Da Vinci's Madonna and Child Painting with St. Anne
|
Madonna and Child
Painting with St Anne
c. 1510, by Leonardo da Vinci
Oil on wood, 168 x 130 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
|
Click
here to see our fine art reproductions.
|
Italian Renaissance painter, Leonardo da Vinci, explored the theme of Madonna and Child painting several times
throughout his career. Like the earlier Burlington House Cartoon of ca. 1500, this Madonna and Child
painting of ca. 1510 now in the Louvre features the unusual device of Madonna seated in the lap of St. Anne. However, absent in this Madonna and Child painting is the infant St. John the Baptist. The Christ Child is found on the ground at the feet of the Madonna roughly embracing a lamb while the Madonna appears to be
trying to restrain him.
The strong pyramidal composition
of this Madonna and Child painting features St. Anne at the apex and is a more stable composition than da Vinci’s painting of
1500.Characteristic of Leonardo in this Madonna and Child
painting is his smoky sfumato technique, modeling of the figures
with light and dark, rather than outlining.This famous Madonna
and Child painting was influential in the careers of other masters of Italian Renaissance art that
followed.
Brenda Harness, Art Historian
|