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Head of St John the Baptist

Giovanni Bellini

Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters.

Max Resolution:796×800 PX

Title:Head of St John the Baptist

Artists:Giovanni Bellini

Date:1464 - 1468

Style:Early Renaissance

Genre:religious painting

Medium:wood,tempera

Copyright:Public domain

The head of St. John the Baptist is a tondo painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini. It is now housed in the Civic Museum of Pesaro.

The painting depicts the head of the St. John the Baptist just after his decapitation, with blood still dripping from the neck. The perspective from below show the influence of the treatises about perspective representation of the human figure which were being published at the time, such as Piero della Francesca's De prospectiva pingendi.

Stylistically, the brilliant colors and the dramatic painting are similar to those of St. Vincent Ferrer Polyptych, the first mature work by Bellini, dated to after 1464.