The Madonna Benois of Leonardo Da Vinci

“The Madonna Benois” is an icon known in the world, a key work of the young Leonardo da Vinci. Probably painted between 1478 and 1480, it marks its independence from the style and formation of Verrocchio, in whose workshop the Maestro had entered about 10 years earlier: a manifesto of that “modern manner” of which Leonardo was an initiator. At his second commitment to one of the most widespread religious themes, at the age of twenty-six, the artist breaks with tradition and invents a new figure of Mary: no longer the imperturbable Queen of the heavens but a simple mother who plays with the own son.

Tatiana Kustodieva explains in the catalog (joint edition Il Cigno/Skira): “in Verrocchio was absent what in Leonardo represents the main element and that is the spiritual kinship, the unity existing between a mother and her child“.”Leonardo – wrote Carlo Bertelli – did not create a static and devotional image, he only stopped a moment”; “He did not paint a genre scene, but he introduced deep meanings into everyday life” such as the one referred to by the map that Maria swirls between her fingers, intriguing her son: a common – but premonitory – crucifera. Even the semi-darkness in which he places the two sacred figures – a closed and semi-dark, very private place – unlike the open and sunny space of the Florentine tradition, increases the questions, introducing according to some expectation and mystery, and distinguishes this “Leonardesque first , so full of future developments”.”