Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist

Mariotto di Nardo's Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, painted around 1408 and now in the Getty Museum, pairs the two most important saints named John in the Christian calendar. Mariotto was a reliable Florentine painter whose workshop produced numerous altarpieces for churches and private devotion. This work belongs to the Early Renaissance, the transformative period in European art when painters first applied mathematical perspective, naturalistic figure modeling, and archaeological interest in antiquity to the inherited traditions of medieval devotional painting. The tension between Gothic grace and Renaissance structure gives art of this period a distinctive energy.

The two saints are rendered in complementary poses with attributes that identify them clearly, using Mariotto di Nardo's characteristic firm drawing and bright, saturated colors against an elaborate gold ground.