Leonardo is playing tricks with my head!

In 1501 he painted this picture of Madonna with the yarnwinder,



In 1510 he reworked the picture and came up with this version. Notice the valley is not too dissimilar to the one behind Mona Lisa (1503) and what is with the Alps behind the Madonna?




Then in I notice that between 1483 and 1486 he paints Virgin of the Rocks,




He then reworks between 1495 and 1508.



This time the child on the left has the cross (yarnwinder) and the angel is no longer pointing. He keeps the same geometry of the rock formations. (This must be important – notice the triangle toward the top right of the painting.)

Why would he change backgrounds in one and fore figures in another? Maybe it is not the Madonna but Mary Magdalene with JC’s child depicting that she moved from an arid desert region to the European alpine region.
The angel points west (if the top of the painting is north) in the 1483 Virgin of the Rocks.
I put this up to ask for your interpretations following on from the Templar thread. (It was that thread that got me going!)


[edit: fixed image links]

[edit on 29-7-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

All of your links are going to photobucket's main page (for me, anyway). They are all the same, with no DaVinci pictures at all.

What B.H. said.

Havalon, can you correct those links? I'd really like to see these paintings.

are the links working yet?

Your links don't work.By strange coincidence I was reading about those paintings yesterday. I don't believe half of what I've read about stuff hidden in the paintings though. For example in the virgin on the rocks it's said that the rocks just by the virgin's head are supposed to be a remarkable pair of testicles topped by a huge upright phallus - complete with central vein and a "spurt" of weeds at the top. I can see that but I'm not convinced it was intended. Maybe.The last supper is different. That's definitely a woman (Mary Magdalene) and not John the Beloved sitting at the table with the rest of the disciples. There's no mistaking her, and notice she's wearing clothes that match Jesus. After all she was his favourite disciple and not a whore as we're led to believe, it's quite right she should be at the last supper. And that hand that looks like it's cutting her throat is supposed to be a dire warning. A freemason gesture. The owner of the hand is said to be Saint Peter who, ( according to the Gnostic gospels) is said to have actually made threats towards her. I think he knew what he was doing when he painted that one.

[edit on 29-7-2007 by wigit]

FWIW:
The image links have been corrected.

So I see the links have been fixed.

Originally posted by Havalon
In 1501 he painted this picture of Madonna with the yarnwinder,

www.universalleonardo.org...

In 1510 he reworked the picture and came up with this version. Notice the valley is not too dissimilar to the one behind Mona Lisa (1503) and what is with the Alps behind the Madonna?

www.universalleonardo.org...

I don't see where your going with this one. Apparently there are more versions and one of them depicts a UFO

Of course NASA keeps that one in a private collection.

Then in I notice that between 1483 and 1486 he paints Virgin of the Rocks,

upload.wikimedia.org...

He then reworks between 1495 and 1508.

upload.wikimedia.org...

This time the child on the left has the cross (yarnwinder) and the angel is no longer pointing. He keeps the same geometry of the rock formations. (This must be important – notice the triangle toward the top right of the painting.)

Why would he change backgrounds in one and fore figures in another? Maybe it is not the Madonna but Mary Magdalene with JC’s child depicting that she moved from an arid desert region to the European alpine region.
The angel points west (if the top of the painting is north) in the 1483 Virgin of the Rocks.
I put this up to ask for your interpretations following on from the Templar thread. (It was that thread that got me going!)

That's a very interesting interpretation. As for Dan Brown though...

"In the popular novel The Da Vinci Code, written by the American novelist Dan Brown, it is claimed that the earlier Louvre version contained hidden symbolism which contradicted orthodox Christian belief, notably the fact that Jesus is shown praying to John rather than the other way round (the novel implies that the baby at the left must be Jesus rather than John, because he is with the Madonna). It is also claimed that the Virgin appears to be holding an invisible head and that Uriel appears to be "slicing the neck" with his finger. For this reason the painting was rejected by the Church, and a second, more orthodox, version was painted."

I like this one because of the invisible head being sliced at the neck...That's my sort of imagination...but I mean what was she going to do with that hand anyway? Crush Jesus' head as she collapses onto him?

Whatever Leo's paintings sure are interesting.


[edit on 29-7-2007 by surrender_dorothy]

I don't think that's an angel pointing in Virgin On The Rocks. I presume the mother and child on the right are John the Baptist and his mother.

Other than that, beats me.

Originally posted by Tuning Spork
I don't think that's an angel pointing in Virgin On The Rocks. I presume the mother and child on the right are John the Baptist and his mother.

Other than that, beats me.

Found this in a book I'm reading at the minute, regarding the virgin on the rocks - "The painting shows Mary with her arm around John, who is kneeling to Jesus, who's blessing him. Christ appears to be with the archangel Uriel, but there's something wrong here. Uriel is the traditional protector of John, not Jesus and obviously Mary should be holding her son. But suppose the children are with their usual guardians, everything suddenly makes sense and Leonardo's fervent Johannitism shines through once again. For it is then John (now properly with Urial) who is blessing Jesus (now with Mary,) who in turn kneels submissively." The book also mentions the phallus in the rocks as a dig at Mary's supposed virginity (to poke fun at the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception who commissioned the painting) and that Leonardo Da Vinci detested Jesus and his mother but adored John the Baptist

[edit on 29-7-2007 by wigit]

Sorry about the original links (thought I had it sussed! Wrong!) Thanks to 12m8keal2c for sorting it out for me, you are magic!

Okay! my interpretation of the Madonna and yarnwinder pics is, that I think Leonardo is telling us that Mary M and JC's child went on a voyage, here in pic one we see them down by the sea, the updated version shows them in another country, with snow covered mountains. If you look to the left of the second picture you should see a bridge, and on the Mona Lisa painting (by her left shoulder) there is a similar bridge.
The top yarn winder in pic 1 is almost hidden by the colour of the background, in pic 2 it is a very prominent cross against the backdrop of the mountain range behind.

Maybe Leonardo wanted to tell us that Mary M and child had fled to Europe, the second picture amongst the rock formation may tell which part of Europe.

[edit on 29-7-2007 by Havalon]

Interesting pictures - I hadn't seen the comparison before thanks...

the Yarn Winder is called a niddy noddy by the way

In the second group of pictures -- the baby on the left, I think, is John the Baptist since he has the staff (not a niddy noddy since there is no bottom cross arm) that you see in so many pictures of John the Baptist as an adult. So I would think that Jesus in that picture is the baby on the right doing the blessing.

Have you ever thought that he re-did the pictures because he was not happy with the originals. It looks to me that he was just improving his original art and may have been satisfied with his last effort. The third picture looks as if the angels head is not properly attached, so of course that would need fixing, the first and second look kind of plain so he decided to spruce them up.

[edit on 29-7-2007 by soulstealer2099]

Originally posted by soulstealer2099
Have you ever thought that he re-did the pictures because he was not happy with the originals. It looks to me that he was just improving his original art and may have been satisfied with his last effort. The third picture looks as if the angels head is not properly attached, so of course that would need fixing, the first and second look kind of plain so he decided to spruce them up.

[edit on 29-7-2007 by soulstealer2099]

That could well be SS2099, but the first and second pic he changes the whole landscape. In the third and fourth pic he sticks with the original landscape and rock formations. The guy was into geometry, maths etc, I'm no scholar and I can't do a reversal overlay (yet!) but perhaps some of the guys here can, It might be an interesting excersise!

i always thought leonardo da vinci was just an extremely talented gay artist from the 15th century.

i had no idea he was some sort of prophet with plans to hide symbolic messages about the "truth" of religion in his paintings. only to be discovered centuries later.

reply to post by Havalon



The angel is pointing to Jesus to "show" him to John the Baptist (and to the viewer, obviously, which is good because both boys are in their birthday suits ; )). The iconographical reasons for such a gesture here are really no mystery. (In a nutshell: it refers to John being Jesus' predecessor.)

The landscape in the background of the "Mona Lisa" (and other paintings featuring females) is traditionally - and rather sensibly (for a change!) - interpreted as a landscape archetypal of fertility, motherhood, hence also femininity (especially the vast bodies of water).
This is especially relevant because there are some valid reasons to think that the "Mona Lisa" may have been... his mother. (But this is no place to discuss it.)

The upward pointing finger - the most famous example in Leonardo's works being the "portrait" of Saint John the Baptist (as an adult) - is an interesting gesture which I started investigating myself years ago (for strictly art historical, not "conspiratorial" reasons ; )), but then got sidetracked by other projects (and "projects"). If I remember correctly, there is an interesting article in the Art Bulletin which mentions this gesture (don't remember the publication date: around 1990, I think.)

If I ever find out anything "conclusive", you'll be the first to know. ;-)









[edit on 29-3-2008 by Vanitas]