Saint Jean-Baptiste Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Description of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of John the Baptist

"John the Baptist" is a painting belonging to the brush of Leonardo Da Vinci, an Italian Renaissance painter. This oil painting belongs to a later period in the artist’s oeuvre and is indicative not only of Da Vinci’s artistic decline, but of the end of the Renaissance itself. This is clearly evident in the character of John’s image and the fact that the usual landscape is absent from the background.

"John the Baptist" was painted at a time when Leonardo was spending time at Amboise in the manor of Cloux, surrounded by honor and attention. But Da Vinci himself had little satisfaction with his art. Moreover, he repeatedly finished and redrawn many of the paintings he brought with him. Apparently, this painting, too, is related to the artist’s creative decline.

It depicts a young man with one hand turned toward heaven and the other clasping a cross to his chest. The dark background contrasts wonderfully with the illuminated figure of the young man, which gives the picture even more mystery and enigma.

Many critics and artists who came to see Leonardo da Vinci admired his work, but the painting of John the Baptist caused them, at the very least, considerable surprise. Too different from the usual, canonical image. The young man depicted in the picture, with a defiant ambiguous smile, did not look like a stern ascetic with a long beard. It is worth noting that such a smile was inherent in all the faces in the paintings, which belong to the late work of the artist.

John the Baptist bears in itself a certain ironic motif which gives the viewer a kind of ambiguous impression, caused in the first place by the absence of a picturesque landscape and the image of a blooming young man.