Artefact - Strona Muzeum Narodowego w Lublinie

Search the collections

Filtruj

Sortuj

1/136

Show:

Nazwa obiektu / tytuł

Inventory number

Author / publishing house

Creation place

Creation date

Type

Technique

Material

Key words

Object added to favorites

Object deleted from favorites

Strona Muzeum Narodowego w Lublinie > Katalog zbiorów > Saint John the Baptist

return to results

You don’t have permission to perform this action.

Scena figuralna na tle pejzażu. Na pierwszym planie św. Jan Chrzciciel siedzi na kamieniu w pozycji spiralnie skręconej - nogi zwrócone 3/4 w lewo, korpus w prawo - głowa uniesiona ku górze, wokół niej jaśniejący nimb, ramiona skrzyżowane na piersiach. Tors nagi, na wysokości bioder przerzucona ciemnozielona draperia. Po lewej na ziemi leży krzyż związany z patyków, poniżej stoi odwrócony tyłem biały baranek, który z uniesioną głową patrzy na świętego. Za nim kępa ciemnych drzew, po prawej w głębi pejzaż z drzewami nad wodą i pochmurnym niebem. Koloryt ciemny z przewagą zieleni i brązów.

unknown (painter), Saint John the Baptist

Type:
Creator:
Creation place:
Technique:
Material:
Measures:	Height: 25,5 cm, Width: 33 cm
Key words:
Inventory number:	S/Mal/1186/ML
Location:	The National Museum in Lublin (Lublin Castle), ul. Zamkowa 9, Lublin

Popularizing note

The young man with his arms crossed over his chest and his gaze raised to the light streaming from the heavens in the painting by an unknown European painter of the late 17th and early 18th centuries is indeed St John the Baptist, as evidenced by the accompanying attributes – a lamb and cross.According to the New Testament, the Saint was born six months before Christ as the son of the Jewish priest Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. The miraculous birth of the firstborn was announced to Zacharias by Archangel Gabriel when he was lighting the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. The child at birth was given the name John, which meant ‘God is gracious’ in Hebrew.At a relatively young age, probably after the death of his elderly parents, John took up the path of a hermit and anachorete in the Judean Desert. As we can see in the painting, the future Saint was in seclusion, immersed in prayer and contemplation, mortified his body, dressed modestly and fed exclusively on locusts and forest honey. When he reached the age of thirty he was called a prophet, and his main task became calling people to conversion and preparing the faithful for the coming of the Messiah. He said at the time: ‘He that followeth me is mightier than I: I am not worthy to carry His sandals’. In preaching his prophecy, Saint John also stressed the need for inner transformation through prayer and penance. The sign of this inner transformation was the symbolic baptism granted by the prophet with the gesture of immersing the faithful in the Jordan River, which we see flowing in the background of the painting.Not long after meeting and baptising Jesus, John the Baptist was thrown into prison for openly criticising the immoral marriage of the tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas. As the result of a plot by Herod's wife, Herodias, the prophet was executed by beheading at the age of thirty-two.