These 2 portraits are masterpiece painted by Leonardo Da Vinci.Leonardo received a request from one of the church in Milan to paint the centerpiece of an altar. The nuns of the church gave Leonardo their desired theme for the painting. They requested to have the Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, angel Uriel and baby John the Baptist sheltering in a cave. Leonardo Da Vinci delivered his work as requested but rejected the nuns as they found the portrait offensive. The nuns requested Leonardo to repaint the portrait.
On the left hand side of the portrait is the first version painted that rejected, the portrait on the right hand side is the accepted portrait. The first version of Madonna of the Rocks is currently exhibited in the Louvre, Paris while the second version is exhibited in London’s National Gallery.
What’s wrong with the first version of the portrait? Why the nuns reacted exaggeratedly on the portrait?
I am not a scholar of Christianity or Art. I am just a layman whom interested with these 2 portraits. This is my shallow 2 cents worth.
The controversial part of the first version of the portrait is Baby Jesus kneed and holds out his hands in a gesture of prayer toward Baby John. Everybody presume the baby near to Virgin Mary is Jesus. If referring to second version, the John's traditional cruciform stick has been added to the baby whom Virgin Mary sitting with. The cruciform stick further clarified the identity between Baby Jesus and Baby John, it showed that the baby whose Virgin Mary ushered with is Baby John instead of Baby Jesus. If the baby was John that Virgin Mary ushered with, there is no problem for the praying gesture that the baby holds while this is matched with the common Jesus-blessing-John scenario. However, some scholars refuse to believe and claimed that the cruciform stick was added by other artist later, it is rather a very odd sitting arrangement that Baby John ushered by Virgin Mary instead of Jesus that commonly be seen in Christianity portrait.
Another mystery is Angel Uriel pointed her finger towards baby whom sat with Virgin Mary in the first version. Why the pointing gesture had been removed in the second version? What does the gesture mean in the first version? Most people believe the only reason why the gesture had been deliberately removed from the second version is to let everybody believe the baby that sat with Virgin Mary is John the Baptist.
In Dan Brown’s popular novel “The Da Vinci Code”, it is claimed that the first version of the portrait was rejected due to the painting contained hidden sign which contradicted Christian belief.
Extracted Dan Brown’s statement from “The Da Vinci Code” related to Madonna in the Rocks as below:
“….. More troubling still, Mary as holding one hand high above the head of infant John and making a decidedly threatening gesture – her fingers looking like eagle’s talons, gripping an invisible head. Finally, the most obvious and frightening image. Just below Mary’s curled fingers, Uriel was making a cutting gesture with his hand – as if slicing the neck of the invisible head gripped by Mary’s claw-like hand. ”
I cannot relate the scandalous comment that Virgin Mary and Angel Uriel threatening gesture that claimed by Dan Brown above. If referring to these 2 versions of portraits, although you can clearly see the index and middle fingers of Virgin Mary are slightly clawed compare with the second version. However, I cannot really see any threatening gesture of gripping an invisible head no matter how I can imagine. Furthermore, it is very apparent that Angel Uriel was making the pointing gesture with his hand instead of cutting gesture. I think this the statement is only gimmick Dan Brown used to support the plot in his novel.
No matter how we can analyze on these 2 portraits, no one can really give us the right answer of those questions that we have since many decades. The only person could answe was Leonardo Da Vinci.
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