The Baptism Of Christ And Adoration Of The Magi Summary
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The Baptism of Christ and Adoration of the Magi (1290-1300) is one of the best visually outstanding works in the gallery. This piece of art is used stained glass technique and it is a typical medieval art culture, particularly distinguished by its visual characteristics. Its perfectly balanced colors, carefully filed story, and vertical form create a special effect in the presence of history, transforming it into something exceptional and elegant. This essay will analyze the effect of visual features of The Baptism of Christ and Adoration of the Magi.
The story in this work is very typical of medieval art, so it tells about the key episodes from the life of Christ. It consists of two parts: the top shows the baptism of Christ, and the bottom describes his birth. Obviously, the viewer’s perception should move from the birth to baptism according to the logic of events in the Gospel. Moreover, there are two oval images over these scenes, where two apostles are depicted as witnesses of events. In other words, the apostles guarantee that the story took place and thus was real. This is a very simple and…show more content… Each figure is outlined with black, which distinguishes it from others. Clothing of the characters is vivid enough, especially when the sun rays illuminate their shape. In addition, special effect is invoked by floral ornament. The story is remembered much better with these visual images. They influence the viewer’s unconscious, create the effect of a pleasant aesthetic experience. Barnet and Wu (2006) explained that every cathedral had “the program of the choir windows [that] included scenes from the life of Christ as well as images of the Twelve Apostles and locally venerated scenes” (p. 89), so the final visual effect was enhanced by the vertical location of windows. The size of this work is nearly 100×50 cm, which makes it similar to many other stained glass masterpieces from medieval