Description
Italian school of the second half of the 17th century. "The Preaching of Jean-Baptiste". Oil on canvas. Relined. Size: 90 x 63 cm; 109 x 81 cm (frame). In this work the painter narrates a biblical episode: the preaching of Saint John the Baptist in the desert. When the saint went out to preach, he chose the Palestinian desert, an uninhabited place to which crowds flocked, as the Gospel narrates: "crowds came to him from all the region of Judea, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and were baptised by him, confessing their sins" (Mk. 1:5). John turned the desert (which was not a dry plain but a wild and uninhabited area) into a hive of people, who came from all over to hear his message, confess their sins and change their lives. St. John chose this enclave precisely because it was the same place where General Joshua, centuries earlier, had entered with the people of Israel to seize the Promised Land and inaugurate a new age of splendour (Jos. 4:13,19). This scene depicts St. John the Baptist preaching in the Palestinian desert. Alongside him, the inhabitants of Judea are represented as coming before him to listen to him and be baptised. John the Baptist is depicted with his staff adorned with phylactelia. The disciples and listeners exchange impressions among themselves, showing a variety of attitudes to John's words. The way in which the figures have been portrayed, with their volumetric musculature and classically inspired clothing, brings us closer to the aesthetic precepts of the Italian school. The Gospels say of John the Baptist that he was the son of the priest Zechariah and Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary. He retired at a very young age to the Judean desert to lead an ascetic life and preach penance, and recognised in Jesus, who was baptised by him, the Messiah foretold by the prophets. A year after Christ's baptism, in the year 29, John was arrested and imprisoned by the tetrarch of Galilee Herod Antipas, whose marriage to Herodias, his niece and sister-in-law, he had dared to censure. Finally St. John was beheaded, and his head given to Salome as a reward for his beautiful dances. This saint appears in Christian art in two different guises: as a child, a playmate of Jesus, and as an adult, an ascetic preacher. The adult Saint John depicted here is dressed in Eastern art in a camel-skin sackcloth, which in the West was replaced by a sheepskin that leaves his arms, legs and part of his torso bare. The red cloak he wears at times, as well as in the scene of his intercession at the Last Judgement, alludes to his martyrdom. In Byzantine art he is depicted as a large-winged angel, with his severed head on a tray held in his hands. However, his attributes in Western art are very different. The most frequent is a lamb, which alludes to Jesus Christ, and he often carries a cross of reeds with a phylactery with the inscription "Ecce Agnus Dei". Spanish school; late 18th century.
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Italian school of the second half of the 17th century.
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