The Virgin and Child with St Anne - Clos Lucé

This image needs no introduction. It’s the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus sitting on her mother’s lap in a very awkward position that’s for sure. It may be a trick of the light but it looks as if Saint Anne’s head was added later, it seems somehow detached as if she is a figment of Mary’s imagination or a ghost but if art is anything, it’s subjective. Fifty people looking at the same painting will all see something different. The Virgin and Child with St Anne, oil on wood, is a whopping five and a half foot by four and a half foot. You do wonder how he got it from Italy. The original is in the Louvre, Paris. Leonardo’s Cartoon (drawing made in preparation for a painting) in the National Gallery London, of Mary on her mother’s lap, has John the Baptist leaning against Anne’s lap. The lamb in this one is Jesus, lamb of God, representing sacrifice. It too looks awkward – badly drawn lamb? and surely those thin legs would never support it? The elephant in the room is that Leonardo was a far more gifted engineer than he was painter.

Post by Pamela, photography by Mark.