The Unfinished Masterpiece: Bassanos Enigmatic Baptism of Christ

Abstract

The piece of art depicts two men and what appear to be three angels and a dove above in an activity that suggests a religious event like a baptism. From the onset, one could tell that it is the baptism of Christ due to the narration from the Christian Holy Scriptures. The art shows figures of Christ, Saint John the Baptist, and three angels displayed in a nightly landscape. The artist portrayed John the Baptist leaning forward while simultaneously reclining angle baptizing Jesus. On the other hand, Jesus also depends on shedding his scarlet robe to prevent the robe from getting wet. Though baptism is painless and harmless, Jesus is depicted as having a tormented facial expression which could reflect his knowledge of what lay ahead of him Bayer, Andrea, Michael Gallagher, and Silvia Centeno. "Jacopo Bassano's Baptism of Christ." Artibus et Historiae 68 (2013): 83. Still, the presence of the three angels confirms the piece of art to be the baptism of Jesus as it is told in the Holy Scriptures. From the art, one angel holds the robes of Jesus Christ while gazing at him delightedly, while the second angel looks upward at the transcendent phantom of a dove in the sky. Notably, the sky is black the horizon is slightly lit by the sun's rays, meaning that it was probably in the evening during sunset. The painting is quite extraordinary and deeply expressive in that it shows the process of the baptism of Jesus taking place at night or late in the evening. This particular piece of art was done by Venetian painter Jacopo Bassano. Unfortunately, the artist could not finish it before his death in 1592. During the eras of Bassano, artists who died before finishing their works had the paintings submitted for brainstorming and possible possibilities of what the artist intended. Eventually, the painting was completed by another qualified artist. But in this case, when Bassano died, his heirs retained the picture and thought that maybe that was what Bassano intended the image to be like in the cases of Michelangelo and others who left their pieces incomplete and remained that way. Later on, Ridolfi describes the works of Bassano as incomplete by arguing that the baptism of Jesus was done in slabs of color. The main challenge was that in the 17th century, people were used to unfinished works and preferred the sketches of works done in comparison with the final complete version of the same Muraro, Michelangelo. "The Jacopo Bassano Exhibition." The Burlington Magazine 99, no. 654 (1957): 291-299. The unfinished art pieces were interpreted as the steps leading to modernism; therefore, Bassano's works debated whether to have it finished or just let it be 'non-finito.' Bassano, also known as Jacopo dal...