1445
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape is a 1445 unspecified by Petrus Christus, a Northern Renaissance work, depicting Brug, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a lone man in a rough camel-hair cloak standing in a rocky valley. His right hand points to a lamb at his feet; his left holds a thin reed cross. This painting was probably made in Bruges around 1445, right after Jan van Eyck died. The way the light wraps around the saint’s face and drapery is so close to van Eyck’s style that people used to think he painted it. The artist, Petrus Christus, worked in van Eyck’s studio and kept his techniques alive. To see how van Eyck himself handled the same subject, look up *Jan van Eyck*.
The overall style of this painting suggests that it was painted by an artist closely associated with the Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. The facial structure of the saint as well as the artist’s treatment of his cloak are typical of van Eyck’s follower, Petrus Christus. Christus was active in the city of Bruges and was a probable pupil and successor to Jan van Eyck, with whom his paintings have often been confused. Here, Christus depicts John the Baptist as an isolated, monumental figure without his typical hairshirt or other references to his life. This approach is derived from Claus…
In the background is the Blacksmith's Gate, originally built in 1297, which still stands in the city Bruges, although it has been rebuilt multiple times over the centuries.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Petrus Christus (Dutch: ; c. 1410/1420 – c. 1475/1476) was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges from 1444, where, along with Hans Memling, he became the leading painter after the death of Jan van Eyck. He was…
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