Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness

“Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness” (c. 1622) Velázquez

“Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness” (c. 1622) by Diego Velázquez. Velázquez is the most famous painter of the Spanish Golden Age and strongly influenced impressionism and realism in the 19th century.
Growing up in Seville, Velazquez had not seen Caravaggio’s paintings first hand at the time he painted this piece. It is thought he may have seen copies though, as it's hard to deny the tenebrism at work in this painting.
In this painting, we see St. John the Baptist with the requisite symbols: wilderness setting, the staff with the cross, the camel hair clothing and the lamb. Unique in this depiction is the inclusion of the purple drapery. Purple is associated with preparation in the Catholic and could be another indication of St. John’s role of preparing us for the coming of Jesus.
Fun Fact: Velázquez was an extremely unique painter in that he never specialized in any particular type of painting and his repertory includes all the major thematic fields of Baroque art including portraiture, female nudes, mythological and sacred history paintings and the great allegories. Additionally, Velázquez upheld human dignity like no one before him - he frequently painted portraits of dwarves and court fools and imbued them with an undeniable dignity and did so with no hint of mockery. We recently saw one such painting at the Cleveland Museum of Art, more to come on that soon!