Saint John the Baptist 1907

Timothy Cole made this print, Saint John the Baptist, sometime around the turn of the century, and it’s now at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It’s monochromatic, of course, so the value does a lot of work, and it's all about the gradations of light and dark. I love to see how artists handle the challenge of making something feel full, of giving it depth, when they restrict themselves to just one color. Look how Cole makes the textures vary within the black and white; the wool of the lamb versus the soft flesh of the boy. There's this gorgeous kind of diagonal sweep of light that catches the boy’s face and chest. It then falls across the lamb’s back, making them both glow. That little lamb is like a fluffy cloud of goodness. The whole thing reminds me of an El Greco, or maybe even a Guido Reni, but so much smaller. It’s a reminder that artists have been in conversation with each other for centuries, riffing on the same themes, and finding new ways to make them sing.