appear, such as fairy-tale animals and, as is the case with Magnasco's painting, nude females, who were supposed to tempt monks to sin against God. The theme enjoyed great popularity in the Baroque era, probably because of the combination of concealed eroticism with the prayer-like and contemplative sublime.