St. John, from Christ, the Apostles and St. Paul with the Creed

Art Historical Context

Hendrick Goltzius’s engraving *St. John*, created around 1589, belongs to a larger series titled *Christ, the Apostles and St. Paul with the Creed*. Each print pairs an apostle with a clause of Apostles’ Creed, reflecting the era’s strong interest in combining devotional imagery with doctrinal teaching. As leading Northern European printmaker of the late sixteenth century, Goltzius brought exceptional technical precision to the medium, using fine, swelling lines to model form and create luminous effects on the small copper plate. Engravings like this one played a vital role in spreading relig...

About the Artist

Hendrick Goltzius · 1558–1617

Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) was the most celebrated engraver of the Northern Renaissance and a pivotal figure in Dutch Mannerism. Born near the German-Dutch border, Goltzius transformed printmaking into a virtuoso art form through his revolutionary 'swelling line' technique, where the burin was manipulated to create lines of varying thickness that produced unprecedented tonal effects and three-d...