The Calling of Saint John

Date

1839-1840

Creator

Flandrin’s first major commission was for a series of murals in the Chapel of Saint John at the Church of Saint-Séverin, in the Latin Quarter...The subjects for the murals, which had already been chosen by the parish clergy in cooperation with the prefecture, were the Calling of Saint John, the Martyrdom of Saint John, the Last Supper, and Saint John on Patmos. Flandrin probably created the four oil paintings in the Snite Museum collection to show the client how the final compositions would appear on the walls of the chapel. […] The final murals in the Chapel of Saint John are nearly identical to the Snite Museum’s four small oil paintings. If these were indeed the original images presented for approval by the parish and the officials of the prefecture, then Flandrin made very few changes in transferring his compositions to the walls of the chapel...Also important in Flandrin’s murals at Saint-Séverin is the influence of the Renaissance art that had surrounded him on a daily basis during his years in Rome. In The Calling of Saint John, the lessons of Italian fresco painting are clearly evident. Issues of scale and perspective are deftly handled by positioning the figures against a low horizon line and by creating a believable, but simplified landscape in the distance. This allows the viewer to understand the narrative without being distracted or confused by excessive detail that would be incomprehensible when looking at the image some fifteen feet overhead. from Weisberg, Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of the Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art (Notre Dame, 2012)