National Gallery Announces Most Complete Display of Leonardo da Vinci

Written by Luke Syson Thursday, 22 July 2010 21:01

LONDON.- 'Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan' is the most complete display of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings ever held. This unprecedented exhibition – the first of its kind anywhere in the world – brings together sensational international loans never before seen in the UK, including 'La Belle Ferronière' (Musée du Louvre, Paris), the 'Madonna Litta' (Hermitage, Saint Petersburg) and 'Saint Jerome' (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome).

The National Gallery plans to mount one of the most ambitious exhibitions of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci ever undertaken, it announced today. (all bold)

While numerous exhibitions have looked at Leonardo da Vinci as an inventor, scientist or draughtsman, this is the first to be dedicated to his aims and techniques as a painter. Inspired by the recently restored National Gallery painting, 'The Virgin of the Rocks', this exhibition focuses on Leonardo as an artist and in particular on the work he produced during his career as court painter to Duke Lodovico Sforza in Milan in the late 1480s and 1490s.

Given that there are arguably only 14 surviving Leonardo panel paintings anywhere in the world, it is clearly a difficult show to put on. But inspired by the recent restoration of the gallery's Leonardo painting, The Virgin of the Rocks, the gallery hopes to gather at least four more to create the most complete exhibition of the artist's surviving paintings ever held.

Luke Syson, the gallery's curator of Italian paintings before 1500, said the whole project was "very ambitious but thrilling", not least because there are so few paintings. "Leonardo essentially believed that it was better to have a tiny body of work of extraordinary quality rather than just churning stuff out.

Benefiting from his salaried position, Leonardo had the freedom to explore ways of perceiving and recording human proportion, expression and anatomy and the myriad forms of plants and animals. These investigations fed into his extraordinary paintings: marvellous combinations of the real and the ideal, the natural and the divine.

Featuring the finest paintings and drawings by Leonardo and his followers, the exhibition examines Leonardo’s pursuit for perfection in his representation of the human form. As a painter, he aimed to convince viewers of the reality of what they were seeing while still aspiring to create ideals of beauty – particularly in his exquisite portraits – and, in his religious works, to convey a sense of awe-inspiring mystery.

The final part of the exhibition features a near-contemporary, full-scale copy of Leonardo’s famous 'Last Supper', on loan from the Royal Academy. Seen alongside all the surviving preparatory drawings made by Leonardo for the 'Last Supper', visitors will discover how such a large-scale painting was designed and executed.

The gallery is also staging a major display next spring titled Jan Gossaert's Renaissance, the first exhibition dedicated to the Flemish artist for more than 40 years.

The London Gallery Leonardo da Vinci exhibition will take place in the winter of 2011-12

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