Gender Gap: St. John as Male or Female?

Gender Gap St . John as Male or Female

The work of art I have chosen to critique is the representation of St John the Evangelist , from the Gospel Book of St . Wedricus , circa 1147 It was created by the use of tempura on vellum . It is located in the Socie ?te ? Arche ?ologique at Historique in Avesnes-sur-Helpe in France The discussion will center on the depictions , characteristics and portrayals of St . John in Gospel Book of Abbot Wedricus as compared to other works , such as Leonardo do Vinci 's Last Supper ' and Rafaello

br Sanzio 's Crucifixion . My sources will consist of the critiques of others regarding St . John 's depictions in the artworks mentioned above The opinions the investigation centers on are as follows : The controversy regarding the feminine ' depictions of St . John in art why St . John is always depicted as being close-at-hand during Jesus final hours , and the inspirations for the differences in St . John 's depiction throughout the years

Many critics over the years have commented on the femininity of da Vinci 's St . John in The Last Supper , and due to comments made in Dan Brown 's novel The da Vinci Code , more controversy has arisen as to whether or not St . John 's depiction is of the saint as apostle or actually Mary Magdalene . Mary Magdalene wasn 't listed among those at the table in any of the four Gospels ' according to Shelley Esaak , Mary Magdalene was instead washing the feet of the apostles according to the Bible (2006 ) In all of the works mentioned above the artists chose to deliver renditions of St . John that portrayed him as youthful , though the illumination in the Gospel Book of St . Wedricus does not feature the saint with long hair , his features still maintain the boyish quality of other works on the same subject . It must be remembered that St . John was the youngest of the apostles (Wikipedia , 2006 ) It should also be noted that men , especially young men , in both da Vinci 's and Raphael 's periods had long hair (Wikipedia , 2006 ) Even these artists ' self-portraits feature long hair

The artistic style of Raphael was influenced by Pietro Vannucci , a .k .a Perugino , and da Vinci . According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Raphael was particularly influenced by Leonardo 's Madonna and Child with St . Anne ' pictures , which are marked by an intimacy and simplicity of setting uncommon in 15th-century art ' and later Raphael went beyond Leonardo , however , in creating new figure types whose round gentle faces reveal licated and typically human sentiments but raised to a sublime perfection and serenity (2006 ,

. 4 ) At the ---St . John at the Last Supper--- site , the author points out that it was believed that St . John was so young that he had not grown a beard and that the hairstyle was popular among young men at the time of the painting (2006 ) da Vinci and Raphael were not the only artists to paint St . John in an effeminate manner , the...