The Baptism of Christ: Main Tier Central Panel

Christ stands in the centre of the river Jordan, naked but for a transparent loin cloth. He gazes directly at us, making a blessing gesture with the fingers of his right hand. His graceful contrapposto pose – he rests his weight on his right leg, so his left leg is relaxed and slightly bent at the knee – recalls classical sculptures. The ease and stillness of his pose reinforces his majesty and authority in the centre of a scene full of movement.Saint John the Baptist reaches up on to his tiptoes to baptise Christ, pouring the river water over his head from a wooden bowl. He has a pink robe over the camel-hair tunic that he wore, according to the Gospels, when he was preaching in the desert (Mark 1: 6).In the sky above, God the Father appears in the clouds, sending the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove towards Christ. Just like the fish that swim around Christ’s feet the dove’s body is elegantly curved. Even the two trees that crown the craggy peaks on either side of Christ seem to lean inwards. Two angels on the left river bank look on – one holds a blue cloth with a gilded edge, ready to dry Christ.It is rare to see images of the baptism of Christ at the centre of altarpieces and this is quite possibly the first example where it takes this position in Italian painting. The composition can be found in an earlier picture by Giovanni del Biondo, which is dated to 1365–70; the baptism of Christ is one of 11 narrative scenes that surround a full-length standing image of Saint John the Baptist crushing Herod (the King of the Jews who ordered his execution) under his feet. The painter might have got the idea for a large-scale image of the saint as a central panel from this picture.