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Trace John’s route from the gate at lower left up the mountain path, then compare the striped fields and the walled town with the jagged rocks he is heading into.
This tall panel begins the Art Institute of Chicago’s six scenes from a series of twelve on the life of John the Baptist, which may once have served as the doors of a shrine for a relic of the saint. John appears twice: walking out through a city gate, then climbing into steep, rocky mountains to live alone in the wild, leaving neatly farmed fields behind.
Tempera on panel · 68.5 × 36.2 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Renaissance · Late Gothic and Early Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Saint John the Baptist Entering the Wilderness
- Artist
- Giovanni di Paolo (Italian, 1398–1482)
- Date
- 1455–60
- Medium
- Tempera on panel
- Dimensions
- 68.5 × 36.2 cm (27 × 14 1/4 in.); Framed: 79.4 × 47.7 × 8 cm (31 1/4 × 18 3/4 × 3 1/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.