20 Works, Today, April 14th is artist Leonardo da Vinci’s day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #104

Depicted people: Virgin Mary and Gabriel

The painting is set in front of a Renaissance palace, in a luxuriant enclosed garden that evokes the purity of Mary, the Archangel Gabriel kneels before the Virgin, greeting her and offering her a lily. The Virgin responds, sitting with great dignity in front of a lectern on which a book is resting. The traditional sacred theme is placed by Leonardo in a naturalistic and earthly setting: the angel has a concrete corporeality, suggested by the shadow cast on the lawn and by the rendering of the drapery that presuppose studies from life. Its wings are also inspired by those of some mighty raptor. The rendering of the crepuscular light is extraordinary, which shapes the shapes, unifies the scene and brings out the dark silhouettes of the trees on the distant landscape in the background, dominated by the nuanced tones dear to the artist. More on this painting

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was a painter, architect, inventor, and student of all things scientific. His natural genius crossed so many disciplines that he epitomized the term “Renaissance man.” Largely self-educated, he filled dozens of secret notebooks with inventions, observations and theories about pursuits from aeronautics to anatomy. The concepts expressed in his notebooks were often difficult to interpret…

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