Saint John the Evangelist's Vision of Jerusalem

Title: Saint John the Evangelist's Vision of Jerusalem
Artist: Alonso Cano
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1636-37
Size: 83 x 44 cm
Location: Wallace Collection, London.

This painting, contracted on 23 November 1635, was executed for the convent church of Santa Paula in Seville. It is evident that the artist had mastered an Italianate manner of painting. The partly clad figure of the angel, the complicated, foreshortened pose, and the mastery of anatomical drawing are unique elements in Sevillian painting of the time, as are the deep perspective of the landscape and the delicate, translucent colors.

Depicted are events from The Revelation of St. John 21:2, where St. John is shown the holy city, new Jerusalem, "coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

Alonso Cano or Alonzo Cano (19 March 1601 – 3 September 1667) was a Spanish painter, architect and sculptor born in Granada. While living in Madrid he was suspected of having murdered his wife, was unjustly condemned, and ordered to leave the city. He took refuge in Valencia, and entered the Carthusian convent so as to be able to devote himself wholly to painting, which henceforth occupied him to the exclusion of sculpture.