Symbolism in the Madonna of the Rocks?

Answer 1

Paris Version

The painting portrays the Virgin Mary with her right hand around the shoulders of the infant St. John the Baptist and her left hand over the head of the Christchild. On the right, further towards the foreground, the Christchild makes a sign of blessing towards St. John, while an Archangel, probably Uriel, who is traditionally associated with St. John, points towards St. John with her right hand.

The picture is described as a generic Nostra Donna (“Our Lady”) in the documents, which may provide a clue as to the meaning of the painting. The Virgin is located at the centre of the composition and is portrayed as protector of the young St. John the Baptist, whom Christ is blessing and with whom the Franciscan Confraternity who commissioned the picture particularly identified. The rocky setting in which the figures are situated may have a symbolic meaning that originates from early Christian writings and the Old Testament, where the Virgin is referred to as a rock unhewn by human hands, and the cleft rock as a safe refuge for St. John and Christ during their travels in the wilderness


London version

As in the first version of the painting, the infant St. John the Baptist, who is Christ’s cousin, is seen on the left and might easily be mistaken for Christ, being so close to the Virgin. The cross and the scroll that he holds, which reads ECCE A(G)/NVS(DEI) (“Behold the lamb of God”) has been added by another artist to avoid confusion. St. John the Baptist joins the Virgin and the angel in adoring Christ, who is seated on the ground on the right of the picture.

Scientific examination of the painting has revealed numerous pentimenti or “small changes” to the original design in the underdrawing, such as the alteration of the position of the head and legs of the Christchild and the position of the Virgin’s left hand, which confirms that the painting was not intended to be a straightforward copy of the first version.

In this painting, the rocky outdoor setting of the earlier Louvre painting has been transformed into an enclosed grotto that gives rise to dramatic chiaroscuro effects of light and shadow, reflecting Leonardo’s intense study of the effects of light during the middle of the first decade of the sixteenth century.

Have a look at what the National Gallery say about it. There's some symbolic reference here.

This mysterious image by Leonardo da Vinci shows the Virgin, Christ, Saint John, and an angel in a dark landscape, with a backdrop of mountains, caves and water.

Legendary tales of a childhood meeting between Jesus and his cousin Saint John the Baptist first became popular in the 14th century. It was claimed that when King Herod ordered the Massacre of the Innocents, the Holy Family fled to Egypt and on their way met Saint John, who also escaped the massacre.

'The Virgin of the Rocks' demonstrates Leonardo's revolutionary technique of using shadows, rather than outlines, to model his figures. The Virgin and Child are usually shown in bright daylight, their faces set against the sky. Leonardo has chosen the dark background of rocks in order to model the faces in light, which is what makes the image so striking and so unusual.


SYMBOLISM

Leonardo did not imagine that this was what the Holy Land looked like. His dark landscape with its strange rock formations was not intended to resemble a particular place, but to remind us of a set of ideas about Mary and Jesus. The whole landscape resonates with references to biblical and literary metaphors.

Rocks and caves were particularly associated with Mary and Joseph because they suggested sanctuary, and because of certain metaphors used to describe the Holy Family. Mary was considered to be 'a rock cleft not by human hand' (ie, a virgin). Christ, as the Son of God, was the 'mountain hewn out of the mountain not by human hand.'

Flowers in paintings of the Virgin Mary also have a special significance. The clump of flowers at the bottom left of the painting are Star of Bethlehems, or heartsease - a symbol of purity and atonement. Palm leaves, seen behind the infant John's head, are an emblem of the Virgin Mary and a symbol of Victory.

The Renaissance mind was accustomed to recognising these metaphors. Part of Leonardo's genius was his skill in creating something that was true to nature, which also brought to mind the stock metaphors of his day.

NATIONAL GALLERY'S BACKGROUND ON PAINTING

'The Virgin of the Rocks' was commissioned in 1483 by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception as part of a large altarpiece for their church, San Francesco in Milan. It wasn't delivered until 1508, and even then it wasn't finished - the angel's hand resting on Christ's back is only sketched in.

The delay in this case was due to an argument over money. Leonardo was promised a set fee plus a bonus when the painting was finished. However, the bonus he was offered was so paltry that he angrily sold the work to a private client. (This is the version which is now in the Louvre in Paris.) The confraternity finally managed to patch things up with the artist, and he began work on a second version of the painting (the National Gallery's painting).

These two angels were made by associates of Leonardo, and were hung on either side of the painting.

What made Leonardo's paintings so revolutionary was his use of light and shadow, rather than lines, to define three-dimensional objects. He once wrote that light and shade should blend 'without lines or borders in the manner of smoke', giving rise to the term sfumato, meaning 'seen as if through smoke'. The soft shadows around corners of the eyes and mouths make Leonardo's faces seem more alive because they leave a little to our imagination.

Leonardo's technique for preparing a painting was to start with a detailed drawing, such as his famous cartoon. The next part of the process would be to transfer the drawing to canvas and to start by painting in the shadows. The highlighted parts of the picture would be added last.

The delicacy of the play between light and shadow in his pictures makes the light seem to dance across the surface of the painting. It is an effect that works best in front of the actual canvas.

When curators and conservators examined the 'Virgin of the Rocks', they hoped to find an underdrawing. What they did not expect to find was a completely different picture, hidden under the paint.

Conservators at the gallery collaborated with a team from Florence and used a technique called infrared reflectography to look through the layers of paint and reveal details of the preliminary drawings underneath. The first part of the painting they focussed on was the Virgin's head, but what sprang out were the face and hand of another figure. Leonardo had evidently started on one picture, and then abandoned it for the existing one.

The hidden drawing is of a kneeling woman (presumably the Virgin Mary) with her face in near profile and one hand across her breast.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

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