When the Saints Go Arting In: John the Evangelist

Today I learned about Saint John the Evangelist who, aside from probably being one of the OG twelve apostles, once drank a cup of poison without dying to prove how much God loved him. Bit braggy, but never mind.

Because of this story, John is often depicted in art holding a fancy chalice with a teeny weeny snake or dragon in it, to represent the poison. Thing is, the snakes are so inky binky that we, the viewers, are ourselves in danger of dying of cute poisoning.

I mean, look at this little champ painted by Alonso Cano. He’s doing his absolute best with his little wings and tiny little face. John is holding his cup not like someone who’s about to drink from it, but like someone who’s in the middle of doing a magic trick that I would definitely buy tickets for. If you’re in the front row you can get a proper look at John’s hovering perspex halo, too — that’s good value.

In this one, El Greco imagines John saying “behold, fellas, my cup-dragon”, and when we behold his cup-dragon we see that his cup-dragon is having a killer time blowing smoke out of his nostrils, splashing around in his fancy bath. We also find ourselves counting John’s fingers because, even though there are not too many, it looks like there might be too many.

Piero di Cosimo chose to portray, as many did, the androgynous version of John and, as many did, the snake having the time of its scaly little life in the chalice. So much is said of Renaissance artists’ ability to depict light, shade, drapery, architecture, metal and glass, but nowhere near enough people are talking about their ability to depict snakes having the most fun imaginable.

Here Cristobal Llorens shows us a fat little dragon with the curliest tail you ever saw, joined by a haloed eagle and two cherubs, one of which is mid-sneeze. John definitely knows he has no chance of being the focus of this painting, despite being almost offensively good-looking.

Van Eyck goes absolutely nuts with both John’s hair and the whole poisoned chalice idea here. When you’re a famous artist painting an altarpiece, nobody dares tell you you can’t give John the most luscious seashelly curls imaginable, or that you can’t chuck THREE whole snakes and a mini-werewolf in his cup. Kind of ran out of steam there when it came to painting eyeballs, but you can’t have everything.

In this one, St John competes with St Vincent to see who brought the coolest thing to show and tell. You can see it in Vincent’s face, he knows boat has no chance against cup-dragon.

Anyway, that’s St John the Evangelist and some of the happiest, drunkest snakes you’ll ever see in your entire life. I guess if you hang out in someone’s wineglass all day, you’ll eventually get — and I really apologise — legless.

Sorry.