Chapter 1 of 6
Out of the Dark
You are looking at the last painting Leonardo ever made, finished in France in his final years. There is almost no scenery here, no desert, no river, no sky. Just a figure surfacing from total blackness, lit as if a single candle had found him.
Saint John the Baptist leans toward you, half-smiling, one finger lifted. Leonardo spent decades perfecting this dissolve of edges into shadow, and here he pushes it to the limit. Everything inessential is gone.
What remains is a body made of light and a question pressed gently to your face.
