XV St. John the Baptist
St. John the Baptist was the cousin of Jesus, and was the elder of the two by about six months. Before his birth the angel Gabriel appeared to his father, Zacharias, and predicted for the coming child a great mission as a prophet. His special work was to prepare the way for the advent of the Messiah.
Zacharias was a priest and a good man, and both he and his wife Elizabeth were deeply impressed with the angel’s message. Not long after, their cousin Mary came from Nazareth to bring them news of the wonderful babe Jesus promised her by the same angel. He was to be the Messiah whom John was to proclaim. The two women talked earnestly together of the future of their children, and no doubt planned to do all in their power to further the angel’s prediction. The time came when all these strange prophecies were fulfilled. As John grew to manhood he showed himself quite different from other men. He took up his abode in the wilderness, where he lived almost as a hermit. His raiment was of camel’s hair fastened about him with a leathern girdle; his food was locusts and wild honey. At length “the word of God came unto him,” and he began to go about the country preaching. His speech was as simple and rugged as his manner of life. He boldly denounced the Pharisees and Sadducees as “a generation of vipers,” and warned sinners “to flee from the wrath to come.” The burden of all his sermons was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The fame of his preaching reached Jerusalem, and the Jews sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who art thou? ' His reply was in the mystic language of the old Hebrew prophet Isaiah, “I am the Voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.”
It was a part of John’s work to baptize his converts in the river Jordan. He explained, however, that this baptism by water was only a symbol of the spiritual baptism which they were to receive at the hands of the coming: Messiah. “One mightier than I cometh,” he said, “the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” 30
At last Jesus himself sought to be baptized by John. The Baptist protested his unworthiness, but Jesus insisted, and the ceremony was performed. And “it came to pass that … the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved son; in thee I am well pleased.”31 This was the promised sign by which John knew Jesus as the Messiah, and he straightway proclaimed him to his disciples.
His life work was now consummated, but he was not permitted to see the fruits of his labors. For his open denunciation of King Herod he was cast into prison, and was soon after beheaded.
In our picture St. John stands in a mountain glen preaching. As his glance is directed out of the picture it is as if his audience were in front, and we among their number. His pointing finger seems to single out some one to whom he directs attention, and we know well who it is. This must be that day when seeing Jesus approach the prophet exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me; for he was before me.”32 The lamb which lies on the ground beside him is the outward symbol of his words. The slender reed cross he carries is an emblem of his mission as the prophet of the crucified one.
From head to feet the Baptist impresses us with his muscular power. There is no hint of fastings and vigils in this strong athletic figure. Here, as elsewhere. Titian will have nothing of that piety which is associated with a delicate and puny physique. He is the art apostle of that “muscular Christianity” of which Charles Kingsley used to preach. The Baptist’s skin is bronzed and weather-beaten from his active out-of-door life. Yet the face shows the stern and sombre character of the prophet. There are traces of suffering in the expression, as of one who mourns profoundly the evil in the world. Something of the fanatic gleams in the eyes, and the effect is heightened by the wild masses of unkempt hair which frame the countenance.
Nature too seems to be in a somewhat wild and sombre mood in this spot. A dark bank rises abruptly at the side, and St. John stands in its shadow, just under a tuft of coarse grass and bushes jutting from its upper edge. The sky is overcast with clouds. A narrow stream falls over a rocky bed, and in the distance slender trees lift their feathery branches in the air. In Titian’s time landscape painting had not developed into an independent art, but was an important part of figure compositions. Our painter always took great pains with his landscapes, making them harmonize, as does this, with the character of the figures.
The picture reminds us of the St. Christopher which we have examined, being, like it, a study direct from the life of some athletic model. Yet here we see to better advantage Titian’s work in modelling the nude figure. We can understand that one reason why he could make a draped figure so lifelike was because he studied the anatomy of the human body in undraped models. The figure here stands out almost as if it were done in sculpture.