Happy birthday Leonardo da Vinci - The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne

Today is Leonardo’s birthday. 

Below is The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne from the Louvre.

This painting depicts St. Anne (grandmother to Christ), the Virgin Mary, and the infant Jesus. Christ grapples a sacrificial lamb. Christ holding the lamb, to be scarified ... and, thus, Mary holding Jesus, in turn.

This had to have been a very difficult composition. The Virgin Mary has to sit on her own mother’s lap! 

Either way, very beautiful. A serene landscape, balanced composition, and such charm in the love and passion evident in the delicacy and sweetness among the trio.

According to Waldemar Januszczak (in “Art review: Leonardo da Vinci, Louvre, Paris” The Times), this is his greatest painting;

... the awesome showing of Leonardo’s Virgin and Child with St Anne, a picture that usually hangs in the Louvre’s longest corridor, where the glare does it no favours. This, too, has been cleaned, and the results are staggering. What finesse they reveal. What beautiful physiognomy.

What gorgeous treatment of fabrics. What clever symbolism in the dark chasm above which the perfectly arranged group is balanced.

Leonardo’s greatest painting isn’t the unfortunately absent Mona Lisa, available only in a virtually real comic interlude at the end of this event. It isn’t even the gorgeous Madonna of the Rocks, which is here. No. His finest surviving achievement as an artist is this religious masterclass, filled with light, whose contribution to this strained exhibition is to show up everything else on display and to argue irrefutably for the primacy of painting.

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Being a tourist at the Louvre ! 😆

“Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence c. 1504” exhibition at the Royal Academy

I’ve recently visited this fabulous exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. I left the gallery elated.

The Royal Academy have pit together works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael and focused on the year 1504 – when all three of them briefly crossed paths in Florence and competed for patronage from wealthy patrons. The exhibition focuses on three of the greatest Renaissance works in Britain - The Taddei Tondo, The Bridgewater Madonna and The Burlington House cartoon.

I loved it and was beside myself with excitement in the world of these Renaissance greats. I especially love shows which focus on art history in some depth (such as the possible reason for the Burlington House cartoon).

Overall score: ★★★★★ 5/5

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Gallery 1 - “Michelangelo, Raphael and The Taddei Tondo”

The exhibition is split into three rooms and the first room focuses very much on the Royal Academy’s Michelangelo masterpiece The Taddei Tondo.

This tondo (meaning “round”) is the only significant marble work by Michelangelo in any permanent UK collection and it’s beautifully displayed.

The Virgin and Child with Infant St John the Baptist (The Taddei Tondo)

In this marble, the infant St John presents the baby Christ with a goldfinch (the symbol of his Passion). The baby turns away from the bird in fear. As I said, it’s the only marble sculpture by Michelangelo in Britain and despite being unfinished, it is widely regarded as one of his most important works. 

Michelangelo never completed the relief, which shows different degrees of finish – e.g., the goldfinch is hardly recognisable. 

The painting below gives the visitors something of a sense of Florence in that 1504 period. You get an impression for the relatively small size of the Florence while recognising its bustling metropolis-like environment to which Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael were drawn.

The first drawings we get to see are from Michelangelo. These are some of his earliest surviving drawings – from the early 1490s. They’ve been brought to this exhibition to tingle the spine but also to explore how Michelangelo developed as an artist.

Pen and brown ink on paper.

Then we’re bought forward to the period of around 1504 and we get to see some truly exquisite drawings by Michelangelo (such as the below male nude).

Pen and brown ink and chalk on paper.

Michelangelo then seems to converge artistically closer to the subject matter of The Taddei Tondo – which is the Virgin and Child with the infant St John the Baptist.

 

We can see the process involved in creating this tondo play out in front of our eyes and this is one of the reasons why this exhibition is so powerful. (For example, the studies of the infant (St John the Baptist) by Michelangelo were partly inspired by Leonardo’s practice of producing a variety of quick sketches for inspiration and to develop ideas. These are incredibly detailed (and rare!!) sketches which show Michelangelo’s creative process.)

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It’s also extremely fascinating when we see how Raphael was very much influenced by The Taddei Tondo – even in its unfinished state. We can see the influence in many of Raphael sketches from the time. There is something really magical in looking over their shoulders, as it were, and turning to see the Tondo in situ (and being able to see the influence).

Raphael’s exploration of the motif of the Virgin and the twisting Christ Child.

Eventually these pictures of the Virgin and child with the infant John the Baptist came to be shown in The Bridgewater Madonna and a similar theme in the Esterhazy Madonna (lent from Budapest).

 

The Esterhazy Madonna was unfinished.

The Bridgewater Madonna (wiki) with the twisted baby Christ.

Leonardo da Vinci - The Burlington House Cartoon

How does Leonardo da Vinci Paint such enigmatic smiles and faces?

Incredible skill with chiaroscuro shading and perspective. Those lips with its shading on the sides and below the lip - like a secret.

The Madonna seems to be glowing with pride, tenderness and love. Saint Anne looks at her daughter with so much warmth. The Madonna’s cheeks have a wonderful smoky effect - sfumato. 

Using shading to fine-tune the expressiveness of the face.

This is the only surviving large-scale drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. 

The Virgin Mary sitting on the lap of her mother, Saint Anne. Mary cradles the Christ Child in her arms, who reaches towards his cousin Saint John the Baptist with a gesture of blessing.

The drawing is known today as The Burlington House Cartoon, after the building in which it was displayed when it was in the collection of the Royal Academy. 

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Acquired by the National Gallery in 1962.

The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci

Magnificent and utterly spectacular.

This painting was originally meant to be a magnificent altarpiece in the chapel of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary in the church of San Francesco Grande. Despite being commissioned in 1483; it wasn’t completed until 1508, and over a dispute over payment (imagine not paying da Vinci!!) which caused Leonardo to sell the first version. Hence, there are 2 version in existence.

What is interesting is that Madonna and the family are seated in a mountainous cave — not the usual Renaissance background overlooking some charming & bucolic fields. Though there are a few blooming flowers adorning the family, the background scenes at the back seem to resemble La Gioconda’s.  

The Madonna is robbed in a luxurious sapphire blue (typical). She seems to be looking after the young ones. Her maternal arms spread. The golden flowing band around her waist deeply contrasts with the blue. She has wonderfully curly hair, and is halo-ed. Her face – looking down – captures a demure & devotional lady. She delicately puts one hand around St John the Baptist (older of the two boys). He, in turn, is kneeling and praying in homage to the Christ. St John is painted with such sweetness and affection. He has all the cuteness of babies in their infancy. Plump cheeks, thin locks of sweet golden hair, and that super-cute “baby fat” in the form of baby rolls. His little hands and tiny fingers barely able to come together.

The Christ is propped-up by an angel (with faint wings on her back). Baby Christ may be blessing St John — but he doesn’t seem nearly as cute as St John. Somehow, the Christ baby seems more serious. More grown-up?

The angel is so pleasing to the eye. Even more than The Madonna. The natural elegant tilt of her head, the way her hair flows stunningly over her shoulders, her “ennobled” demeanor, the proportions which complement the symmetry of the other characters. She seems so graceful.

Such a special painting. 

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