St. John the Evangelist

An aged, monumental John stands lost in his book, wrapped in a great fall of red cloth massed like masonry, one bare foot at the edge of the step. It is one wing of his dismembered Sant'Agostino Altarpiece, the surviving panels of which are now scattered among Lisbon, London, Milan, New York, and Washington. Piero builds the saint from simple volumes and even light, lending him the weight of carved sculpture. The face, lined and inward, belongs to a particular old man rather than a type - observation, not formula.