Tuesday 24 April 2012

The Prado Mona Lisa

The amount of press attention given to the copy of the Mona Lisa in the Prado is astonishing.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Leonardo’s+lover+probably+painted+the+Prado’s+Mona+Lisa/26047
etc. etc.
Would the story have even have made the papers if it had been about Raphael? The idea that a copy should be produced in workshop is hardly a surprise. In our book on the Madonna and the Yarnwinder,  Thereza Wells and I showed that the two prime versions developed alongside each other, in this instance with Leonardo's participation in both. The only surprise is that a copy should be made of an intimate, domestic portrait of a bourgeois sitter. Perhaps Francesco del Giocondo wanted two versions. But it is odd. The implications of the landscape for the dating of the Mona Lisa - the background in the copy is aligned with drawings dateable to after 1510 - provides useful confirmation that the painting took a long time, but is not surprising. Was it ever completely finished? Were any of his paintings completely finished? The London Virgin of the Rocks, which was supplied for the frame in S. Francesco in Milan, is not finished. Only the Louvre seemed to think that the ML was completed before Leonardo left Florence in 1507.
Perhaps I shouldn't complain. It all helps sustain interest and helps sell (my) books.
By the way, we have absolutely no reliable evidence about what Salai looked like - and almost no firm evidence of how he painted. The pretty boy with ringlets, often identified as Salai, was a favourite facial type for Leonardo well before Salai came on to the scene.

guns and the Countyside Allaince

The new Executive Chairman of the Countryside Alliance, Sir Barney White-Spunner (could Hardy have invented a better name?) is urging children to take up shooting to identify with the country. Sir Barney, please note:
1) guns were designed for killing at that is still their primary function. Even children know that;
2) putting a gun in kids' hands is to identify them personally with the images of violence that permeate our media;
3) guns should not be domesticated in town our country. They should be available and used only excpetionally;
4) using them for "sport" is predicated upon the user gaining pleasure from the death and suffering of a living creature. Such pleasure is degrading;
5) if shooting is necessary in the countryside for certain specific reasons, it should be considered as a necessary evil rather than a source of delight.
There is of course abundant natural slaughter in nature within the complex interactions and balances between hunters and preys. This does not justify our adding to it for motives that gratuitous, unnecessary and unethical.