Nicholas Mulroy

I love the drama of this, the way that we catch them at the point of highest drama and crisis. The head isn’t fully detached and the executioner is reaching for his knife to finish the job. It’s so vividly theatrical, and utterly alive to the moment, painted the year after L’Orfeo was composed, and two years after Macbeth and King Lear. The range of reactions and ages reflects a Shakespearean interest in all humanity: the old lady horrified (covering her ears not her eyes, making us hear this as well as see it), and the relatively casual young maid waiting to plate up the head. John the Baptist’s body is a miracle of colour-work, the blood already seeping from his complexion. He looks like a slaughtered animal – it was he who first  called Christ the “lamb of god”, so we’re inextricably linked to the sacrifice to come. This is also the only painting the artist ever signed, with typical drama, in the saint’s blood at the bottom.