Beheading of St. John the Baptist

In a bare prison yard the executioner, having already felled John the Baptist, reaches for a knife at his belt to finish severing the head as a servant holds out the golden platter and two prisoners watch through a barred window. Caravaggio's largest canvas and the only one he ever signed - his name scrawled in the saint's spilled blood - it was painted in Malta for the knights of Saint John. The huge, near-empty space and the cold light make the murder feel ordinary and final, the most sober and terrible of his late works.