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Saint John Baptizing in the River Jordan

Creator

French Artist · 1594–1665

Painter

> Something celestial shone in his eyes; his pointed nose and wide brow ennobled his modest face. So wrote a biographer about Nicolas Poussin, a philosopher who expressed himself in paint. Pointing to his forehead, Gian Lorenzo Bernini called Poussin "a painter who works up here." Born to Norman peasants, Poussin went to Paris in 1612, working with Mannerist artists and collaborating with Philippe

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Date: about 1630s
Medium: Oil on canvas
Culture: French
Department: Paintings
Institution: Getty Museum

"My temperament compels me to look for and take pleasure in well-ordered things. I avoid confusion, which is contrary and opposed to my nature, just as light is opposed to the darkness of night," wrote Nicolas Poussin. Saint John baptizes the multitudes in an ideal landscape, framed by a tree trunk on each side. Clothed in antique costumes, the orderly followers have arranged themselves into a carefully balanced frieze. As always, Poussin approached this religious work from the tradition of order, clarity, and harmony associated with the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Poussin painted this religious scene for one of his key patrons, Roman antiquarian and scientist Cassiano dal Pozzo. Also in the 1630s, Poussin painted a series of the Seven Sacraments for Cassiano, to which this canvas may be related.

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