03 — ARTWORK
St John on Patmos
- MEDIUM
- Tempera on panel, 21 x 269 cm (entire predella)
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 1353 × 500 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
This is the first scene on the single panelTerm in painting for a support of wood, metal, or other rigid substance, as distinct from canvas. Until the adoption of canvas in the 15th century nearly all the movable paintings of Europe were executed on wood, and even up to the beginning of the 17th century it is probable that as much painting was done on the one support as on the other. Painters who worked on a small scale often used copper panels (Elsheimer is a leading example), and in the colonial art of South America copper and tin and even lead and zinc were used. On a larger scale, slate has occasionally been used as a support, notably by Rubens for his altarpiece for Sta Maria in Vallicella (the Chiesa Nuova) in Rome; the picture he originally painted was said to reflect the light unpleasantly and slate was used for the replacement to produce a more matt finish. For wood panels the Italian masters of the Renaissance preferred white poplar, while oak was the most common wood used in northern Europe. Many other types were used, however; analysis of the contents of art galleries has yielded a long list, including beech, cedar, chestnut, fir, larch, linden, mahogany, olive, and walnut. In the 20th century cedar, teak, and dark walnut are favourites, and modern painters have also used plywood, fibre-board, and other synthetic materials as supports. predellaAn Italian word for the small strip of paintings which forms the lower edge or socle of a large altarpiece (pala). Such a polyptych consists of a principal, central panel with subsidiary side and/or top panels, and a predella: the predella usually has narrative scenes from the lives of the Saints who are represented in the panels above. Because of the small size of predelle - they are not usually more than 25-30 cm high, though often relatively very wide - they were frequently used for pictorial experiments that the painter did not wish to risk making in the larger panels. The first datable example seems to be that in Simone Martini's S. Louis of Toulouse (1317, Naples). of the San Marco AltarpieceA picture or sculpture that stands on or is set up behind an altar. The term reredos is used for an ornamental screen or partition, not directly attached to the altar table but affixed to the wall behind it. A diptych is an altarpiece consisting of two panels, a triptych one of three panels, and a polyptych one of four or more panels. From the 14th to 16th century, the altarpiece was one of the most important commissions in European art; it was through the altarpiece that some of the most decisive developments in painting and sculpture came about..
St John was exiled to the Greek island of Patmos by the Roman Emperor Domitian (81-96). This is where he was believed to have written the Book of Revelations. Surrounded by the waves, the saint is sitting with his legs crossed on a bare rock and is writing down his visions.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-red18ebce1e0278,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {St John on Patmos by BOTTICELLI, Sandro},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-09},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/botticelli-sandro-r2daea6e03de79d/st-john-on-patmos-red18ebce1e0278},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-09. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
