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.