Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness

Pointing to the heavens and with his mouth open, Saint John the Baptist is portrayed as a messenger. According to the Gospels in the Bible, John was said to have prepared the people of Judea – depicted in the background of this painting – for the coming of Jesus, with ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness’ (Isaiah 40:3; Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:3, Luke 3:4, John 1:23). An almost monochrome palette emphasises the remoteness of the foreground setting surrounding John, punctuated by flashes of blue and green in the sky and vegetation beyond.

The Italian artist Guido Reni (1575-1642) was renowned, even within his lifetime, for his ability to infuse his subjects with beauty and divinity. Despite the harshness of the wilderness and the sanctity of his role as messenger, John is depicted as a toned and graceful young man, his robe only loosely covering his modesty – a contrast to customary images of John as an older, emaciated hermit. Inspired by ancient Greek sculpture – such as the Belvedere Torso – the artist has imagined a body which chimed with contemporary ideals of male beauty. The rhythm of the Saint’s limbs – arms and legs extended and bent alternately – creates torsion in the torso muscles and a twisting motion known as contrapposto. Reni’s biographer, Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616-93), described the artist’s holy figures as ‘divinity humanised’ – summing up how Reni infused his saintly protagonists with both physical and spiritual beauty. Celebrated from the time of its conception, this painting was bought by the nobleman, Francesco Maria Balbi (1619-1704), in the Italian city of Genoa. It was prized as part of the Balbi collection until it was sold to the Scottish artist and art dealer Andrew Wilson (about 1755-1848), from whom the painting was purchased by the founders of Dulwich Picture Gallery.