A man and four-legged animals are depicted in geometric lines against an indistinct background of overlapping colors. The man holding a staff is protecting the four animals in the foreground from the animal in the middle section of the painting. That pose indicates that this painting is based on the Gospel According to John in the New Testament, which states the good shepherd would lay down his life to protect his sheep from the wolf. The background, filled with white light, increases the mystical effect. Preaching to the Animals in the Desert (Bern, private collection) is a sketch from earlier in the same year; Klee then developed it as a painting in oils.