The exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings and sketches at the National Gallery in London will probably not fail to be talked to pieces once it opens in November,but he is one of my favourite artists (I'm still at the knowing-what-I-like stage of art criticism, so it's an unsophisticated gut preference) so it will be inflicted on you now anyway.
In the slideshow of exponents which Guardian.co.uk posted, "La Belle Ferronière" (generally to be seen in the Louvre), the "Lady with an Ermine" and especially the "Last Supper" are or seem tiresomely famous. The draught of "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist" was one of the highlights of my visit to the Gallery in 2005. The others are less well known.
The Madonna Litta at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (right, from Wikimedia Commons) is the "find" I love most.
It epitomizes the qualities I like in da Vinci: it is an an absorbing and quiet tableau, the figures have a golden and nobly aged glow to their skin and hair, the women wear friendly and gentle expressions, the proportions and colours are fairly faithful to life, the Renaissance clothing is distinctive and unobtrusively intense in its hues, and everything is tinged with mystery, in this case through the fact that the windows are minimalist keyholes into the uncharted world beyond the shadowed room. In this particular painting, the sleepy, disgruntled expression of the child is also endearing.
Leonardo in London: Da Vinci comes to the National Gallery [Guardian], May 9, 2011
"Leonardo da Vinci show at National Gallery to limit visitor numbers" [Guardian], by Mark Brown (May 9, 2011)
Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan [National Gallery]
No comments:
Post a Comment