Perugino (c.1446-1523)
Battesimo di Cristo (Baptism of Christ)
c.1498–1500
Oil on olive wood, 30 × 23 x 2.2 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Perugino used his successful inventions again and again. This baptism goes back to his fresco in the Sistine Chapel. More important than the composition, however, is the painterly design: Perugino was one of the first Central Italian painters to experiment with complicated oil glazes. Inspired by the Dutch and Venetians, he studied, among other things, the reflection of light in air and on water, and in this he became a model for the young Raphael. (KHM)