Save our souls: Trump and Zelensky at St Peter’s Basilica

They are sitting eye to eye, and almost knee to knee, in front of Carlo Maratta’s The Baptism of Christ, transcribed in mosaic in the baptistery of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The original painting, from the 1690s, is close by in a Vatican chapel.

Maratta shows Christ in nothing more than a loin cloth, his bare feet visible in the waters of the River Jordan. On the bank, John holds the shell of water over Christ’s head and above them both hovers the holy spirit, in the form of a white dove. The Holy Land is implied in trees, blazing blue skies and distant rocks.

Maratta worked for three different popes in his long career (he died at 88, like Pope Francis himself). The leading Baroque artist in Rome after Gian Lorenzo Bernini's death, his paintings are everywhere in the city. He may not have been Francis’s chosen artist – Caravaggio was the Pope’s favourite painter – but Maratta’s work is pure and spare compared to the excesses of late 17th century Italian art.

The Baptism is all grace and clarity. And what is shows is a scene of bowing down before a higher power, of literally lowering the head. One wonders who chose such a telling spot for this momentous encounter. Zelensky is Jewish, Trump reputedly Christian, yet this vision could hardly be lost on either of them. The Son of God is receiving the sacrament from an ordinary mortal: a moment of profound humility. Trump is facing the scene, but ignoring it. Baptism is the sacrament of forgiveness, purification and rebirth.

Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP