 Hey, welcome to Barnes Takeout, your daily serving of art. I'm Robin Karan, Collections Research Coordinator at the Barnes Foundation. Today, I'm going to talk to you about a painting by Veronese, and it's right here, it's the Baptism of Christ, and it's in a big room, it's on the north wall of room 14, but sometimes people don't, people miss it because it's right around the doorway leading to one of the other galleries. But today we're going to go a little bit more in depth and take a closer look, zoom in a bit from this painting. So like I said, it's by Veronese. He was known as Palo Veronese, but born Palo Cagliari. He was born in Verona in 1528. So he's known as Veronese because he comes from Verona, but he primarily worked in Venice. But before moving to Venice in the 1550s, he apprenticed in the workshop of Antonio Abadile, who became his future father-in-law, and Giovanni Carotta. So in the 1550s, he received his first state commission in Venice to paint the ceilings of the Hall of Ten, and it's adjoining rooms in the Doge's Palace. And he was able to get many other commissions because of his work with that one. And one of the other reasons, or ways that he was able to produce so many works at such high volume was because he employed a workshop. Many master artists within Venice at the time period employed workshops or botega, and they usually consisted of family members. So at Veronese's death, his workshop consisted of his brother and two sons, and they actually continued to work as Veronese as the heirs of Palo, Veronese, while after his death. And they continued to produce paintings and signed them the heirs of Palo, Pagliari. And so it's an interesting feeling of an interesting interpretation of authorship during this time period. So these master artists were the ones who were responsible for creating this style that they were known for. And then the assistants that they took into their workshops were employed to mimic this style so that a piece by the workshop was meant to be a piece by the master. So the master might produce the overall design, some figures, and come in afterwards to kind of judge it up or make sure that it was a good representation of the master. But the assistants could be producing most of the actual work. Or certain assistants could be, you know, creating some of the figures, others, the landscape. And these works were considered to be by Veronese, even though they were by multiple hands. And some have said that this could be a workshop piece, but we consider it to be by Veronese. So let's dive in a bit. This painting depicts the baptism of Christ, which is a very popular subject within Venice and with Veronese himself. Veronese produced and his workshop produced more images of the baptism of Christ than any other workshop in Venice. And he repeated it many times, but he did not repeat the composition very often. So there's only a few where he used the same composition. Many times, with most of his pieces, he is maybe using some of the same elements, but they are considered to be very individual compositions in and of themselves. And the baptism is very important within the Catholic faith, so it makes sense that it was such a popular subject. And it was represented from something as big as an altar piece for a large church and to as small as a smaller painting, kind of like this, the size of this painting that would have been in somebody's home for personal devotion. And the subject itself being only two figures and rather private made sense for personal devotion. The fact that it only needed two figures also made it very interesting to Veronese because it meant that he could create so many different compositions and he could use more of that artistic license to produce them and produce very individual works. And the ritual of the sacrament of water was also very important in Venice itself, which is a city that was surrounded by water and threat of flood and naval conquest. So let's talk about the painting. So this figure here is Christ and he's kneeling with his knee right here on the edge of the river Jordan and his other leg is in the water. It's a very small portion of the river Jordan as you see it's only a couple feet wide, but you can see a bit more in the distance. And he is baptized with the water from the river. And this figure here over to the right is Saint John and he is, as you see, kind of mimicking this bent over position of Christ. And his kneeling figure, his position is a bit awkward, but like I said, it mimics this so it makes sense within the composition. And Christ is seen here with his arms very closely holding his chest, holding also his robe or the drapery around him. And this way that he's depicting Christ is very common within his depictions of the baptism. And both of these figures, as you can see, don't look out at us as viewers. This kind of departs from previous pictures of Christ being baptized, in which Christ often did look out at the viewer. So we see this painting almost a bit more privately is a more personal act more private act that that we are witnessing as viewers. And it should feel very special. So again, we see this kind of metal bowl with a single stream of water coming down. So the act of the baptism has happened. And so as a result, this dove, this white dove that represents the Spirit of God is descending down from heaven. And this is said to have happened when Christ was baptized. The Spirit of God came down to reaffirm Christ's divinity. But it also has this secondary purpose. It's completely lit up by these different, these bursting rays of light. And so it's really providing the main source of lighting, these two figures. If you notice the tops of their torsos are much brighter than what is below them. So in this area down here in the corner is very dark and at their feet, not much light. So the important, these two figures, the importance of them is showcased by this bright light. And if we move up, we also see these interesting headless, or not headless, bodyless figures right here. And there are cherubs or puti. And these two up here, which do have bodies are kind of floating in the trees up here. And they're all looking down at Christ and John. So it's showing the viewer, you're not meant to look at us. You need to be looking down here because they're witnessing what is happening and you're meant to witness it as well. Another interesting thing about this composition is you'll notice it's very asymmetrical. These figures are kind of punched into the corner and they're at a diagonal. So it's allowing the artist to create these two different scenes. This darker, enclosed area where the baptism is happening. And then when we look out here in the left-hand corner into the background, you can see this distant landscape that's much brighter and less intimate. So it's also making this scene feel even more intimate and private because it's kind of sequestered from that area. So again, this painting is meant to be this really intimate scene. What's interesting about it is that it was actually in the collection of another artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was a British painter. And he purchased it sometime in the 18th century and we don't know exactly when. But at his death, this painting, along with his large collection of others, were sold and it went into a British family known as the Bearings and stayed in that family until 1919. So it's nice to know that this painting lived in a private place in a person's home in the same family for a long period of time. It's interesting back and forth because it did change hands within that family quite a few times. But it then was sold in 1919, left the family and it was eventually bought by an Italian. So it went back to Italy and then Barnes purchased it from that Italian in 1926. So it entered our collection pretty early on, around the time when the original building opened in Marion. And we think that Barnes could have been purchasing paintings by the Venetians. We have a lot in the collection by them like Tintoretto, Titian, and Veronese. Because of their interesting color and light, I mean, I mentioned that the light in this in this painting. And it was a big emphasis within Venice. The emphasis was more on color and light rather than design or drawing like it was in Florence. And we think that he saw that similarity and in his writings we hear this that he saw the similarity between the Venetian Renaissance artists and the Impressionists. And obviously we know how important the Impressionists were to him in particular Renoir. So it's an interesting way to kind of situate it within our collection, within some of the other paintings from a different time period. But that's it for today's Barnes Takeout. I hope that you enjoyed watching. If you're interested in hearing more of these, more daily servings of art, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. We love to hear from you. Thanks for watching.