John the Baptist is the last Old Testament prophet who introduced Jesus Christ as the Savior to the people of Israel. His other name – John the Forerunner – is meant to emphasize his specific role as forerunner or precursor of Jesus Christ. The narratives of his life and ministry are contained in a number of sources – in the four canonic gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, Flavius Josephus and early Christian apocripha.

The exceptional veneration of John the Baptist in the Christian countries affected the development of comprehensive and diverse iconography of the saint. The first Christian images of John the Baptist appeared in the early Christian art, in the compositions of the Baptism of Christ; the earliest of surviving images of John the Baptist is located in the Catacombs of San Callista (the first half of the 3rd century AD). John the Baptist was depicted as a middle-aged man with long wavy hair and a beard, in a haircloth, putting his right hand on Jesus Christ’s head and holding a scroll (or a staff crowned with a cross) with his left hand. This is how John the Baptist is represented on the so-called Arles sarcophagus (4th century AD, Musée de l'Arles Antique) and on the mosaics of the Arian Baptistry in Ravenna (the mid-5th century) and others.

The earliest of known images of the saint – the icon of John the Baptist from the St. Cateherine Monastery on Mount Sinai (B. and V. Khanenko Museum of Arts in Kiev) dated to the second half of the 6th century (?) (for dating see Этингоф, 2005. Кат. 1. С. 542). John the Baptist is portrayed full-length, dressed in a haircloth and a himation, in his left hand he holds a scroll with an inscription in Greek (“Behold, the Lamb of God…”); in the upper part of the icon, in the right and left medallions, are the faces of the Savior and the Theotokos.

In the 10th – 11th centuries, an image of John the Baptist was made part of a Deesis composition portraying him with a declined head in a devotional pose towards the Savior; he wears a chiton and a himation (or a chiton and a sheepskin). Before the 12th century, the icons of John the Baptist were placed to the left of Jesus Christ (i.e. the Deesis on the tryptich of Arbaville, 10th century, Louvre, Paris); from the 13th century, in the right part of the composition, to the right of the Savior (mosaics in the southern gallery of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople, 1261–1282 and others). In the cross-domed churches a depiction of John the Baptist played a key role: his image was placed in the central dome drum among the Old Testament prophets for John the Baptist symbolized the “end of prophets, the beginning of apostles” (Sticheron on the day of the Nativity of the Baptist). Besides, in the mid-Byzantine period a tradition developed to dedicate diaconica (less often altars) to John the Baptist.

The feast day of John the Baptist is celebrated several times and is associated with different episodes from his life and veneration. July 7th (June 24th , the old style) – the Nativity of John the Baptist; September 11 (August 29th, the old style) – the Beheading of John the Baptist; October 6 (September 23rd, the old style) – the Conception of John the Baptist; January 20th (January 7th, the old style) – the Synaxis of John the Baptist; March 9th (February 24th, the old style) and June 7th (May 25th, the old style) – the Finding of John the Baptist’s Head.

Zhanna G. Belik,

Ph.D. in Art history, senior research fellow at the Andrei Rublyov Museum, custodian of the tempera painting collection.

Olga E. Savchenko,

research fellow at the Andrei Rublyov Museum.

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