Piero della Francesca, Il Battesimo di Cristo, 1450 ca.

Piero della Francesca, Il Battesimo di Cristo, 1450 ca., tempera su tavola, 167 x 116 cm (National Gallery, Londra)

Speakers: Dott.ssa Beth Harris e Dott. Steven Zucker

Looking at a very large panel painting by Piero della Francesca

of the Baptism of Christ

it is a typical fabric that we see a lot

but not a typical treatment.

Piero is one of those Renaissance artists that I think the modern era has loved

it's partly because of the...of geometry,

and a kind of abstraction of space and form.

He really stands out as having a really unique style

in the early Renaissance.

It's defined by a kind of stillness of the figures,

a kind of quiteness.

It has all of the characteristics of an ideal moment:

this is a moment, literally, the moment

when John allows the water

to pour from that bowl onto Christ's head

and would be that moment when the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, appears.

John is so ever so gently and tentatively pouring that water over Christ

because Chirst asked John to baptize him and John had first refused

and Christ insisted that John, no you should baptize me.

The angels on the left look equally concerned and there is a kind of tentativeness

look at the focus in John's eyes.

This tentativeness is expressed in his left hand.

Yes, oh, absolutely, and you consider then

the hands of the angels as well.

There is a kind of stillness

and sense of linearity to the figures.

Christ occupies the exact centre of the composition,

directly under the dove

he stands in a lovely "contrapposto", with his hands in prayer.

There is a really strict geometry of the verticality, that you've already mentioned,

but normally this would be symmetry of correspondence in the centre of the canvas by john

being quite... fo the angels very... the tree... and actually all the trees.

And then there is a series of perfect horizontals:

look at the way that John's belt continues the movement of the man who is taking off his shirt to the right,

moves across Christ's waist and picks off the belts of the middle angel.

So, you have a kind of perfect horizontal that moves across,

that's echoed by the horizontality of the dove, whose line is continued by the clouds;

and then, there is a series of circles; the painting itself has an arch

but that arch that ...is picked up and continued

by the arch of top of the cloth that covers Christ's waist

and then by John's hand and arm,

and even by this sort of line that's created as the man pulls his shirt over his head.

So, there you've got really this sort of continued negative arch

or the bottom of the arch of the circle.

And this love of geometry,

we know that perspective was something that Piero also

was really interested in and wrote a treatise about;

he is interested in the mathematical foundations of beauty and harmony

as nearly we really see very broadly in the Early Renaissance.

I think there is an additional kind of peculiarity,

which has to do with the placement:

clearly this is not the Middle East.

The hill town that we see

just below Christ's elbow is clearly of Tuscany and...

maybe ... where Piero was from, just Borgo Sansepolcro.

That's right, but we have a reference of the river Jordan,

coming back of Christ which is.. peculiar, almost just

minimized and attracted into a little stream, that almost ... to stop

as if was a little pathway actually. ... going back and reflect.. pathway

It is a kind of intentionality here,

and a kind of formality that I think it's very appealing in the XXI century.