by Shana Priwer
In addition to representing lights and shadows accurately, realistic paintings need to convey subtle transitions from one tone to another. Sfumato, an Italian word meaning “vanished,” is used to describe a technique Leonardo developed to do exactly that: graduate color values between parts of an object to make it accurately reflect the object's full roundness. Early Flemish painters had experimented with these methods, but none had used the technique to the same extent or with as much success as Leonardo.
The Mona Lisa is an excellent example of sfumato. While the woman's face is fully enveloped by shade and shadow, it is also completely smooth. Leonardo used brushes, as well as his fingers, to blend the tones and create perfect transitions to represent light as it swept around the woman's head. Then, the light in the scene simply subsides into darkness. The transitions between light and dark here are imperceptible; the superb blending allows viewers to focus on the painted subject, rather than the technique of painting.
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The scene behind the scene
In the classical period of ancient Greece and Rome, art focused on celebrating the gods. The Renaissance brought out a new tradition of naturalistic art, one that placed religious scenes or even portraits in natural surroundings. Subtly woven into many of these works was the idea that it was possible to represent the presence of a supreme being, while simultaneously paying attention to the individual. Many of Leonardo's paintings were religious in nature, and the Renaissance's focus on humanism gave Leonardo the opportunity to incorporate his fondness for the natural world into the preexisting influence of Christianity.
Leonardo took this developing Renaissance methodology to a new level. Many of his works include fantastic landscapes as backgrounds, and these backgrounds sometimes involve complex architectural creations (think Escher) or landscapes with natural elements such as rolling hills, valleys, streams, and mountains. Yet even these more natural elements take on an air of the ethereal thanks to Leonardo's innovative techniques.
So how did Leonardo achieve these effects? His conceptual method involved rendering scenes as if they appeared through a fine veil of mist. An early precursor of this technique, called sfumato (see number 30), is actually visible in his earliest remaining landscape drawing, created in 1473 when Leonardo was only twenty-one. Details of this landscape seem to recede into the distance thanks to atmospheric perspective.
Perhaps the most famous of Leonardo's background landscapes is in the Mona Lisa. Rather than placing her indoors, as was typical for most portraits, Leonardo positioned Lisa, the woman with the enigmatic smile, in front of a dreamlike landscape full of craggy mountains and sinuous streams. The background's movement captures Leonardo's view of the natural world, one that is ever-changing and constantly in motion. The only man-made element in this background is a small bridge crossing one of the rivers. If you were to inspect the background closely, you'd also see that the two sides do not match up—the horizon on the right side of the figure is significantly higher than that on the left side. Most likely, this was a deliberate trick on Leonardo's part to lend an increased sense of activity and realism to the central figure by making her place in the painting appear to change depending on whether you look at her from the left side or from the right.
A late painting, St. John in the Wilderness (attributed to Leonardo, although not confirmed as his), goes one better. It combines a realistic natural setting (trees, roots, cliffs, and animals) with one of Leonardo's traditional misty backgrounds. Toward the top left of the painting, the landscape recedes into mists and lakes—very surreal. An earlier painting, The Virgin of the Rocks, creates a fantastic setting for a typical religious theme, placing the subjects in a cave, or grotto. The scene is complete with a reflective pool of water, gorgeous plants, and a background of rocks that erupt from the floor and hang dangerously from the ceiling. Rather than receding into darkness, the rocks extend into a bright misty region typical of Leonardo's other backgrounds.
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Finish that painting! Leonardo and the fine art of completion
While no one would ever question Leonardo's overall genius, doesn't it seem strange that we celebrate him so much as an artist, while so few of his paintings remain today? As mentioned previously, one reason for this conspicuous lack was Leonardo's tendency to start many projects, but actually finish very few. Even in his earliest days, he flitted from subject to subject, learning and experimenting with writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, music, science, engineering, and math. So why didn't he just focus on one art form? It's possible that as stunning as his works were, they did not match the perfection of the images in his head, and he gave up rather than fail in the expression of his imagined perfection. Another possibility is that, especially later in life, Leonardo saw himself more as an inventor and scientist than as an artist, and thus devoted more time to such works. The inevitable consequence was that he ended up neglecting his art.
Leonardo was an innovator, and as such, he wanted to rush out and test newly discovered techniques—which, of course, went against the tried-and-true methods of his time. Granted, his innovative approach sometimes had disastrous results. Take, for instance, his fresco The Last Supper. Leonardo painted this masterpiece using a new technique he'd developed, but the paint began to peel from the wall almost immediately. Another ambitious later work, The Battle of Anghiari, was supposed to have presented an entire battle scene on a wall opposite a new work by Michelangelo. When Leonardo actually painted the work, again using a new experimental technique, the paint adhered to the walls without problem this time. Unfortunately, when Leonardo applied heat to dry and fix the paint, his luck ran out. Some of the paint ran off the walls and the rest scaled off in pieces. The project was almost a complete failure, and other artists actually wound up painting over what remained of Leonardo's original work.
Beyond his penchant for experimentation (which sometimes backfired), perhaps Leonardo simply got bored. Maybe he worked first and most intensely on the aspects of a painting that he found most interesting: the design and rendering of faces, hands, hair, and background landscapes. Once he was finished with those portions, he may have simply left other parts of his paintings incomplete or had his students fill in certain elements, which seems to be the case with his Portrait of a Musician. Leonardo rendered the face and hands exquisitely, but he barely sketched the drapery of the young man's tunic into place.
Not finishing what he started got Leonardo into trouble on more than one occasion. In some cases, patrons never paid him for his unfinished work; in other cases, he had to return the initial advance money he received when he didn't complete a painting on time. For example, despite having a contract, Leonardo never completed Adoration of the Magi, meant for the monks at Scopeto in 1481. Apparently, Leonardo only finished a sketch and never even started the main painting. A lawsuit over another work, The Virgin of the Rocks, dragged on for about ten years. As a result, Leonardo eventually completed two versions of the painting to fulfill the contract.
The equestrian Statue of Francesco Sforza is yet another work that, although ambitious in creative scope, perhaps overreached the realm of feasibility (see number 29). If Leonardo had been willing to settle for a smaller sculpture—life-sized for instance—the statue might have been built and probably would have survived the battles in Renaissance Italy. However, settling doesn't seem to have been in Leonardo's nature. He designed this sculpture to stand more than twenty-five feet tall and, as a result, he ran into problems. For starters, there was no foundry big enough to create such a large sculpture. Then, as he was gathering bronze to cast the sculpture, Milan became embroiled in war and Leonardo had to surrender his precious supplies for military usage. Leonardo had only a clay model of the horse statue to show for all of his efforts, and that was eventually destroyed when the French used it for target practice.
Although Leonardo's failure to complete so many of his works might lead you to believe otherwise, at times he was quite a perfectionist, refusing to let go
of certain works to which he felt particularly attached. The Mona Lisa is a perfect example of this; Leonardo moved his favorite painting around with him from studio to studio, working and reworking it for many years, until near the end of his life. In fact, he never really judged this painting finished.
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Building the scene-scape
The advent of humanism brought plenty of changes to Renaissance artists and patrons. Artists like Leonardo had to develop new techniques and skills to paint increasingly convincing scenes—people expected more, and artists had to live up to those expectations. Fortunately, Leonardo excelled at incorporating nature and landscapes into his paintings. He spent much time studying anatomy, biology, and geology, and his observations gave him a keen sense of proportion and movement.
Along with this interest in humanism, architectural landscapes also became increasingly popular during the Renaissance. As this idea was a relatively new addition to Leonardo's artistic bag of tricks, some of his early examples seem awkward or forced. The Dreyfuss Madonna of 1469 demonstrates this problem quite well. The Madonna is seated in front of a window, which is too close to the viewer to be properly discernable. Its rendering is too dark in contrast to the brightness of the Madonna in the foreground, and it appears out of place. The landscape seen through the window seems equally disjointed. Despite questions about its execution, this painting is important because it represents one of Leonardo's early attempts to create coherence amongst natural, built, and human forms.
From 1472 to 1475, Leonardo contributed to at least one version of an Annunciation scene. This painting features many architectural elements, including a marble sarcophagus representing a Medici family tomb. The composition appears awkward, and not all of the figures are drawn in the same perspective (the Virgin Mary is posed in a three-quarter view, whereas an angel is depicted almost sideways). Nevertheless, this painting has much more pronounced architectural definition than Leonardo's previous works. There is a partially revealed doorway, and the wall behind it is defined with enormous quoins. This sort of precise architectural detailing was without classical precedent, and even artist-architects such as Brunelleschi and Alberti did not present built elements to such an extent. The landscape in the background appears nearly flat, however, indicating that Leonardo still had some refining to do when it came to working out the coordination of nature and architecture fully.
Madonna of the Carnation is another interior scene that deals with the background in a more three-dimensional way. This painting dates to 1478, and you can easily see Leonardo's increasing expertise with perspective. The arched colonnade clearly shows one-point perspective, though the angle of view is somewhat inconsistent with the perspective of the foreground figures.
The Last Supper, completed in 1498, combines the best of both worlds: humanlike figures with real architectural interiors. Leonardo used single-point perspective to create a space that was geometrically precise. Most of the painting is also symmetrical, showing off the latent influence of classical notions of balance and proportion. The upper part of the image (before restoration) actually shows imperfect symmetry and slightly off-center perspective. Leonardo found a way to sneak in his own special touch through these small sorts of details.
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An architecture of the imagination
As if creating some of the first Renaissance architectural paintings wasn't enough, Leonardo also painted scenes that demonstrated a sort of “faux architecture.” This term might sound odd, but bear with us. These works contained architectural elements that had more in common with flights of fancy than with anything rooted in concrete reality. The Adoration of the Magi of 1481 is one of the best examples. Commissioned for the monastery at San Donato Scopeto, Leonardo worked on this scene during his years under Lorenzo de Medici, and it was the first work that he created largely on his own. While the painting focuses on Mary, the baby Jesus, and the three Magi, the scene also contains about sixty other people, a variety of animals, and other natural elements.
Although Leonardo never finished this painting, it is clear that the scene contains architectural elements that were, at least partially, more imaginary than real. Take, for example, the staircase depicted in the background. It could be part of a medieval castle, or maybe it belongs to the ruins of a Roman imperial palace. Either way, these structures would have been completely out of place for this religious scene set in a lush countryside—not the best place to build a castle, which surely would have required at least basic defenses.
The scene is a fanciful composition, to be sure. Its early sketches were even wilder, showing animals in different perspectives and poses. Some sketches had parts of the stairs dating from a different period and age; some were even composed of different materials. It was a motley crüe of painting, and Leonardo probably loved painting every minute of it. There are multiple points of perspective, and the scene almost looks more like a collage than one coherent painting.
Perhaps Leonardo's playful side came to the fore through these sorts of details, or maybe they afforded Leonardo the opportunity to contrast his new skills against a more whimsical background. Whatever the reason, the fanciful architecture incorporated within Leonardo's paintings increases the depth of his work and speaks to both his inherent creativity and his willingness to take risks.
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It's all in the details
Leonardo had a knack for capturing facial expressions, and you can see that even in his early works. Lady with an Ermine, painted around 1490 (or perhaps earlier), is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, the young mistress of Duke Ludovico Sforza. Often called the first modern portrait, this work is much different than established methods of portrait painting in the fifteenth century. Leonardo posed Cecilia in three-quarter view, rather than in the strict profile view favored at the time. There's also an added sense of motion inherent in this scene, as she twists her head and upper body, fixing her gaze on something outside the field of view. The warm lighting provides a three-dimensional look that has an almost sculptural effect. The painting also renders the detailed embroidery and ribbons on Cecilia's gown with painstaking precision. The beauty of Cecilia's face, and her enigmatic half-smile, evoke a later (and more famous) portrait—the Mona Lisa.
Another one of Da Vinci's famous faces is found in his Portrait of Ginevra de'Benci which could date to as early as 1474, when Leonardo was still working with Verrocchio. It includes some elements typical of Leonardo's style, such as a mystical backdrop and detailed background rendering, and it also shows botanical elements, such as the juniper bush. The portrait itself is much flatter and has none of the three-dimensionality of Lady with an Ermine or some of Leonardo's other later works. However, her face and skin do have that marble appearance found in Leonardo's later works, and the emphasis on the ringlets of her hair is also typical Leonardo.
Another early work, Portrait of a Musician, dates from around the same period (1482–1483). However, attributing this painting to Leonardo is problematic—there are no records mentioning the painting, nor is there any documentation for its commission. The painting has some elements of Leonardo's style, but one of his students could also have been the artist—the likeliest suspects include Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Boltraffio, and Ambrogio de Predis.
So what's the proof of Leonardo's influence here? For starters, you can look at the shadowed background, the length of the figure, and the three-quarter view of the subject. But that's not all. The delicate bone structure required detailed knowledge of anatomy, and Leonardo was one of only a handful of painters who had that skill. Then there's the subject's casual, unforced pose, delicate fingers, and curling hair. All of these details point to Leonardo. This painting also remained unfinished, and various elements are only sketched in—and who was our favorite artist known for leaving works half done? None other than Leonardo!
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Monks and lawyers and artists, oh my!
Who would've thought that Leonardo had a legal run-in with Catholic
monks? That's exactly what happened with The Virgin of the Rocks. In fact, this project was actually done twice because of the lawsuit that ensued!
The chapel of the Immaculata at the church of San Francesco Grande, in Milan, originally commissioned The Virgin of the Rocks in 1483 as an altar-piece. One of Leonardo's first commissions in Milan, the painting relates to the Immaculate Conception, the Catholic Church's teaching that Mary was conceived without original sin. The Italian papacy charged Leonardo with the task of portraying the Virgin in a pure, holy, and innocent manner.
The original contract was very specific, spelling out the exact subject of the picture. The premise seems straightforward enough: The monks of San Francesco wanted the Virgin to be the painting's central focus, with prototypical Greek angels flanking her. Leonardo designed his work to fit into a panel, which would have been framed by painted or gilded shutters. Evangelista and Ambrogio de Predis were to complete the surrounding work. Details of the background (mountains and rocks) were also laid out before Leonardo began work on the project. The original contract even called for specifics on the Virgin and angels' robe colors! Despite all of the specifics, Leonardo did take some artistic license. For instance, he exchanged one of the angels for St. John.
