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Originally posted by Havalon
In 1501 he painted this picture of Madonna with the yarnwinder,
www.universalleonardo.org...
In 1510 he reworked the picture and came up with this version. Notice the valley is not too dissimilar to the one behind Mona Lisa (1503) and what is with the Alps behind the Madonna?
www.universalleonardo.org...
Then in I notice that between 1483 and 1486 he paints Virgin of the Rocks,
upload.wikimedia.org...
He then reworks between 1495 and 1508.
upload.wikimedia.org...
This time the child on the left has the cross (yarnwinder) and the angel is no longer pointing. He keeps the same geometry of the rock formations. (This must be important – notice the triangle toward the top right of the painting.)
Why would he change backgrounds in one and fore figures in another? Maybe it is not the Madonna but Mary Magdalene with JC’s child depicting that she moved from an arid desert region to the European alpine region.
The angel points west (if the top of the painting is north) in the 1483 Virgin of the Rocks.
I put this up to ask for your interpretations following on from the Templar thread. (It was that thread that got me going!)
"In the popular novel The Da Vinci Code, written by the American novelist Dan Brown, it is claimed that the earlier Louvre version contained hidden symbolism which contradicted orthodox Christian belief, notably the fact that Jesus is shown praying to John rather than the other way round (the novel implies that the baby at the left must be Jesus rather than John, because he is with the Madonna). It is also claimed that the Virgin appears to be holding an invisible head and that Uriel appears to be "slicing the neck" with his finger. For this reason the painting was rejected by the Church, and a second, more orthodox, version was painted."
Found this in a book I'm reading at the minute, regarding the virgin on the rocks - "The painting shows Mary with her arm around John, who is kneeling to Jesus, who's blessing him. Christ appears to be with the archangel Uriel, but there's something wrong here. Uriel is the traditional protector of John, not Jesus and obviously Mary should be holding her son. But suppose the children are with their usual guardians, everything suddenly makes sense and Leonardo's fervent Johannitism shines through once again. For it is then John (now properly with Urial) who is blessing Jesus (now with Mary,) who in turn kneels submissively." The book also mentions the phallus in the rocks as a dig at Mary's supposed virginity (to poke fun at the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception who commissioned the painting) and that Leonardo Da Vinci detested Jesus and his mother but adored John the Baptist
Originally posted by Tuning Spork
I don't think that's an angel pointing in Virgin On The Rocks. I presume the mother and child on the right are John the Baptist and his mother.
Other than that, beats me.
Originally posted by soulstealer2099
Have you ever thought that he re-did the pictures because he was not happy with the originals. It looks to me that he was just improving his original art and may have been satisfied with his last effort. The third picture looks as if the angels head is not properly attached, so of course that would need fixing, the first and second look kind of plain so he decided to spruce them up.
[edit on 29-7-2007 by soulstealer2099]