''The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne'' is an
unfinished oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
by
High Renaissance
In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...
artist
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
, dated to . It depicts
Saint Anne, her daughter the
Virgin Mary
Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...
and the
infant Jesus
The Christ Child, also known as Divine Infant, Baby Jesus, Infant Jesus, the Divine Child, Child Jesus, the Holy Child, Santo Niño, and to some as Señor Noemi refers to Jesus Christ from his nativity to age 12.
The four canonical gospels, a ...
.
Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial
lamb
Lamb or The Lamb may refer to:
* A young sheep
* Lamb and mutton, the meat of sheep
Arts and media Film, television, and theatre
* ''The Lamb'' (1915 film), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in his screen debut
* ''The Lamb'' (1918 ...
symbolizing his
Passion as the Virgin tries to restrain him. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of
Santissima Annunziata in
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo.
History
It is likely that the painting was commissioned by King
Louis XII of France following the birth of his daughter
Claude in 1499, but it was never delivered to him.
Leonardo probed into incorporating these figures together by drawing the ''
Burlington House Cartoon'' (National Gallery).
In 2008, a curator at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
discovered several faint sketches believed to have been made by Leonardo on the back of the painting.
Infrared reflectography
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
was used to reveal a "7-by-4 inch drawing of a horse's head", which had a resemblance to sketches of horses that Leonardo had made previously before drawing ''
The Battle of Anghiari''. Also revealed was a second sketch 6 inch-by-4 inch depiction of half a skull. A third sketch showed the infant Jesus playing with a lamb, which sketch was similar to that which is painted on the front side.
The Louvre spokesperson said that the sketches were "very probably" made by Leonardo and that it was the first time that any drawing had been found on the "flip side of one of his works". The drawings will be further studied by a group of experts as the painting undergoes restoration.
Content and composition
Leonardo's painting is at once both pleasing, calm yet confusing upon closer examination. The composition of the three figures is fairly tight, with the Virgin Mary clearly interacting with the infant Jesus. Upon closer examination of their positioning it is apparent that Mary is sitting on Saint Anne's lap. It is unclear what meaning this could have and what meaning Leonardo intended to project with that pose. There is no clear parallel in other works of art and women sitting in each other's lap are not a clear cultural or traditional reference that the viewer can relate to. Additionally, although the exact sizes of neither the Mother Virgin nor Saint Anne are known, it can be extrapolated from the painting that Saint Anne is a significantly larger person than Mary. This subtle yet perceptible distortion in size was utilized by Leonardo to emphasize the mother–daughter relationship between the two women despite the apparent lack of visual cues to the greater age of Saint Anne that would otherwise identify her as the mother. The child is holding a lamb. We also see that Mary is gazing into her child's eyes, while Saint Anne is looking at Mary. As Mary is sitting on her lap and Saint Anne is looking at her, it is possible that Leonardo was trying to make a point about their relationship and personalities.
Freud's interpretation
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
undertook a
psychoanalytic examination of Leonardo in his 1910 essay ''
Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood
''Leonardo da Vinci and A Memory of His Childhood'' (german: Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci) is a 1910 essay by Sigmund Freud about Leonardo da Vinci. It consists of a psychoanalytic study of Leonardo's life based on his paintings. ...
''. According to Freud, the Virgin's garment reveals a
vulture
A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...
when viewed sideways. Freud claimed that this was a manifestation of a "passive homosexual" childhood fantasy that Leonardo wrote about in the
Codex Atlanticus
The Codex Atlanticus (Atlantic Codex) is a 12-volume, bound set of drawings and writings (in Italian) by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest single set. Its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo notebook pages, which was us ...
, in which he recounts being attacked as an infant in his crib by the tail of a vulture. Freud translated the passage thus:"It seems that I was always destined to be so deeply concerned with vultures – for I recall as one of my very earliest memories that while I was in my cradle a vulture came down to me, and opened my mouth with its tail, and struck me many times with its tail against my lips."
Unfortunately for Freud, the word 'vulture' was a mistranslation by the German translator of the Codex and the bird that Leonardo imagined was in fact a
kite
A kite is a tethered heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create lift and drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have a bridle and tail to guide the fac ...
, a bird of prey which is also occasionally a
scavenger. This disappointed Freud because, as he confessed to
Lou Andreas-Salomé
Lou Andreas-Salomé (born either Louise von Salomé or Luíza Gustavovna Salomé or Lioulia von Salomé, russian: link=no, Луиза Густавовна Саломе; 12 February 1861 – 5 February 1937) was a Russian-born psychoanalyst and a ...
, he regarded ''Leonardo'' as "the only beautiful thing I have ever written". Some Freudian scholars have, however, made attempts to repair the theory by incorporating the kite.
Another theory proposed by Freud attempts to explain Leonardo's fondness of depicting the Virgin Mary with Saint Anne. Leonardo was raised by his blood mother initially before being "adopted" by the wife of his father Ser Piero. The idea of depicting the Mother of God with her own mother was therefore particularly close to Leonardo's heart, because he, in a sense, had "two mothers" himself. It is worth noting that in both versions of the composition (the Louvre painting and the London cartoon) it is hard to discern whether Saint Anne is a full generation older than Mary.
2011 cleaning controversy
On 7 October 2011 ', a Paris art publication, reported that the restoration posed more danger to the painting than was previously expected.
In late December 2011 and early January 2012 reports emerged that Ségolène Bergeon Langle, the former director of conservation for the Louvre and France's national museums, and Jean-Pierre Cuzin, the former director of paintings at the Louvre, both of the advisory committee supervising the painting's restoration, had resigned
over a painting cleaning controversy, with critics claiming that the painting has been damaged by being cleaned so it became brighter than the artist ever intended.
Other experts spoke out in favour of the cleaning treatment.
See also
*
Virgin and Child with Saint Anne
The Virgin and Child with Saint AnneTinagli, Paola. 1997. ''Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender, Representation and Identity.'' Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 159. or Madonna and Child with Saint Anne is a subject in Christian a ...
– type of iconography
* ''
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist''
Notes
References
Sources
*
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External links
*
Freud, The Writer of ''Leonardo''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Virgin And Child With St. Anne (Leonardo Da Vinci)
Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci
Paintings of the Madonna and Child by Leonardo da Vinci
1503 paintings
Paintings in the Louvre by Italian artists
Sheep in art
Altarpieces
Paintings of Saint Anne
Unfinished paintings
Nude art