Art Historians Still Can’t Explain This 550-Year-Old Painting

Around 1470, Andrea del Verrocchio, one of Florence's most respected artists, began work on a painting that would become one of the most fascinating and controversial works in the history of art. The painting features two angels but one of them would become one of the most famous clues in Renaissance art and not simply because it's beautiful, because that angel would help generations of researchers identify the hand of Leonardo da Vinci within the painting. A young artist who eventually took over parts of the work and transformed them so dramatically that, according to a famous story, Verrocchio was so overwhelmed by his student's talent that he gave up painting altogether. The painting is the baptism of Christ and we now know that it bears the marks of more than two artists. In fact, the painting has become so closely associated with Leonardo that some even consider it his first surviving work because evidence suggests that Leonardo's contribution may have gone far beyond a single angel and may extend across much of the painting. Some researchers even believe that the final face and body of Christ may bear the hand of the young Leonardo. So when we stand before this painting today we're not simply looking at a work by Leonardo, we're witnessing the moment when a young Leonardo begins to step out of his master's shadow and perhaps the most fascinating question isn't who painted this painting but rather what happened when the student began to surpass the master. To understand the story behind this painting we need to go back to Florence in the 1470s. At the time Andrea del Verrocchio was one of the city's leading artists, a sculptor, a goldsmith and a painter, but more importantly he ran one of the influential art workshops in Florence, a place where young artists learned drawing, anatomy, perspective, light and shadow and how to carefully observe the human body. Many artists who would later become major names of the Renaissance were connected to his workshop. Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi and eventually a young man from the town of Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci. When Leonardo entered Verrocchio's workshop he was still just a young apprentice. He had extraordinary talent but he wasn't yet the Leonardo we know today. There was no Last Supper yet, no Mona Lisa. He was still learning and this is important because in Renaissance workshops a painting was not necessarily the work of a single artist. The master might design the composition, paint the main figures and then hand different parts of the work over to his assistants and apprentices. Sometimes he would return to the painting later and bring all those parts together and that is exactly what makes the baptism of Christ so fascinating because this painting allows us to see something that usually remains hidden, the making of a Renaissance masterpiece through the hands of several artists. At first glance the scene seems simple. Christ stands barefoot in the shallow waters of the Jordan, his hands folded in prayer and his head slightly bowed. In front of him stands John the pouring water over Christ's head. Above them a dove descends from the sky, the Holy Spirit and above the dove two hands emerge from the heavens, the hands of God. Together these three elements create a strong vertical axis through the composition, the Father above, the Holy Spirit in the middle and Christ below. The meaning is clear, the baptism of Christ. But Verrocchio didn't stop with the main figures at the centre of the scene. On the left two angels kneel beside the river, one looks out beyond the frame, the other turns back toward the scene. At first they seem like nothing more than secondary figures but look a little closer and something strange begins to emerge or perhaps it's better to say something completely different because these two angels don't appear to have been painted by the same artist. The angel on the right is precise and carefully constructed, the hair is delicately drawn, the contours are clearly defined and the body has a solid almost sculptural quality. Some scholars have attributed this angel to Sandro Botticelli, the same artist who would later paint the birth of Venus. But then you look at the angel beside him and suddenly everything changes. The lines become softer, light seems to move gently across the skin while the hair is shaped not by sharp lines but by the way light catches it. Even the pose is different. The angel is seen from behind yet his body twists as he turns his head toward Christ and John the Baptist. It's almost as if he's just noticed what is happening at the centre of the scene and that simple movement makes the figure feel alive. And perhaps this difference is our first real clue. This angel isn't just a secondary figure, it's a trace of Leonardo's hand. For centuries, the angel was the strongest evidence of Leonardo's involvement in the painting. But scientific analysis has suggested something far more intriguing. Leonardo may have painted much more than just the angel. By examining the layers beneath the surface, researchers discovered that the painting wasn't completed all at once. Some areas were painted in tempera while others were executed in oil, suggesting that the work developed in several stages with different artists returning to it at different times. One of the most important clues can be found in the landscape. Look at the river, the distant mountains, the haze between them, the way light reflects across the water. Everything feels softer and less defined than the main figures. It's as if the landscape is no longer just a background but has become part of the air and light itself. And that was exactly the kind of thing Leonardo was fascinated by. The way light changes, distant objects fade into the atmosphere and light reflects across water. And that water leads us to our next clue. Now look at the water surrounding Christ's feet. It isn't painted as a flat uniform surface of blue or green. Instead, light and transparency interact with Christ's body beneath the water. His left foot in particular looks strangely unfinished. At first it might seem like a flaw, but it may have been completely intentional. By softening parts of the foot, Leonardo allowed the transparency of the water to reveal itself. Rather than defining everything with clear, hard lines, he lets the viewer's eye complete the illusion. But the water and the angel aren't the only parts of the painting where Leonardo may have left his mark. Some scholars believe Leonardo may have worked on Christ himself as well. Compared with John the Baptist, Christ's body feels softer, the face is more delicate, and the transitions between light and shadow are gentler. It's almost as if Verrocchio's solid, sculptural figure was softened and made more human by another hand, Leonardo's hand. But if Leonardo had intervened so deeply in the painting we see today, what did Verrocchio originally have in mind? The answer lies beneath the final surface of the painting. Technical examinations have shown that the composition was originally different from what we see today. Beneath the final layers of paint, traces of an earlier landscape can still be found, a more symmetrical landscape, with a rocky structure on the left that once echoed the rocks on the right. But that balance disappeared in the final version. The researcher G. Getta Dali Regoli believes this could be one of the important signs of Leonardo's intervention. He didn't simply add his famous angel to the painting, it seems he changed part of what was already there. And in doing so, the angel does more than simply fill an empty corner, it changes the balance of the composition and draws our eyes toward the centre of the scene. And perhaps this is where the most fascinating part of the story begins. Because in the baptism of Christ, we can no longer easily tell where one artist's hand ends and another's begins. We are not simply looking at a painting, we are looking at a moment when one generation of artists was slowly giving way to another. Softer, more atmospheric, more mysterious.