Exhibitions don’t come more trumpeted than the winter 2011/2012 Leonardo Da Vinci show at the National Gallery. It is a unique chance to see so much of his small and fragile output in one place alongside the work of some of his pupils and contemporaries. It almost certainly will not happen again in our lifetime. Sometimes hype is actually justified and it is worth braving crowds and irritations to make the most of a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of a Woman, “La Belle Ferronière”, Louvre, Paris, about 1493-4, oil on walnut panel, 63 x 45 cm.
The two stars of the show are undoubtedly two beautiful and privileged young women from the world of fifteenth century Milan, Cecilia Gallerani and Beatrice d’Este, whose portraits glow with life and detail. You feel that you are face to face with a real person, standing in their presence, and his fellow artists of the time rarely managed that. Leonardo’s paintings have soul. It marks him out from his fellow artists even more than his technical skill and makes you stand back and draw breath. Beatrice has an astonishing gaze. This is a woman who is beautiful, confident and poised. If anyone or anything distresses her it will be dealt with. If she wants anything it will be supplied. In a time when life was hard for many she is confident that she is of worth and that her worth is recognised. One of the ladies standing next to me who was visiting the exhibition as part of a coach tour summed up what I am saying nicely. “She knows her own mind.” There is no doubt at all that she did and even after over five hundred years we can still feel it.
Leonardo da Vinci, 'Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (The Lady with an Ermine)', about 1489-90. Property of the Czartoryski Foundation in Cracow on deposit at the National Museum in Cracow © Princes Czartoryski Foundation
Ceciia Gallerani is a different matter. She is only sixteen, heartbreakingly beautiful, young and flawless. It is an idealised vision of fleeting youthful beauty but at the same time her quiet self contained confidence shows us a real young woman at the start of her adult life. She is a sweetheart and it is hard not to fall in love with her. The ermine that she is holding to symbolise her purity, painted with breathtaking detail and movement, is a real tour de force. Two kinds of beauty are being celebrated and contrasted to great effect. What both have in common is that they are unspoiled and perfect. It was believed that the ermine would accept death rather than have his coat sullied by dirt or blood, and this perfection is the condition that the beautiful young lady holding him is also still able to enjoy.
Both of these paintings are a joy to look at and really nothing else in the exhibition compares to them. When you look at them your journey has been worthwhile. You have had your moneys worth. None of the other portraits, however lovely some of them may be, live so vividly.
The royal collection has a wealth of great drawings and these are well represented. They are technically breathtaking and sometimes very beautiful. Crammed onto pages with the curiosity and focus of an artist who was also a scientist they are not meant to be framed and looked at, although Leonardo kept them and clearly valued them as part of his working process. There is a small skull on an almost empty page which is particularly lovely and the drawings by his pupils which are shown alongside them are stiff and lifeless in comparison.
"Christ as Salvator Mundi" by Leonardo da Vinci. Photographer: Tim Nighswander/National Gallery via Bloomberg
When you reach the large room which contains the two versions of The Madonna of the Rocks it is a chance to sit down and have a good long look and I have to admit to feeling quietly smug on seeing that the National Gallery’s version, the second of them after Leonardo had complaints, is by far the best. We also have the only large scale drawing by Leonardo to survive, a full size cartoon for a painting although it was never used as one, and that is showing in the same room as a newly attributed Leonardo, Christ as Salvator Mundi. This is a wonderful work and I am quite happy, given its quality, to agree with people who know more than I do and accept the attribution, but it is a shame that the face of Christ has been overcleaned in the past destroying the evidence that would have put it completely beyond doubt, had we been able to see it as Leonardo intended.
This is a wonderful exhibition. It is sold out and in spite of the fact that the gallery issued fewer tickets in order to avoid crowds you are still going to need to take with you plenty of tolerance and goodwill towards your fellow human beings as some of them wander around talking aimlessly or sweep in front of you for a closer look. It is still worth it. Shut the world out and you can meet the work, and the mind, of a great master. A great master who didn’t always get time to paint very much as he was busy designing and investigating other things but when he did get round to it there was nobody like him.
