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The art of Kernstok, a major personality of the Eights, a group of artists, became classicizing and more colourful under the influence of the post-Nagybánya school, although it used to emphasize mass, structure and monumentality.
The same applies to his male nudes which appear all through his oevre: "John, the Baptist", 1909, "House along the Water", 1910, which became more colourful, softer and more classicizing after his return from Berlin in 1926 ("John, the Baptist", 1932, "Adam and Eve", 1935).
The figure of the picture painted in 1932 is holding an apple in the right and shephard's crook in the left. The apple-tree spreading behind it reflects Eden. The picture has a bucolic character. The long-legged boy with a much too long trunk is similar to figures of Matisse's "Dancer" (1909-10). The loose carriage and the extended shape of the body recall Matisse's picture. Of his attributes, however, nothing refers to "John, the Baptist", so Kernstok may not have portrayed the Biblical person. It seems to be linked to the 1909 version in pose which shows a boy who is gracefully leaning on his cross. His body is in an S-shape, and is arranged in counterpoise. He has very long legs and arms. The figure in the 1932 picture is almost the same, there being one difference: the later version appears as if reflected in a mirror, the figure here is holding the shephard's crook in the right hand and is raising the left with the apple in it. Sketchy contours and plastic forms no longer dominate the picture: colours, the blue of the background, the brownish red of the hill, the green and yellow of the field are more significant. This kind of arrangement does not appear only in the two pictures briefly described, but in the picture with a male nude leaning to a tree ("Boy") and in the 1922 charcoal-drawing.
The picture expresses longing for a better and more beautiful world, a golden age, and the harmony of man and nature. The 1932 version of "John, the Baptist" realizes ideas of philosophy and art of 1910.
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