The Virgin of The Rocks, Leonardo da Vinci

A current exhibition at The National Gallery in London

features two version of Leonardo’s painting

The Virgin of The Rocks. One lives in Paris at the Louvre

and the other at The National Gallery in London. I had been lecturing

in art history and didn’t learn there were two paintings

until last year when I visited London and the first thing I saw

walking into the National Gallery was The Virgin of The Rocks.

I was confused at first because I had last seen the painting in Paris

and this one, though similar in pictorial content was quite different

in tonality than I remembered. The Paris version has always been one of my

favorite paintings. Done in 1483 by Leonardo as an alter piece for a church

it is thought upon completion it was taken by one of the Sforza Dukes to be given as

a wedding present. Hence another was needed to fulfill the obligation of the commission.

In Paris there are always huge crowds around the Mona Lisa while other masterful

Leonardo paintings remain practically unseen. It is a shame. But one could stand

in the quite empty salon where this paintings hangs and study it at one’s leisure.

The babies alone, Jesus and John, are worth seeing for the brilliance of

the chiaroscuro rendering of their bodies. It was a young Leonardo at the height of

enthusiasm for the process of painting who created this work. The London version, done probably with the threat of a law suit, understandably lacks some of the

sparkle of the original.

A brief article in Art Forum magazine by Martin Kemp, January 2012, shows both pictures.

The Paris version can be seen in detail at Mark Harden’s Artchive, http://www.artchive.com, a fantastic resource for looking at art and art history.