The Baptism of Christ

This panel was made for a monastery in the small Tuscan town of Sansepolcro, where Piero della Francesca had been born, and the town in the middle distance may be that same place. Painted in tempera on poplar, it turns a river baptism into something as still and measured as geometry. A white dove hovers with its wings spread flat, and if you trace a line straight down from it you pass the bowl of water and Christ's joined hands, all held on one exact vertical. To the left a pale tree trunk rises and matches the colour of Christ's body. Behind, a man pulls his shirt over his head, waiting his turn in the shallow water.