The Baptism of Christ

Alessandro Magnasco

National Gallery of Art

A young man wearing only a loincloth kneels at a river’s edge, facing a man holding a bowl over his head with two winged angels nearby in this almost square painting. Three of the people are pale skinned, one is tan, and all have dark hair. Jesus kneels at the bottom center of the composition. Saint John the Baptist, the man to our right, has tanned skin and is wrapped in a tawny brown cloak. He holds a tall staff in one hand and extends the bowl over Jesus’s head with his other. A white dove hovers above in a butter-yellow starburst. The two angels to our left have dark gray wings that barely catch the light in the murky, active landscape. One wearing sand-brown robes kneels and looks toward Jesus. The other wears straw-yellow and looks away, a cloth held up in both hands. The river cuts back and forth across the composition from the background to our left, and it sweeps across the picture and churns off the right side of the painting. Trees tower up along the left edge next to the group, and a grass-covered outcropping thrusts high into the sky behind Jesus and Saint John the Baptist. Pale yellow and cream-white clouds puff across a vivid blue sky across the top of the picture. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the water and landscape.