0:00:04.365,0:00:08.698
Looking at a very large panel painting by Piero della Francesca

0:00:08.698,0:00:10.982
of the Baptism of Christ

0:00:10.982,0:00:13.466
it is a typical fabric that we see a lot

0:00:13.466,0:00:15.000
but not a typical treatment.

0:00:15.000,0:00:19.575
Piero is one of those Renaissance artists that I think the modern era has loved

0:00:19.575,0:00:22.959
it's partly because of the...of geometry,

0:00:22.959,0:00:25.375
and a kind of abstraction of space and form.

0:00:25.375,0:00:28.809
He really stands out as having a really unique style

0:00:28.809,0:00:30.260
in the early Renaissance.

0:00:30.260,0:00:34.209
It's defined by a kind of stillness of the figures,

0:00:34.209,0:00:36.043
a kind of quiteness.

0:00:36.043,0:00:39.325
It has all of the characteristics of an ideal moment:

0:00:39.325,0:00:41.975
this is a moment, literally, the moment

0:00:41.975,0:00:43.908
when John allows the water

0:00:43.908,0:00:46.426
to pour from that bowl onto Christ's head

0:00:46.426,0:00:51.226
and would be that moment when the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, appears.

0:00:51.226,0:00:57.446
John is so ever so gently and tentatively pouring that water over Christ

0:00:57.446,0:01:02.761
because Chirst asked John to baptize him and John had first refused

0:01:02.761,0:01:07.192
and Christ insisted that John, no you should baptize me.

0:01:07.192,0:01:11.059
The angels on the left look equally concerned and there is a kind of tentativeness

0:01:11.059,0:01:13.476
look at the focus in John's eyes.

0:01:13.476,0:01:17.160
This tentativeness is expressed in his left hand.

0:01:17.160,0:01:19.094
Yes, oh, absolutely, and you consider then

0:01:19.094,0:01:21.110
the hands of the angels as well.

0:01:21.110,0:01:22.776
There is a kind of stillness

0:01:22.776,0:01:26.168
and sense of linearity to the figures.

0:01:26.168,0:01:30.087
Christ occupies the exact centre of the composition,

0:01:30.087,0:01:32.002
directly under the dove

0:01:32.002,0:01:35.569
he stands in a lovely "contrapposto", with his hands in prayer.

0:01:35.569,0:01:39.486
There is a really strict geometry of the verticality, that you've already mentioned,

0:01:39.486,0:01:45.734
but normally this would be symmetry of correspondence in the centre of the canvas by john

0:01:45.734,0:01:50.820
being quite... fo the angels very... the tree... and actually all the trees.

0:01:50.820,0:01:53.118
And then there is a series of perfect horizontals:

0:01:53.118,0:01:58.486
look at the way that John's belt continues the movement of the man who is taking off his shirt to the right,

0:01:58.486,0:02:02.752
moves across Christ's waist and picks off the belts of the middle angel.

0:02:02.752,0:02:05.652
So, you have a kind of perfect horizontal that moves across,

0:02:05.652,0:02:11.936
that's echoed by the horizontality of the dove, whose line is continued by the clouds;

0:02:11.936,0:02:16.386
and then, there is a series of circles; the painting itself has an arch

0:02:16.386,0:02:19.668
but that arch that ...is picked up and continued

0:02:19.668,0:02:25.119
by the arch of top of the cloth that covers Christ's waist

0:02:25.119,0:02:27.985
and then by John's hand and arm,

0:02:27.985,0:02:34.036
and even by this sort of line that's created as the man pulls his shirt over his head.

0:02:34.036,0:02:37.286
So, there you've got really this sort of continued negative arch

0:02:37.286,0:02:39.353
or the bottom of the arch of the circle.

0:02:39.353,0:02:42.568
And this love of geometry,

0:02:42.568,0:02:45.569
we know that perspective was something that Piero also

0:02:45.569,0:02:48.451
was really interested in and wrote a treatise about;

0:02:48.451,0:02:53.400
he is interested in the mathematical foundations of beauty and harmony

0:02:53.400,0:02:56.785
as nearly we really see very broadly in the Early Renaissance.

0:02:56.785,0:03:00.253
I think there is an additional kind of peculiarity,

0:03:00.253,0:03:01.655
which has to do with the placement:

0:03:01.655,0:03:04.236
clearly this is not the Middle East.

0:03:04.236,0:03:05.353
The hill town that we see

0:03:05.353,0:03:10.418
just below Christ's elbow is clearly of Tuscany and...

0:03:10.418,0:03:13.870
maybe ... where Piero was from, just Borgo Sansepolcro.

0:03:13.870,0:03:16.036
That's right, but we have a reference of the river Jordan,

0:03:16.036,0:03:21.719
coming back of Christ which is.. peculiar, almost just

0:03:21.719,0:03:25.418
minimized and attracted into a little stream, that almost ... to stop

0:03:25.418,0:03:29.418
as if was a little pathway actually. ... going back and reflect.. pathway

0:03:29.418,0:03:32.520
It is a kind of intentionality here,

0:03:32.520,0:03:37.217
and a kind of formality that I think it's very appealing in the XXI century.