Monks in penitence

This scene of monks in penitence at the Real Academia de San Fernando in Madrid belongs to Magnasco's most characteristic subject matter — the ascetic religious practice of bodily self-punishment through fasting, vigil, or flagellation that was a recognized aspect of Counter-Reformation piety. The Real Academia's collection in Madrid, with its Spanish and Italian holdings, preserved Magnasco's work in Iberian institutions that collected his paintings through diplomatic and commercial channels. His monks in penitence combined the devotional subject matter of Catholic religious art with a visual treatment that emphasized the extreme, the unsettling, and the psychologically disturbing rather than the consoling.

The penitent monks are depicted with the nervous, flickering brushwork that is Magnasco's hallmark, their elongated forms swaying and bending in attitudes of extreme devotion that border on physical dissolution.