The Voice in the Wilderness

A young man comes out of the dark, smiles and points upward with one finger. His other hand rests on his chest. The thin cross of reeds that identifies him is almost invisible.

It is probably Leonardo's last painting. He took it with him to France and kept it until his death in 1519. There is no landscape and no story left, only the gesture: “He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light” (John 1:8).