Picasso's Saltimbanques and Veneziano's St. John in the Desert have much in common given the spare settings of both, the classical sources both artists turn to for their idea of man, and the narrative about being an outsider that threads through both. Picasso's painting is very large. Veneziano's is very small. However, when we equalize them by reproducing them the same size, we can see how similar they are pictorially. Comparing the arrangement of each composition shows them using the space formally in similar ways, the colors are similar, even allowing for differences in size, the paint handling is similar. And they are very nearly the same format.
The spaces are different. We are much farther away from St. John than we are from the circus people. But if you focus your attention on forms, you'll note that various other things stand in compositionally for the places occupied by figures in Picasso. For instance, where the woman sits on the right hand side, we find a big rock in Veneziano. Where the tallest man is standing in Picasso, we have the largest of the mountains ascending in Veneziano. One for one are the boy in Picasso and the saint in Veneziano. Of course, one is a child and the other a man. But they are approximately the same height with respect to their settings.
Great minds run alike. Of course, Picasso stole from everybody. But he couldn't have known this painting. Hence, he even sometimes stole from works he didn't even know. And that just demonstrates his pictorial-scholarly acumen -- which was immense.
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