Landscape with Saint John on Patmos
1640
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
100.3 × 136.4 cm (39 1/2 × 53 5/8 in.); Framed: 128.6 × 164.1 cm (50 5/8 × 64 5/8 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
5848
Art Historical Context
Nicolas Poussin’s *Landscape with Saint John on Patmos* (1640) captures the French-born artist’s lifelong fascination with classical order and biblical narrative. Working primarily in Rome during the Baroque era, Poussin developed an idealized approach to landscape that blended natural observation with carefully constructed geometry. Here, the evangelist appears on the Aegean island where tradition holds he wrote the Book of Revelation, yet the setting feels timeless rather than merely historical. The painting’s oil-on-canvas medium allowed Poussin to achieve luminous skies and finely graded ...
About the Artist
Nicolas Poussin · 1594–1665
Nicolas Poussin, born in June 1594 near Les Andelys in Normandy, emerged from a family of local distinction whose modest means and parental opposition could not deter his artistic calling. He received his initial training under the itinerant painter Quentin Varin in Rouen around 1611–12, absorbing lessons in storytelling, precise facial expressions, and rich colors, though without a formal long-te...