Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist

Notes from the museum

In this intimate devotional panel, the young Correggio demonstrated his own evolving style while also assimilating lessons from other great painters of his era. The work’s pyramidal grouping of figures reflects the style of Raphael , while their soft outlines and the Virgin’s enigmatic smile recall the work of Leonardo da Vinci. The landscape in the background adds to the painting’s charm and demonstrates the artist’s knowledge of Northern European precedents. The gentle sensuousness of the figures and the tenderness they show one another, however, are unique to Correggio. The artist used color, light, and shadow to bathe the image in a gentle glow, with skin and fabrics taking on a velvety texture. Correggio lived and worked in the northern Italian city of Parma, executing a body of work that is remarkable for its inventiveness and sophistication given his remove from the artistic centers of Rome, Florence, and Venice. This small panel is in his earliest style, but its idyllic quality presages the radiant ceiling frescoes of Correggio’s maturity, especially those in Parma’s cathedral (1526–30).

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

Slow Look

1. The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
2. The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
3. The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
4. One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
5. The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Antonio da Correggio

Antonio Allegri da Correggio, usually known as just Correggio, was an Italian Renaissance painter who was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Renaissance, and was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the sixteenth century. In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Baroque art of the seventeenth century and the Rococo art of the eighteenth century. He is considered a master of chiaroscuro.

Painter profile →