Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and St. John the Baptist

Guido Reni had his St. Sebastian painting over ten versions of that saint; Caravaggio seemed to be taken with St. John the Baptist. He painted eight, possibly nine versions of this saint without attendant figures. Prior to Caravaggio and the Counter Reformation St. John the Baptist had been represented as a mature adult either alone in the wilderness or baptizing the Christ. In addition, many painters portrayed the saint as an infant, usually in the presence of the Madonna and/or the infant Christ, his cousin, or so it was thought. Two artists, prior to the Counter Reformation and/or Caravaggio painted St. John the Baptist as a youth or young man--i.e., Leonardo da Vinci (1514) (See below) and Andrea del Sarto (1528) (See below). These two paintings were highly praised and were obviously influential as far as Caravaggio was concerned as all of his paintings representing St. John the Baptist as a single figure and showed the saint as a young man or youth.