9781422271766

MASTERS OF ART

PLATE 3 (right detail) Verrocchio: The Baptism of Christ (1472–75) Tempera and oil on panel, 69 2 ⁄ 3 x 59 1 ⁄ 2 inches (177 x 151 cm) Leonardo’s contribution to this painting by Andrea del Verrocchio, in whose studio he had served his apprenticeship, consists of the figure of the kneeling angel on the left of the painting and possibly some repainting of the landscape background. With hindsight, it is possible to see some of Leonardo’s qualities in this figure, but it does not stand out as demonstrably superior to the rest of the painting. Leonardo’s contribution was probably made in about 1472, after he had been accepted by the Painters’ Guild but while he was still working in Verrocchio’s studio, in charge of painting commissions. Leonardo’s intervention in the painting, which, it is believed, included repainting or adding some details, was to substantiate in a more effective form the triangular grouping of the figures, the foot of the angel balancing the foot of the Baptist. It is also probable that he made a major effect of space in the background with his repainting of that area.

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