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The picture shows one of the reliefs, Angel Appearing to St John the Baptist, on the hexagonal baptismal font in Santa Maria del Pieve in Arezzo.
The feeling of spiritual intensity is increased by the heavy crudity of the carving and by the rudimentary anatomical structure of the figures. The result is a naive lyricism that, to modern eyes, is moving in the extreme.
In the reliefs of the font, the weighty forms of Giovanni's father give way to a lyrical style which is reminiscent of painters in the following of Simone Martini. Despite in rather rudimentary technique, the scene of St John the Baptist Entering the Wilderness is one of the few carvings of its time which communicates something of the rapture of Simone's frescoes and predella panels.
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