Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mary, Saint Anne, and Jesus"

Leonardo Da Vinci uses subtle chiaroscuro (a contrast of light and dark) in the faces and figures of the virgin Mary, Saint Anne, and Jesus. Saint Anne is the mother of Mary. Mary is the virgin mother of Jesus. The life and career of Jesus in the Bible is what started Christianity. This painting is housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris (Clark, 2005). Leonardo painted this work of art in approximately 1510 A.D. (Clark, 2005). The medium is oil on panel (Honour & Fleming, 2002).The setting in a colorful, pastoral landscape is symbolic of the great revivial of art, literature, and learning characteristic of the Renaissance. The background of this painting shows mountains in the distance, and Leonardo used the technique of sfumato, to give them a hazy appearance. Leonardo also used the techique of atmospheric perspective when painting the mountains, which look like the Alps (Clark, 2005). Atmospheric perspective is a method of painting that indicates distance by grading tones and fading color contrasts (Honor & Fleming, 2002). Leonardo Da Vinci uses great skill and elegance in showing the drapery in Mary's clothing. Mary, Saint Anne, and Jesus have loving expressions on their faces. The loving expressions on their faces is symbolic of the love and compassion present in Christianity. The child Jesus is holding a little lamb. The presence of the lamb is Christian symbolism wherein Jesus is often referred to as the "Lamb of God" in the Bible. The three figures are situated in a pyramidal layout in the painting. The pose of the three figures is complex and passionate, and they exhibit dramatic movements. Leonardo did a preliminary drawing of this work of art, before he did the actual painting (Clark, 2005).

What opinion did different people in history have of this painting? Sigmund Fried, had the opinion that Leonardo must have spent the first years of his life very close to Leonardo's mother, Katerina, who was a peasant. Leonardo had two mother figures in his life because a year after Leonardo's birth, Leonardo's father married a higher-class woman who could not give birth to children (Clark, 2005). This historical fact that Leonardo had two mother figures in his life, perhaps explains why the figures of Mary and Saint Anne appear so close together in the layout of the painting (Clark, 2005).