St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness

Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness by Moretto, at LACMA, presents the precursor of Christ in the austere desert setting that was his attribute. Moretto's Brescian naturalism brings a grounded, physically convincing quality to the saint that distinguishes his treatment from more idealized versions. Moretto da Brescia, the leading painter in Brescia in the first half of the sixteenth century, developed an independent artistic identity that drew on the Venetian tradition (Titian, Savoldo, Lotto), the Lombard tradition of surface precision, and his own observation of the religious life of the Brescian churches and confraternities that were his primary patrons. His altarpieces and devotional panels combine the warm Venetian colorism he absorbed from Venice with a specifically Brescian quality of religious seriousness — the Counter-Reformation devotional culture of a city that took its Catholicism with unusual intensity. His influence on the subsequent generation of Brescian painters, particularly Moroni, was foundational.

The Baptist's gaunt figure and rough camel-skin garment are rendered with the direct observation that characterized the Brescian school. The landscape setting is painted with atmospheric sensitivity, the vegetation and rock forms studied from the countryside around Brescia.