Ben, I can hardly believe it but we've been teaching this collaborative MA between the
National Gallery and King's College London now for four years and focusing specifically
on Christianity and the arts, but in particular on the figure of John the Baptist. And I've
really enjoyed exploring the National Gallery's collection. And I think at my last count I'm
at over 120 figures of John the Baptist. So it just shows his popularity across centuries
and in different geographic locations.
And he's a hugely important figure in Christian tradition, too. Because he's the one who arrives
to proclaim the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He is the forerunner, as he describes
himself, preparing the way of the Lord. In that sense he's one of the very first saints
and one of the very first figures who appears in the New Testament. The Christian bible
is divided into the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, which it inherited from Judaism and
the New Testament, which begins to tell the story of Christ. And the life of Christ particularly
concentrated in the four Gospels within the New Testament. And John the Baptist is one
of the very first characters to appear in the gospel narratives, precisely because he's
the forerunner. And yet he also looks back to that tradition of prophets in the Old Testament.
In that way he sort of represents both continuity and change, doesn't he? And I think that's
captured very beautifully in Carlo Crivelli's 15th century altarpiece that we're looking
at.
If you have a look here, John the Baptist is represented on the left. And what I'm struck
by in particular is the way that he stands on one particular ground, which as you see
is at the banks of a river.And how that marks a disruption between the other saints of the
same altarpiece who stand on these very elaborate marble parapets. So he's both part of this
gathering of saints and set apart.
He always stands out it seems to me, as quite unlike any other saint, so distinctive. You
can see any number of bishop saints and you have to work quite hard to work out which
it is, or monk saints or the saints of virgin martyrs. The Baptist you could never mistake
for anyone other than himself.
And I think that's something that artists have picked up on. They wanted representations
of those saints to be immediately recognisable, not least perhaps from the back of a church,
from the congregation who couldn't get up close. Actually if we do get up close and
have a little look at this altarpiece I can show you a few of the details.
The Baptist, because of all the time he spent in the desert, is often represented as quite
thin and emaciated with long wavy hair. But possibly the most recognisable attribute is
he wears this extraordinary camel skin, which he is said to have clothed himself in. But
there's a few other attributes that we have in the Crivelli that literally point our way
forward to different aspects of his life. Mainly that pointing gesture which you'll
see repeated over and over in representations of John.
It's the perfect symbol for his whole preparatory ministry. He's a pointer and he's pointing
to Christ -- that's his job as a saint. Here it's wonderfully achieved by the fact that
he's pointing to words that refer to Christ on his scroll, the Latin words Ecce Agnus Dei
which means 'Behold the Lamb of God.' The 'Lamb of God' was John's description of
Christ, the one who would die to take away the sins of the world. And those are really
important words for Christians through the centuries too, because they're uttered in
the context of the Mass or the Eucharist. It's as if some of the Baptist most important
words are immortalised in the regular worship of Christians, at the point where the bread
and wine are consecrated and represent the presence of Christ among the congregation.
Of course, John often carries a reed cross in allusion to Christ's crucifixion. The fact
that it's made from reeds refers back to his time by the River Jordan. That's where John
the Baptist did his baptising. And this representation of the water in the foreground of this panel
represents that very river. Interestingly, Crivelli has included this little riverbank
on our side, on the viewer's side of the painting, so that he's situating us on the banks of
the river Jordan facing John.
Wonderful. It really brings us into the picture. Not only into the presence of John but into
the idea of baptism itself, as if we could step into the water and be baptised by him
ourselves.
Almost an invitation. And most often John is represented in the act of baptising Christ
and we're very lucky at the National Gallery because we have one of the most famous representations
of that baptism by Piero della Francesca. I'll show it to you.
The Piero della Francesca Baptism was painted about just over 20 years before the Crivelli.
It was also an altarpiece for a church in Piero's native city called Borgo Sansepolcro,
in Tuscany. It must have been for an altar dedicated to John the Baptist to have this
as such a prominent feature at the centre of the altarpiece. And you see even from here
look how it pulls you towards it.
Here in Piero's Baptism altarpiece, we see probably the most represented scene in the
life of John the Baptist, when we don't have him represented singly, as we did in the Carlo
Crivelli altarpiece. This would be the key moment; this is the culminating moment, if
you will, of John's life, isn't it? He's been baptising others until
this point, but at this point when Christ arrives to receive John's baptism, and that's
both the crowning point of John the Baptist's career; it's why we call him "John the Baptist."
Precisely.
And also, the beginning of Christ's public ministry. So it's a crucial turning point
for both of them.
And It's quite interesting, too, that this is the moment where actually, Christ is the
central figure. His ministry begins; he becomes more and more important, and John's, lesser
so, but always, as we will see, in every moment, John is always that step ahead. He's preparing
the way for Christ.
That's fascinating, because he is a preparer and precursor at every point. He's just one
step ahead, as you say, of Christ in terms of the first to have a miraculous birth, the
first to preach, the first to baptise.
Uniquely apart from Christ, we have his whole life told within the New Testament from beginning
to end. Not even the Virgin Mary has that privilege.
It's perhaps why he's been such an important focus for artists and patrons who represent
every scene, every episode from his life. And what we'll do in the next nine episodes
is actually examine National Gallery pictures, which represent key moments from his life
from the beginning to end and maybe explore why he was so important for so many different
people over the centuries.