The Virgin of the Rocks

The Virgin of the Rocks, two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci depicting the apocryphal legend in which the Holy Family meets St. John the Baptist as they flee to Egypt from Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents. Based on stylistic evidence, many scholars consider the painting in the Louvre to be the first version (1483–94), and the piece in the National Gallery of London to be the second (c. 1491/2–99 and 1506–08). The Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan commissioned the painting for the centre of an altarpiece in 1483, but the original work became the subject of a payment dispute. During the 10 years of litigation between Leonardo and the confraternity, the artist probably sold the painting for a higher price to a different patron and began working on another version for the confraternity.

The first Virgin of the Rocks shows the ways in which Leonardo ushered in the High Renaissance. Early paintings from this period often depict figures in linear arrangements, separate from one another, and stiff in form. In The Virgin of the Rocks, however, the figures of the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, the infant John, and an archangel are arranged in a pyramidal composition, and they not only convincingly occupy a space but also interact with one another through gestures and glances. At the pinnacle of the pyramid is a youthful Mary, who sits on the ground in a mysterious rocky landscape, not on a throne as so many early Renaissance paintings depict. Her body has movement; it seems to sway as she tilts her head protectively toward the infant John, who kneels in prayer at the left of the painting, and she looks as if she is nudging him over to the Christ Child on the right. Jesus, in turn, blesses John. The archangel, seen in a complex pose from the back, sits behind Jesus and points toward John while glancing inscrutably toward the viewer. Leonardo also notably excluded traditional holy signifiers—halos for Mary and Christ and a staff for John—so that the Holy Family appears less divine and more human.

The second version of The Virgin of the Rocks has a nearly identical composition, with the Holy Family sitting in the same pyramidal arrangement and interacting with one another. Leonardo removed a few of the archangel’s enigmatic qualities so that, in the London version, the angel neither points to John nor looks out at the viewer. This version also includes a few of the symbols omitted from the earlier painting: both Mary and Jesus have thin gold rings for halos, and John balances a staff in the crux of his arm. These details were probably added at a later date and not by Leonardo. The colours of the London version are also more saturated, and the spotlight is brighter, so that the anatomy of the figures is more pronounced.

To some viewers, the exaggerated qualities of the London painting predict the rise of Mannerism, an artistic style that dominated Italy from the 1520s to the 1590s, or they indicate that the work was completed by an assistant. Leonardo was probably in a rush to complete it; he delivered the painting unfinished to the confraternity in 1499, when he fled Milan after the fall of the duke of Sforza, one of his patrons. In 1506 the confraternity demanded he return to Milan and finish the project within two years. The London version therefore has a few unpolished passages, but it also shows Leonardo’s changing approach to art. The plants provide one such example; while Leonardo faithfully replicated details of nature in the Paris version, he invented hybrid plants for the London painting. This change suggests that by the time Leonardo finished the second work, he no longer considered the role of the painter as a chronicler of the world, but as a creator of new worlds, much like a god.