Oil on canvas, 361 x 520 cm
Saint John Museum, La Valletta
This is the most important painting that Caravaggio made in Malta. It is still in the Oratorio di San Giovanni (now St John Museum) in La Valletta. This is one of Caravaggio's most extraordinary creations, for many it is his greatest masterpiece. It is characterized by a magical balance of all the parts. It is no accident that the artist brings back into the painting a precise reference to the setting, placing behind the figures, as a backdrop, the severe, sixteenth century architecture of the prison building, at the window of which, in a stroke of genius, two figures silently witness the scene (the commentators are thus drawn into the painting, and no longer projected, as in the Martyrdom of St Matthew, toward the outside).
This is a final compendium of Caravaggio's art. Well-known figures return (the old woman, the youth, the nude ruffian, the bearded nobleman), as do Lombard elements. The technical means adhere to the deliberate, programmatic limitation to which Caravaggio adapts them; but amid these soft tones, these dark colours, is an impressive sense of drawing that the artist does not give up, and that is visible even through the synoptic glints of light of his late works. This eminently classical balance, which projects the event beyond contingency, unleashes a harsh drama that is even more effective to the extent that, having given up the "aesthetic of exclamation" forever, Caravaggio limits every external, excessive sign of emotional emphasis.
The painter signed in the Baptist's blood: "f (perhaps to understood as fecit rather than frater) michela...". This is the seal he placed on what may well be his greatest masterpiece.
Beheading of St John the Baptist
Considered by many to be the artist Caravaggio’s greatest work, ‘The Beheading of St John the Baptist’ is housed in St John’s Co-Cathedral of La Valletta in Malta. In this painting the artist captures both the brutality of the execution of St John the Baptist and the sanctity and holiness of the man who proclaimed, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29), only to become himself a lamb led to the slaughter.
Today we remember one of Christendom’s greatest saints and martyrs and celebrate his life and witness which speaks so eloquently of one who was called to pay the ultimate price for his faith.
From its very beginning the Church has had a special devotion to St John the Baptist. His courage and conviction rings out to every generation, proclaiming that if we want to follow Christ, we need to be prepared to come and die with him that we may be raised with him to new life. John the Baptist can be seen as on the cusp of the Old Testament and the New. The Lord himself bore witness to this when he said that ‘the prophets and the law prophesied until John’ (Matt. 11:13). Thus he represents times past and is the herald of the new era to come. As a representative of the past, he is born of aged parents; as a herald of the new era, he is declared to be a prophet and, while yet unborn, leaps in his mother’s womb at the arrival of blessed Mary. The angel who foretells his birth reveals that John is to be Christ’s precursor, preparing the people to receive him (Luke 1:16-17). These are divine happenings, going beyond the limits of our human frailty. While preaching about the Lord’s coming in the desert, John the Baptist was asked, ‘Who are you?’ He replied: ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness’ (John 1:23). We can compare John the Baptist’s description of himself as a ‘voice’ with St John’s description of Jesus Christ as ‘the Word’ (John 1:1).
John was a voice that lasted only for a time; Christ, the Word from the beginning, is eternal.
‘Lord Jesus, may I decrease and may you increase. May I by God’s grace give witness to the gospel with the same courage and conviction that St John the Baptist showed.’
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