WEBVTT

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Looking at a very large panel painting by Piero della Francesca

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of the Baptism of Christ

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it is a typical fabric that we see a lot

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but not a typical treatment.

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

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

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and a kind of abstraction of space and form.

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He really stands out as having a really unique style

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in the early Renaissance.

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

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a kind of quiteness.

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It has all of the characteristics of an ideal moment:

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this is a moment, literally, the moment

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when John allows the water

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to pour from that bowl onto Christ's head

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

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

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

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

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

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look at the focus in John's eyes.

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This tentativeness is expressed in his left hand.

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Yes, oh, absolutely, and you consider then

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the hands of the angels as well.

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There is a kind of stillness

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and sense of linearity to the figures.

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Christ occupies the exact centre of the composition,

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directly under the dove

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

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

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

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

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And then there is a series of perfect horizontals:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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and then by John's hand and arm,

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

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

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or the bottom of the arch of the circle.

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And this love of geometry,

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we know that perspective was something that Piero also

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was really interested in and wrote a treatise about;

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he is interested in the mathematical foundations of beauty and harmony

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

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I think there is an additional kind of peculiarity,

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which has to do with the placement:

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clearly this is not the Middle East.

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The hill town that we see

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

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

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

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

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

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

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It is a kind of intentionality here,

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