The collaboration between Don Alessio Fucile, an art expert, and the Shalom blog continues. Don Alessio will guide us in exploring the most important moments of the liturgical year through beautiful works of art that, in addition to inspiring wonder at their splendor, can help us better understand Sacred Scripture and Jesus’ message.
Today, Don Alessio presents Mattia Preti’s painting “The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist” in preparation for the Second Sunday of Advent, whose central figure is Jesus’ Forerunner.
Let me introduce “The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist,” a 1665 work by Mattia Preti held at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. This canvas depicts an episode from the Gospel of Mark, in which the Baptist announces the coming of the Messiah in the wilderness of Judea and invites his listeners to repent for the forgiveness of sins (Mk 1:4). The evangelist also describes the Baptist’s appearance: he “wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist” (Mk 1:6).
The Baptist
The work by the Calabrian painter Mattia Preti highlights the Baptist’s attitude: positioned above the other figures, he is so engaged and convinced of what he is saying that his body is tense and vibrating; even his red cloak, referring to the martyrdom he will suffer, conveys through its swift movement the energy with which the Son of Elizabeth proclaims the beginning of the Kingdom.
Mattia Preti translates the Gospel narrative into painting and depicts the imposing figure of Jesus’ forerunner, dressed in camel hair, while resting his forearm on a broken tree trunk and pointing to the sky, from which a beam of divine light descends. The broken tree alludes to the harsh words used by John the Baptist: “Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Mt 3:10).
The Scene
The intensity of the preaching is reflected in the attention and reactions of the people at the Saint’s feet, who display a varied range of expressions: note the man on the left dressed in yellow and the woman on the right dressed in blue, who spread their arms to show their surprise, following a formula Mattia Preti experimented with several times, especially in banquet scenes; the balding man toward the center of the canvas rests his chin on his hand and furrows his brow, a sign of the concentration and attention he gives to the words of Saint John.
The lamb visible at the Saint’s feet is one of his classic attributes, alluding to his recognition of the approaching Messiah, who comes to be baptized: “Behold the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:36). The phrase is also written in Latin on the scroll attached to the reed intertwined to form a cross that the Saint holds in his hand. It is an invitation not to waste any more time: Salvation is here, it is near, closer than one could imagine.
The lamb
In Preti’s work, John does not point to the lamb, as he usually does in iconography depicting him, but to the sky, placed along the same diagonal on the opposite side: the Baptist points to the ray of light that, tearing through the cloud, illuminates the entire scene, his own figure, and reaches the lamb below. As the Gospel text reminds us, “John was not the Light, but came to bear witness to the light” (Jn 1:8), to the One who is wholly Other and who, although apparently absent, is already among the people and will remain so forever.
John’s baptism, performed with water, does not claim to initiate something new, but expresses an attitude of adherence to the light and life that come from the Messiah. This invitation is addressed not only to his contemporaries, but to all people, as the painter conveys through the Baptist’s gaze directed toward the viewer of the painting. That gaze is precisely the focal point around which the entire work develops.
