St. John the Baptist seated, and a study for St. John the Baptist with two apostles 1661 - 1666

Editor: We’re looking at "St. John the Baptist seated, and a study for St. John the Baptist with two apostles" by Mattia Preti, dating from the 1660s. It’s a drawing, with both pen and charcoal work. What strikes me is its rawness, a kind of urgent energy in the lines. It's hard not to wonder at its intention. What jumps out at you? Curator: It has a feeling of peering into the artist’s mind, doesn't it? For me, beyond the sheer skill – and Preti was a master – it whispers of spiritual struggle, this wrestle with portraying a religious figure. Is he contemplative? Resolute? Uncertain, perhaps? Editor: I see that. The way St. John's eyes are cast... But how does Preti convey that feeling of searching you describe? Is it the…hatching technique? Curator: Partly the hatching, that frantic energy you picked up on – but also the variations in line weight, and, most subtly, the unfinished quality of the figures below. They become almost spectral, ghosts of ideas not fully formed, still evolving. Perhaps like St John's thoughts as he sought what? Inspiration from the divine? That empty, almost scratched background feels to be a stand-in for a spiritual search as well. You feel it, don’t you? Editor: Absolutely, and in a Baroque style? Which is so typically ornate and grandiose. This drawing is so intimate. The texture feels incredibly modern somehow. What do you make of it being both a figure study, and what appears to be a fully finished piece, right on the same paper? It’s unconventional, isn’t it? Curator: Precisely. The full figure jumps out more because of that very incomplete study down below; almost as though Preti intended to do a more realized study, but got "caught up" in the figure. Again, what can we learn from his intensity, though this quickly captured medium? Editor: That Preti captures so much…emotion in such a seemingly hurried medium and execution? It adds another layer to my appreciation. Curator: And for me, thinking about artistic process and the tension within creative and spiritual searching. Not too shabby for a quick sketch.