St John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci Postcard

St John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci, oil on wood panel c. 1513 - 1516, is a half-length portrait painting of the famous saint from the New Testament. Dressed in simple animal skin pelts and extending his arm to point his finger towards heaven, Saint John has long hair and distinctive, angelic facial features. The figure is an excellent example of Leonardo’s innovations in chiaroscuro, the modelling of forms emerging from darkness into light, as here under dramatic lighting. The pose and gesture of pointing towards heaven was quoted often by later generations of painters who benefited enormously from the inventive compositions of da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was the greatest master of the High Italian Renaissance and quintessential "Renaissance Man" whose work as painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, anatomist and much more is without comparison. Born near Florence, Italy, and apprenticed to the painter Verrocchio, Leonardo invented many new ideas and extended the principles of perspective drawing, aerial perspective, the human figure and anatomy and much else to heights never seen since, during the period of rediscovery of the arts and philosophy of classical antiquity. Widely regarded as possibly the greatest artist who ever lived, Leonardo left very few completed paintings, due to either his restless experiments with painting technique that sometimes failed, or his infamous habit of procrastination.