Madonna of the Rocks
(begun 1483)


The most extraordinary aspect of the painting is its dark and gloomy background, a wilderness of jagged rocks rising almost to the apex of the arch, through which, as through the mouths of caverns, we look into mysterious vistas flanked by still more rocky pinnacles, rising from dim watercourses until they lose themselves in the half-light of misty distances.

The landscape is idealised from Leonardo's studies of nature, portrayed with techniques of sfumato and aerial perspective. Leonardo painted shadows of unprecedented depth and poetic beauty, within which the light from above picks out sweet faces and delicate hands, warm flesh and exquisite curls, merely hinting at the shapes of geological formations and wild vegetation. This is the complete fulfillment of his new kind of light shining in the darkness. Even in these wild surroundings, the dynamic pyramid of High Renaissance composition emerges from the interactions of the figures.

There are a number of wonderful drawings for various portions of the picture, but none finer that the study for the head of the angel, done from a female model on prepared. The Angel is idealised from the studies of a female model. The light give a grace to faces,* as Leonardo put it, strikes theses deeply luminous eyes, truly the windows from which the soul of the model looks toward us.





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