Landscape with Saint John the Baptist

Herri met de Bles painted this landscape with Saint John the Baptist around 1540, using the religious figure as a pretext for an expansive panoramic landscape — his true subject. Bles was a pioneer of the world landscape tradition, creating vast, imaginary panoramas that subordinated religious narrative to the spectacle of nature. His work bridges the fantastical landscapes of Joachim Patinir with the more naturalistic approach that would develop in the later sixteenth century.

Painted on wood, Bles constructs a sweeping landscape with receding blue-green mountains using the tonal perspective system developed by Patinir. The miniaturist detail in the foreground contrasts with the atmospheric distance, creating the vertiginous depth characteristic of the world landscape genre.