Benois Madonna
Madonna and Child with Flowers otherwise known as the Benois Madonna, could be one of two pictures of Madonna started painting by Leonardo da Vinci, as he remarked himself in October 1478.
It was proved to be one of Leonardo’s most popular. It was extensively copied by young painters, including Raphael, whose own version of Leonardo’s design (the Madonna of the Pinks) was acquires in 2004 by the National Gallery, London.
The motif of the Madonna with the child in her lap, a robust, chubby faced child, is still of the fifteenth century; the round head of the Madonna, with the very high forehead, the thin, curved eyebrows and the small round childish chin, is Florentine; the Gothic window in the background, here giving no view beyond, is early Florentine fifteenth century.
This oil painting demonstrated extremely realistic human features with a rich depth of expression, apparent especially in the Madonna’s facial and hand gestures.
The child in the painting has an absorbed expression of silent concentration on his face, his eyes intently observing, with hypnotic intensity, not so much the flower held out to him by his mother - the crucifera, symbol of Passion – as, along its stem, the shining berries which he squeezes between his plump fingers and which are reflected in the oval brooch of his mother in a heraldic suggestion of the Medici arms.
Benois Madonna
Madonna and Child with Flowers otherwise known as the Benois Madonna, could be one of two pictures of Madonna started painting by Leonardo da Vinci, as he remarked himself in October 1478.
It was proved to be one of Leonardo’s most popular. It was extensively copied by young painters, including Raphael, whose own version of Leonardo’s design (the Madonna of the Pinks) was acquires in 2004 by the National Gallery, London.
The motif of the Madonna with the child in her lap, a robust, chubby faced child, is still of the fifteenth century; the round head of the Madonna, with the very high forehead, the thin, curved eyebrows and the small round childish chin, is Florentine; the Gothic window in the background, here giving no view beyond, is early Florentine fifteenth century.
This oil painting demonstrated extremely realistic human features with a rich depth of expression, apparent especially in the Madonna’s facial and hand gestures.
The child in the painting has an absorbed expression of silent concentration on his face, his eyes intently observing, with hypnotic intensity, not so much the flower held out to him by his mother - the crucifera, symbol of Passion – as, along its stem, the shining berries which he squeezes between his plump fingers and which are reflected in the oval brooch of his mother in a heraldic suggestion of the Medici arms.
Benois Madonna
