Baptism of Christ

The baptism of Christ is an oil and tempera painting on wood designed by Andrea del Verrocchio and his pupil

Leonardo da Vinci who, despite being the student, in many circumstances showed that he had surpassed the teacher.

The work was created in the Renaissance period, which represented a period of development, particularly of culture.

The painting is kept in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Analyzes the characteristics of the landscape, we note that it is an open space on a valley, crossed by a river and

rendered with atmospheric values that fade the shapes, but made pure with the contrast of the square rocks.

Leonardo created the figure that is qualitatively more important. In fact, the angel on the left is entirely by the hand of

the young master. Leonardo is also the landscape in the background. Both interventions attest to the greatness of the

young Leonardo who works in the Bottega del Verrocchio. Equally by da Vinci is the realization of the nuanced.

Leonardo was in fact the master who put an aerial point of view. This technique allows you to achieve spatial depth

with the use of color and nuance. In addition to the definition perspective, the nuanced uses many other types of

perspective.

The chromatic perspective involves using warm tones for the foreground and cold tones for the background. In fact,

Leonardo's paintings have blueish backgrounds. Another type of perspective is that of sharpness which consists in

drawing the figures with very blurred edges in depth. Saturation is less in depth and Leonardo paints his landscapes

with much less saturated colors in the background.

In the Baptism of Christ Leonardo is attributed an important structural modification. It seems that the master eliminates

a part of the table on the left margin. This modification is allowed to the composition of less less rigid. In fact, the

figure of Christ is not geometrically in the center. Always according to some criteria of the Baptism of Christ also

Sandro Botticelli worked. The master are the figures of Saint John the Baptist and the other angel. Sandro Botticelli was

present inside Andrea del Verrocchio's workshop in those years.

The composition is triangular with the top in the bowl placed in the hands of St. John the Baptist. The triangle rises

along the angel on the left and, to the right, along the figure of San Giovanni Battista.

In the painting there are some iconographic symbols. The two birds, one white, the other black, represent good and evil

opposites. Above, freed from the hands of Christ, there is a dove, a symbol of the holy spirit.
As for the characters present in the work, we count four: Christ, Saint John, two angels; we also note the presence of a

dove, a black bird of prey and two hands, which represent the hands of God.

 Christ is represented with joined hands and looking down. His face has a casual and satisfied expression.

Two angels are represented on the ground: one of the two observes Jesus concentrating his attention on it, the other is

turned towards heaven and both witness the baptism.

 The figure of Saint John, on the other hand, expresses dynamism for the position of the legs and arms: with one hand

he holds a cross and with the other he pours holy water on the head of Jesus. His face has decisive and determined

characters.

In Leonardo's work we can also admire two birds represented: a white dove and a black bird of prey which are in stark

contrast; on the one hand, the first, an undisputed symbol of good and peace, and the second, a symbol of evil and the

underworld. We can see some monochrome figures in the background of the painting.
+