In this article, we shall look at mainly two images of St John the Evangelist painted by Piero della Francesca: one is a figure in the Montefeltro Altarpiece c1472-741, kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, and the other is a (now) stand-alone figure in the Frick Collection in New York - originally part of the Sant'Agostino Polyptych, c1465-69. This second image has several of its companion pieces dispersed in different galleries around the world but, today, like those companions, is visible only in isolation; this in itself has both disadvantages and also important advantages. In the first place, because the original altarpiece has been broken up, and its various parts, as said, dispersed, we cannot any longer 'read' the entire composition as Piero would have intended it to be read, and as his patrons would have expected it to be read. However, on the other hand, in its present state, the Frick's St John as a stand-alone image has a chance to 'function', so to speak, in its own right, and we might say, more powerfully as an independent statement.
By contrast, the Brera Altarpiece is basically intact, although not quite, as slim sections have been removed - cut off - from three sides. For our purposes this fact is not too important as we are principally interested in the rendering of St John the Evangelist, independently of the rest of the image. Piero however, did paint at least one other St John the Evangelist, according to some historians, and that is the figure immediately to the viewer's right of the standing Madonna in the Misericordia Polyptych (c1445-62), in the Museo Civico at Sansepolcro (Piero's birthplace). This particular St John is in very poor condition, with its colour much faded and damaged by excessive cracking.
The Montefeltro Altarpiece by Piero della Francesca
Pinacoteca di Brera: oil on panel, 251 x 172 cm
Two paintings of St John the Evangelist by Piero della Francesca:
on the left, as a detail from the Montefeltro (Brera) Altarpiece;
on the right, in the Frick Collection (oil and tempera on panel, 131.5 x 58 cm)
note: the colours in the reproductions above should not be taken as any more than approximations to the actual colours; however, these images do give an indication of the difference between the reds in the two paintings.
Saint John Brera and St John Frick
Wrapped as they are in their heavy red cloaks which complement the green of their tunics underneath, these beautiful-faced elderly men are equally wrapped in their thoughts, so carefully and subtly suggested by Piero. In the case of the Frick's St John, his face, his expression, is caught between reading and contemplation; his activity is internal and there is no movement, not even of the wind, to disturb either those thoughts or the monumental sculptural cloak which covers and reveals his massive character. The Montefeltro Evangelist, not quite so protected by his lighter-toned cloak, and holding his book in exactly the same way as the Misericordia John, is more long-faced and finely-featured and perhaps, not so intense as his Frick cousin. Yet he is still intense, staring it seems at the Child, soon to become the man, the Saviour; still a child that John's book shows he has already written the life of: a time-denying faculty of pictures! Like his cousin in New York, he is restrained, poised, profound.
The Misericordia Polyptych by Piero della Francesca, kept in the Museo Civico at Sansepolcro; note St John the Evangelist immediately to our right of the Madonna. Photo: the author
Before listing some of the differences and the similarities to be found in the two main works under discussion, we should mention that we know which figure is St John the Evangelist because of his iconographical attributes, viz. an elderly man with a large volume containing the Gospel he wrote. As there are several Saints John to be encountered in the Christian pantheon (an oxymoron we admit!), the Church and to some extent tradition, have decided on the attributes each saint must have; St John the Evangelist - as opposed to St John the Baptist for example - carries a large book 2. Other saints are also sometimes shown with large books (see San Bernardino to the right of St John in the image above) and so initially, alternative names were suggested as the subject of the pictures in question; at present, it is generally agreed that these are images representing the Evangelist John.
So, to begin with those books, the Brera one is blue and closed; the Frick's is green and open.
Both saints, seen from the right, are elderly, with a mid-length white beard and longish white hair; in the Brera panel St John is bald on top while in the Frick's he has a good head of short-cropped white hair!
In spite of the somewhat gaunt face of the Brera John, and his white hair and baldness, he does actually seem to be only in early middle-age; whereas the Frick's St John, the more robust and sun-tanned of the two, is also the older!
They both have quite severe expressions, with mouths closed.
Both are bare-footed: in the Brera image however, the saint appears to be about to take a step forward, whereas the Frick saint is quite static.
The directions of the gazes of the two saints are also different, the Brera John seeming to look in the direction of the Child (that is, drawing us into the centre of the image), while the attention of the Frick's St John is directed, apparently, at his book (that is, encouraging us to stay within his particular niche or space).
Both men have robust, workman-like hands; these two men would seem not to be too genteel as saints go!
In the Brera picture, St John has no halo; in the Frick he has a gold one, a disk drawn in perspective.
In both paintings, the saints are wearing a heavy, red cloak of some kind, possibly a reference to St John's actual historical period, that is, the first century AD. The Brera cloak is of a paler tone, edging towards a pink; the Frick's is tending towards a bluer magenta-like red, much deeper and weightier.
Both wear a longish green garment under the cloak, the Brera's coming to just below the knee and the Frick's to just above the ankle.
The hems of both these green garments are decorated: the Brera one with a stitched gold thread, strangely modest given the quantity of precious decoration and jewels elsewhere (itself a somewhat curious feature in Piero's pictures); the Frick, by contrast, is much more elaborate, with gold thread, jewels and pearls!
Needless to say, the environments in which our saints are standing are quite dissimilar, that of the Brera being a highly-developed architectural setting - almost certainly a church transept (much critical discussion about this too). Saint John Frick however, is standing in front of what appears to be an ornamental, marble parapet; somewhere in any case, much simpler than where he stands in Milano!
As is clear from the re-appearance of St John the Evangelist (and of other Saints John) so often in religious imagery of this general period, this saint had a particular significance for the people who paid artists to make such images. Apart from personal, so-called 'name-saint' relationships, St John the Evangelist was it seems a patron saint of Sansepolcro (at the time, Borgo San Sepolcro). But the existence of a general type for a given saint, an iconographical template almost, does not, and did not, preclude the expression of the individual artist's personality. In fact, as far as the work of Piero della Francesca is concerned, I believe he himself developed a series of 'templates' - or partial visual formulas - for his commonly-used types; an example of such a template could be seen possibly in the head of our Frick St John and the face of Chosroes in the Arezzo Cycle, but from different angles. The same could be said of his Madonnas, with particular similarities visible in for example, the Arezzo Cycle Annunciation, the Brera Altarpiece and the Misericordia Polyptych (again, with differences in the angles). Two common features are the long, broad nose and the slightly protruding lower lip - also seen in many of his male faces, including St John Frick. In any case, clear and acknowledged examples where he used the same cartoon, may be seen in certain female figures in the retinue of the Queen of Sheba in the Arezzo Cycle, as well as in the two angels holding the open curtain in the Madonna del Parto.
A detail of the Madonna in the Brera Altarpiece: note the long oval face, the long broad nose, and the almost pouting mouth, a result of Piero's typical mouth structure, that is, a smallish upper lip with a strong light on the lower one, creating a pouting or protruding effect; characteristics visible to some degree also in the angels here, behind the Madonna.
But Piero's personality is revealed, in spite of templates or even, partly because of them, in the overall impact of any particular (main) figure: the Frick's St John, as we have noted elsewhere, is an immensely powerful presence, due in part to its solitary nature as a matter of fact, but also to the, what could be termed, moral weight of this figure, conveyed largely by the force of its plastic reality (or, the illusion of that). This incidentally, points up one of the most delightful aspects of looking at pictures: we are dealing with an illusion, but, in some cases, the illusion is so powerful - and here we don't mean convincing in the 'realist' sense - that an unresolvable dichotomy is created by what we know to be the real fact of what we are seeing (coloured stuff spread out in an orderly way on a flat surface) and the 'presence', and real psychological impact, of that very same illusion. For those of us who love pictures (and art in general) and are open to such things, this exchange one might say, a type of cyclical metamorphosis, between the accepted, recognized illusion and the 'real' world, is one of the confounding surprises always lying in wait: for a brief moment, the 'illusion' is reality! This to some extent is true also for literature, dance, the theatre and so on. The intense focusing of the mind, of one's concentration, induced by works of art, including abstract art, helps to make of a given image a more or less complete reality, certainly a 'reality' of the intellect and the spirit.
The supposed St John the Evangelist from the right side of the Misericordia Polyptych (see full image above). This figure is much deteriorated and is therefore hard to judge but the particular stiffness of the face does seem unlike Piero's usual feeling. Note that this St John is also bare-foot and has a halo, as well as the now-mandatory book.
The other image of St John the Evangelist (above) which we referred to earlier, that in the Misericordia Polyptych, appears to us quite a bit unlike Piero's 'normal' figures: less robust than others, less compelling in its 'presence'. In spite of the typical 'Piero' modelling of his cloak (an oddity here however is the uncharacteristic spear head-like fold in the cloak at the bottom right), the figure, and especially the head, seem stiff and statue-like, that is, lifeless. This is made clearer when this St John is compared with two other figures in the same work, Saints Sebastian and John the Baptist, standing to the viewer's left of the open-armed Madonna: there is no 'inner life' in this John the Evangelist. We should note that the identification of this particular figure as John the Evangelist is not universal, some writers referring to him rather as St Andrew 3.
From my point of view, the Frick's St John is the most successful one of this group. The Brera's John plays a role in a much larger and more complex drama, part of which is performed by his reddish cloak: in this panel, St John the Baptist is standing on the extreme left, wearing blue, a primary colour; on the extreme right, we have our St John the Evangelist, in red, another primary colour; and in the centre, we have various shades of yellow, the other primary colour! Naturally, the actors chosen to play in a drama of the kind we see in the Brera Altarpiece are not selected at random, quite the opposite; here is not the place to go into an exegesis of that work, nor of the role of St John the Evangelist in it, except to say that, this St John is one of several saints called in, as though in a procession, to take part in a type of silent (contemplative) ceremony. As such, he also lacks the independent force of his Frick brother and functions, to a certain extent, as simply one member of a group. The role of the Frick Collection's St John is finely balanced and extremely subtle, and anything but straightforward.
This exquisite picture, also called St John the Evangelist, is interesting because, if indeed it is meant to represent our St John, it has none of his usual attributes, except perhaps for the quality (in this case) of being young. Here he appears to be the mournful figure at the base of the Cross, another traditional role for him, as well as being the author of a Gospel. It is kept at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC and is ascribed to the anonymous Master of the Franciscan Crucifixes. (Photo: the author)
1 A note about the dates: art-historical opinion is divided about the dating of almost all of Piero della Francesca's output, this being further confused by the fact that Piero travelled a lot, even while engaged on a given commission - such as the Arezzo fresco cycle - sometimes beginning new work in a different place, and then returning to work again on a previous commission in another place, for example, the Misericordia Polyptych in Sansepolcro.
2 Earlier images of St John the Evangelist, the writer of a Gospel, often showed him as a much younger man - perhaps on the island of Patmos, writing his Revelation - and accompanied by an eagle; or as one of the figures lamenting the crucifixion of Christ. But towards Piero's time, his representation had begun to change and John as a very long-lived saint became an acceptable image. Panofsky devotes quite a bit of space to this very subject, viz. the transformation, over usually quite a long time, of the attributes of all kinds of figures: Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, 1939; Icon edition, 1972; Chapter III, p69 ff.
3 Both Alessandro Angelini (1985) in 'Piero della Francesca' by Scala (The Great Masters of Art series), and Pamela Zanieri (2012) in the series 'I Grandi Maestri', name this figure as St Andrew whereas, in the catalogue of the exhibition 'Piero della Francesca in America', 2013, the same figure is referred to as St John the Evangelist by Nathaniel Silver.
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