94 x 131 cm Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome In around 1605 Caravaggio dealt with St. John the Baptist in two splendid compositions, one in the Kansas City Gallery, the other in the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica in Rome. The former is laid out vertically, the latter horizontally. Both lend themselves to a modernistic reading aimed at pointing out a certain air between contempt and arrogance. In effect what we are dealing with here are splendid exercises in modeling the body through the play of light and shadow. In the version now in Kansas City, the figure is set before a dense curtain of plants; in that in Rome, there is only the trunk of a cypress tree, on the left. Both are admirable feats of painting, and it is understandable that collectors competed with each other for the artist's works. Caravaggio in turn knew how to make apparently uninteresting religious themes into paintings desirable even for his aristocratic patrons.
Painting ID:: 62375
1550-55 Oil on wood, 120 x 92 cm Galleria Borghese, Rome Appearing to be full-size, this painting demonstrates the skill of the Mannerist painter in fitting a brilliant body-study into a small pictorial space. Artistically, all interest is on the nude, with the nakedness concealed more by the way the figure holds his body than the way he plays with the drapery and the hide mantle. The only symbol in the picture is the Jacob's staff, in the dark. This is cleverly foreshortened, and thus not the real message of the painting.Artist:BRONZINO, Agnolo Title: St John the Baptist Painted in 1501-1550 , Italian - - painting : religious
Painting ID:: 63530
St John the Baptist
Italian, active 1445-1484 Date 1450s
Medium tempera and Oil on wood
Dimensions Height: 80 cm (31.5 in). Width: 44 cm (17.3 in).
cjr
Painting ID:: 86511
