Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece


Disappointing exhibition at the National Gallery illuminating their “Virgin of the Rocks” painting.

I’d hoped this would offer something new however it felt very thin and seemed to make a few points in a large space. The space was divided into five galleries each one focusing on an aspect of the picture however all the points, except maybe the last, could have been made with one information board. I’m afraid it was a classic case of style over substance.

The first room, shown here, looked at the role of landscape in the picture using large photographs of the Alps, broken up by a metal screen of boxes with quotes from Leonardo on them, some in his mirror writing which was then reflected by the side of the box if you got the angle right.

The second room looked at his use of light and shade and did have quite clever light boxes with white objects in them where you could alter the light source and see what difference it made to how it looked. Interesting but once you’d done it that was it! I quite liked the room recreating the conservation studio but I wasn’t too sure what the video projection was telling me and felt it might have been more fun and informative to recreate Leonardo’s studio.

The biggest waste of space was a room which just seemed to have a map of Milan with a sound scape and projections of drawings of some of the buildings however it did lead to the best room which had the picture itself over which was projected various recreations of how it would have looked in situ showing the side panels and the carving which probably sat on the top. This was quite magical however because everything was so fake and constructed it took me a while to realise it was the real picture!

I’m sorry to have taken a while to write this one up as I’d have liked to warn you earlier not to bother with this one. It might be a good way to introduce children to Leonardo but if you know your art it’s an expensive way to not learn anything new,

Closes on 12 January 2020

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