Madonna and Child with Saint Anne, Leonardo da Vinci
Description of the picture:
Madonna and Child with Saint Anne – Leonardo da Vinci. C. 1510
Before us is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1510) on a popular story Holy Virgin with Baby Christ and her mother, St. Anna. Placement of figures in a home group is different from earlier static compositions. All the first years of the XVI century. Leonardo da Vinci worked on variations of this plot: a sketch with a somewhat good interpretation of the group, including St. John the Baptist in infancy (State Gallery, London), also lost cardboard now, which caused a sensation when he was exhibited in the Monastery of the Annunciation in Florence in one thousand 500 one g.
Although St. Anna is depicted in an ordinary place for her, behind the Holy Virgin, all three figures are very alive and close to reality. Moving away from the tradition of depicting Anna in the form of an old matron, Leonardo da Vinci painted her suddenly young and pretty. She restrains her glee a little at the sight of the Kid. The ill-fated lamb in the arms of the Kid serves as an allusion to his future role as the lamb of God, an innocent sacrifice for the atonement of sins; nevertheless, the symbolic meaning of this lively home trio against the background of a hazy landscape is insignificant.
ST ANNA. The cult of Anna (1st century A.D.), the mother of the Virgin Mary, came to the West with Christian refugees persecuted by Muslim conquerors. Her earliest image (c. 600, 50 A.D.) appeared in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua, in Rome, where she is depicted together with the Holy Virgin. Around the 14th century St. Anna was already a popular figure in part because her motherhood at a later age confirmed the doctrine of the sinless conception of the Holy Virgin. Usually she is portrayed together with her daughter. Legend says she was married three times and had 3 daughters. In the Middle Ages, she was portrayed together with a countless family, the so-called Holy Family, various painters, for example, the Master of St. Veronica. In one thousand four hundred and seventy-nine, the monks of the Carmelite order in Frankfurt formed the brotherhood of St. Anna ordered an altar dedicated to her, on which were depicted sienna from her life."