Baptism of Christ art: from Verrocchio to today

The water is barely past his knees. John's hand is on his head, or a bowl tips above it, a white bird hangs in a shaft of light, and someone on the far bank holds his clothes. If you have seen one painting of Jesus being baptized, you have seen them all, and that is not a fault.

Baptism of Christ art has kept to a scene the Gospels give in a few lines: Jesus goes down into the Jordan, John baptizes him, the heavens open, the Spirit comes down like a dove, and a voice speaks.

Painters have shown those lines the same way for roughly fifteen hundred years, from the mosaic domes of Ravenna to the Verrocchio panel a young Leonardo da Vinci worked on. Here is what the text says, what the great paintings do with it, and what to give when someone you love is baptized.

What do the Gospels actually say happened?

Matthew, Mark and Luke each tell it, and John's Gospel has the Baptist look back on it afterward. Matthew's account is the longest and the only one where John protests and Jesus answers him.

"Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:13-17, KJV)

Mark, as usual, wastes nothing. "And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Mark 1:9-11, KJV)

Notice the pronoun. In Matthew the voice says "This is my beloved Son", speaking to the crowd, or to you. In Mark and Luke it says "Thou art", speaking to Jesus.

Luke adds two details the others leave out: Jesus was praying when the heaven opened, and the Spirit came "in a bodily shape like a dove" (Luke 3:22, KJV). That one phrase is why every painting of the scene has an actual bird in it. Painters tend to follow Matthew for the figures and Luke for the dove. Luke also gives his age, about thirty, which places the baptism at the turn where the life of Christ, told in order, moves from the quiet years in Nazareth to the public ministry.

Why does all baptism of Christ art look the same?

Because the text fixes the cast and the staging. Two men, a river, a dove and the sky opening: change any of those and it is no longer the baptism of Christ, so whatever a painter invents has to happen inside a frame that barely moves.

The earliest surviving versions already show the pattern. In the baptisteries of Ravenna, decorated in the fifth and sixth centuries, the center of the dome holds Christ standing in the Jordan, John on the bank with a hand on his head, the dove above, and beside them the river itself, personified as an old man with a reed.

By the time Giotto painted the scene in the Arena Chapel in Padua in the early fourteenth century, attendants had gathered on the far bank holding Christ's garments.

From there to the Renaissance the composition hardens into its final form: Christ frontal at the center, John beside him pouring water from a bowl or shell, angels on the other bank, the dove overhead, and a landscape opening behind. That is the one most of us picture.

What changes across the centuries is everything the text leaves open. How much of Christ is in the water; whether he stands, kneels or bows; whether the Father is shown, hinted at with a pair of hands, or left out; whether the landscape is Palestine or the painter's own valley. That is where each painting lives.

Did Leonardo da Vinci paint the Baptism of Christ?

Part of it. The Baptism of Christ in the Uffizi in Florence is a work of Andrea del Verrocchio's workshop, painted in the early 1470s for the Vallombrosan monastery of San Salvi. The young Leonardo, then an assistant in that workshop, is credited with the angel at the far left and with parts of the landscape.

The attribution is old and well founded. Giorgio Vasari, writing in the sixteenth century, reported that Leonardo painted one of the angels, and added the story that Verrocchio, seeing how far it surpassed his own figures, gave up painting. That last detail is generally read as an embellishment. The core claim has held up under modern examination.

The left-hand angel, turned in profile toward Christ with a soft, absorbed face, is painted in oil with a smoothness the rest of the panel does not have, and the misty river valley behind the figures is generally given to the same hand. Verrocchio's own work is in tempera, the older medium.

So the two ways of working sit side by side: the firm, sculptural John the Baptist on one side, and on the other a passage of light and air that points toward the Leonardo of the next thirty years. Once you know to look, you cannot unsee it.

The composition is the standard one. Christ in a shallow Jordan with his hands together, John pouring from a bowl, the dove descending in rays of light, the hands of the Father at the top of the panel.

What the panel is famous for is not its design. It is the moment it records: a master and a pupil on the same board, and the pupil beginning to leave.

Why does Piero della Francesca's version feel so different?

Stillness. Piero's Baptism, in the National Gallery in London and dated by the gallery to about 1437 to 1445, is one of the calmest paintings of the Renaissance, and it gets that calm by arranging the scene like geometry.

Christ stands at the exact center of the arched panel, pale and upright, weight evenly on both feet. John steps in from the right with the bowl raised, caught in the instant before the water falls. The dove hovers directly above Christ's head, so flat and white that it reads as a small cloud among the real clouds.

A tree at the left rises straight as a column, three angels stand under it, and behind Christ a man pulling his shirt over his head gets ready for his own baptism, the one figure in motion. The Jordan narrows to a stream and reflects the hills.

In the distance is a walled town usually identified as Piero's own Sansepolcro, the painting's original home. Nothing in it hurries.

Where Verrocchio's panel shows the effort of two hands, Piero's shows one mind holding everything level. Many people find it the most devotional of all the baptism paintings for that reason: it does not dramatize the Spirit coming down, it lets the moment stand in clear morning light.

What is the water supposed to mean?

Taken plainly, the water is the Jordan and Jesus is standing in it. Christians have read more than that into the scene from the beginning, and painters have followed them.

Paul, in Romans 6, describes baptism as being buried with Christ and raised with him to walk in a new life. Many readers see that pattern in the paintings: the going down and the coming up, death and rising in one gesture.

Others see the water as the old creation, with the Spirit hovering over it as in the opening lines of Genesis, so that the baptism becomes a new beginning. Others notice the humility of it, the one who needs no cleansing standing in the same river as everyone else.

That is close to what Jesus says to John in Matthew: "thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." (Matthew 3:15, KJV) The Gospels do not spell any of this out.

These are readings. What the text does hand the painter is water, light from an opened sky, and a voice that names Jesus as Son. Every baptism painting worth looking at is an attempt to get those three onto one surface.

Is art a good baptism gift?

It can be one of the best, because it outlasts the day. A christening gown is worn once and a candle burns down. A picture in the child's room, or in a newly baptized adult's home, stays in view for years and keeps saying what the day said.

We should be honest about what we make. The baptism itself is in CHRIST, our art book of the life of Jesus: its second chapter follows John to the Jordan, and Jesus coming up out of the water as the Spirit descends like a dove (Matthew 3:16). It is a gift for the whole of the life that baptism begins, not only for the day. On canvas we do not have a Baptism of Christ piece.

On the wall, what we point people to for a baptism are water scenes: Jesus and the sea, in two pieces from Matthew 14, one of the approach and one of the hand reaching into the water for Peter.

Above the Waves shows Jesus walking toward the disciples' boat across a restless sea, from Matthew 14:22-33, a night we have written about in what Jesus walking on water means. For a baptism it carries the right pictures without pretending to be the Jordan: water, a figure who is master of it, light breaking over the dark.

Its companion, Reaching Through the Water, takes the two verses where Peter sinks and Jesus' hand closes on his. It is the one to choose if the person being baptized has come through something hard to get there. Both sit in our Bible story art collection with the other painted scenes, and either one suits a baptism, a dedication or a confirmation.

Each is printed to order on matte cotton-polyester canvas over a solid pine stretcher, made to order in the US, with hanging hardware included, in six sizes from 8x12 to 30x40 inches. For a child's room the 8x12 or the next size up is right; for a grown-up's home go larger, framed in natural or black pine if the room has wood in it. Prices start at $59; the product page has the rest.

If you want the connection to the day made plain, write the baptism passage on the card. Mark 1:11 fits on one line, and the person will know why you chose water.

The voice over the water

Every painting of the baptism is trying to show a sound. The dove and the opened sky can be painted; the voice cannot, and yet it is the whole point of the scene. "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Mark 1:11, KJV)

That sentence is what a baptism says over a person. It is what a painting in the room afterward keeps saying, long after the water has dried and the gown is folded away in a drawer. Whichever picture you choose, choose one that lets you hear it.

Frequently asked

Who painted the Baptism of Christ with Leonardo da Vinci?

Andrea del Verrocchio. The Baptism of Christ in the Uffizi, Florence, came out of his workshop in the early 1470s, and Leonardo, his young assistant, is credited with the angel on the far left and parts of the landscape. Vasari recorded the attribution in the sixteenth century.

Where is Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ?

In the National Gallery, London. It was painted for Piero's home town of Sansepolcro, is dated by the National Gallery to about 1437 to 1445, and shows Christ at the center of an arched panel with the dove directly above his head.

Why is there a dove in every baptism of Christ painting?

Because all three synoptic Gospels say the Spirit came down like a dove, and Luke adds "in a bodily shape like a dove" (Luke 3:22, KJV). Painters take that at its word and give you a white bird above Christ, often in a shaft of light.

What is a good baptism gift if you want art?

Something they will still want in twenty years. CHRIST, our art book of the life of Jesus, includes the baptism in the Jordan; for the wall we point people to Above the Waves or Reaching Through the Water, both scenes of Jesus and the sea from Matthew 14.

Passages cited: Matthew 3:13-17 (quoted in full; 3:15 quoted again); Mark 1:9-11 (quoted in full; 1:11 quoted again); Luke 3:21-22 (3:22 quoted in part); John 1:32-34 (mentioned); Romans 6:3-4 (paraphrased); Genesis 1:2 (alluded to); Matthew 14:22-33 and 14:30-31 (artwork subjects).