Image preserved at 90 %Move image Ideal dimensions for using a standard frame.
Added to your wishlist
Adding to your wishlist in progress
Art print added to your wishlist
Share this work
Share with your printing options
Link to be shared
Add to my wishlist
Additional products
Canvas Print
starting at 57 €
Fine Art Print
starting at 18 €
Mounting on aluminium
starting at 29 €
Framed Giclée Print 22.8 x 24.6 cm
88 €
More works by da Vinci
La Scapigliata
24 x 18 cm
starting at 18 €
Details of The Angel, The Virg...
22 x 22 cm
starting at 20 €
The Last Supper
30 x 50 cm
starting at 30 €
The Virgin and Child with Sain...
24 x 18 cm
starting at 18 €
Mona Lisa
24 x 18 cm
starting at 18 €
Vitruvian Man
24 x 18 cm
starting at 18 €
Salvator Mundi - Savior of the...
24 x 18 cm
starting at 18 €
Description
There are two versions of Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks (the Louvre version was painted first). These two paintings are a good starting point for defining the qualities of the new High Renaissance style. Leonardo painted both pictures in Milan, where he had left Florence.
Normally, when we see Mary and Christ (for example, in the paintings of Lippi and Giotto), Mary is enthroned as the Queen of Heaven. See more
Here, on the contrary, we see Mary sitting on the ground. This type of representation of Mary is called the Madonna of humility.
Mary has her right arm around the child St. John the Baptist, who makes a gesture of prayer to the child Jesus. The Christ child in turn blesses St John. Mary's left hand hovers protectively over her son's head while an angel looks on and points to St John. The characters are all set in a fabulous and mystical landscape with rivers that seem to lead into a representation of Paradise by Leonardo. In the foreground we see carefully observed and precisely rendered plants and flowers.
We immediately notice Mary's ideal beauty and graceful movements, characteristic of the High Renaissance.
This is the first time that an Italian Renaissance artist has completely abandoned halos. Fra Filippo Lippi has reduced the halo to a narrow ring around Mary's head. It is clear that the unreal and symbolic nature of the halo was at odds with Renaissance realism. In a way, it was a necessary vestige of the Middle Ages: how else to indicate the divinity of a figure?