Evangelist, disciple and visionary · Saint John

Bellini, Luis de Morales and Velazquez represent John as a disciple at the foot of Christ, support of Mary and visionary writing the Apocalypse to Patmos.

This collection is dominated by Saint John the Evangelist, traditionally identified with the beloved disciple. In the scenes of Passion and Pietà, he appears young, hairless, close to Mary and the body of Christ. Giovanni Bellini builds around these figures a restrained pain where the hands and looks give all their strength to mourning. Luis de Morales extends this intimacy into a tight triptych. In Patmos, John becomes an author and visionary: Velázquez represents him with the book, the pen and sometimes the eagle, an attribute of the evangelist. The name of John can also meet the iconography of the Baptist, but the works chosen here clearly favor the witness of the Passion and the Apocalypse. The "Saint John" selection notably compares Lamentation with Mary and Saint John - Giovanni Bellini and Pietà with Saint John the Evangelist - Giovanni Bellini. His reading favors space.

John passes from the body of Christ to the book of Patmos: the disciple who looks becomes the evangelist who writes.