Saint John the Baptist

This striking half-naked figure is Saint John the Baptist. He comes from a large polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) which Crivelli painted in 1476 for the high altar of the church of San Domenico, in Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche. Crivelli’s attention to detail is such that we can see the sinews and veins of John’s hands and feet, and the individual hairs on his head and on the inside of the skin laced around him.

John stands in wilderness of pink rocks scattered with bare trees. A clear stream flows along the front of the painting, and reeds sprout up along the water’s edge. The barren landscape and the saint’s camel-skin apron allude to the years John spent as a hermit in the desert, punishing his body with uncomfortable clothes and poor food to bring him closer to God.