Leonardo da Vinci:The Virgin on the Rocks

Leonardo da Vinci - The Virgin of the Rocks, 1508, 190 x 120 cm. Placing the Virgin Mary and the Christ child in a rocky cave was quite unconventional and controversial. The Virgin Mary, the Angel Uriel, Christ, and John the Baptist all form a triangle, each person somehow connected to the next. The Virgin Mary has her left hand extended carefully over the head of Christ, while Uriel is gently propping him up. At the same time, she is delicately pointing to John. The plants within the dark cavern symbolize the fertility and life that Mary represents, while the white flowers symbolize her purity. Leonardo's delicate use of colour and sfumato are beautiful examples of his advanced understanding of distance and depth. The artist’s Milanese clients must have worried about confusing the two infants, for a later hand has given John an identifying scroll and a cross clumsily rooted in one of Leonardo’s exquisite studies of plants.

Leonardo Da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks

In The Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo Da Vinci derivates from the meticulous observed naturalism to a more generic depiction of the rocky setting and plants while he plays more assiduous attention to the crepuscular fall of light and the sculptural relief of the figures,however the hand of the angel supporting the Christ Child's back is one of the several areas which Leonardo Da Vinci left less than completely resolved.

The Virgin of the Rocks about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8. Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks painting is part of the group: Panels from the S. Francesco Altarpiece, Milan An elaborate sculpted altar commissioned by the Milanese Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception for their oratory in San Francesco in 1480. A new contract was drawn up in 1483 with Leonardo and the de Predis brothers: a central panel was to be painted by Leonardo alone, and there were to be two side panels showing angels singing and playing musical instruments. Two paintings of angels (An Angel in Green with a Vielle and An Angel in Red with a Lute) by artists influenced by Leonardo, are undoubtedly those for the altarpiece. The Virgin of the Rocks seems not to refer to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, but depicts the type of subject that Leonardo might have painted in his native Florence where legends concerning the young Saint John the Baptist were popular. Execution of the commission was protracted. Leonardo may only have put the finishing touches to it in 1508. The finished work was then sent to France, (now Paris, Louvre). Leonardo Da Vinci painted a replacement for San Francesco that was probably completed with some help from his studio in 1508, and which is now in the National Gallery Collection.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Cartoon for the head of the infant Saint John the Baptist,

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Idealised Head of a Young Woman.

 The drawing of Idealised Head of a Young Woman reproduces the details of Leonardo da Vinci's the Virgin of the Rocks The details reproduced include the raking fall of light and the hairline of her hair,but the bulging eyes and the woman's fleshiness of face mark the work as Da Vinci's unknown follower Pala Sforzesca named after an altarpice.

Leonardo Da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks

Leonardo Da Vinci Portrait of a Young Man (‘The Musician’), about 1486-7 Oil on walnut

Leonardo Da Vinci