The Vision of Saint Eustace

Pisanello's The Vision of Saint Eustace, painted around 1438-1442 and now in the National Gallery in London, is one of the masterpieces of International Gothic painting. The work depicts the moment from the saint's legend when the Roman general Eustace, while hunting, sees a vision of the crucified Christ between the antlers of a stag — a vision that leads to his conversion. Pisanello uses the subject as a pretext for one of the most extraordinary bestiary paintings in European art: the forest is populated with dogs, stags, a bear, a heron, horses, and rabbits, each rendered with the precision of a naturalist. The painting is a demonstration of Pisanello's gift for natural observation combined with a deeply decorative compositional sensibility.

Pisanello populates the panel with animals painted with extraordinary care from life studies, each creature individualized and anatomically precise. The landscape is organized as a flat, decorative field without perspective recession, in the International Gothic manner. The saint and his horse are rendered with the same precise linear quality as the animals surrounding them.