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Virgin of the Rocks

Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin of the Rocks, c. 1491-1508, oil on panel, 189.5 x 120 cm (The National Gallery, London). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

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  • leaf green style avatar for user John
    Why is the angel portrayed as female? Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, and even Lucifer all seem to be more masculine in nature.
    (9 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user kun.jeremy
    Why don't they mention the main difference between the two versions, the archangel's finger? Combining with Mary's hand it looks like they're miming a beheading.
    (15 votes)
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  • leaf blue style avatar for user Lying_Ahull
    Just look at the wings of the angel. Da Vinci did not want to highlight the wings. Why did he did not wan't to show that it was an angel..
    (4 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user valerie
    How are rocks formed?
    (4 votes)
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    • male robot donald style avatar for user Brian Varela
      Igneous rocks are formed when melted rock cools and solidifies. Melted rock may come in the form of magma, when it is found underneath the Earth’s surface. It can also come in the form of lava, when it is released unto the Earth’s surface during a volcanic eruption. Some examples of igneous rocks are granite, scoria, pumice, and obsidian.

      Pumice, for instance, is formed when lava made up of melted rock, water, and trapped gas is ejected from a volcano during a violent eruption. As the ejected material undergoes very rapid cooling and depressurization, some of the trapped gas escape, leaving holes and gas bubbles on the solidified material.

      Sedimentary rocks start forming when soil and other materials on the Earth’s surface are eroded and finally settle down, forming one layer of sediments. As time passes, more and more materials get eroded and settle on the older layers. Thus, layer upon layer is formed. The lower layers undergo intense pressure due to the weight of the upper layers, eventually evolving into rocks.
      Some examples of sedimentary rocks are sandstone, limestone, shale, conglomerate, and gypsum.
      Sandstone, for instance, is a result of depositions of sand from beaches and rivers. You can find them mostly in deltas, since this is where the rivers flow into the ocean.

      Metamorphic rocks are actually products of rocks that have undergone changes. Thus, a metamorphic rock may have originally been an igneous, sedimentary, or even another metamorphic rock.
      The changes occur when the original rocks are subjected to extreme heat and pressure beneath the Earth’s surface. They may also occur when the the original rocks are caught in the middle of two colliding tectonic boundaries.
      Some examples of metamorphic rocks are marble, slate, schist and gneiss.
      (3 votes)
  • male robot hal style avatar for user Shayan
    why is it called the virgin of the rocks?
    (3 votes)
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  • male robot hal style avatar for user 施志雄
    Why is John the Baptist included in so many paintings with the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus?
    (3 votes)
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  • male robot hal style avatar for user Kingdom of Neph
    I'm not Christian so is Virgin Mary an angel? With the gold ring on top.
    (2 votes)
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    • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user michelle
      In Christian art of the middle ages it was customary to paint holy figures with a gold ring or disk around their heads. This way the viewer would immediately know the person painted was holy and very respected.

      In Christianity the virgin Mary is said to be the mother of Jesus. She was a virgin when one day an angel came and said she will have a son. Her son will be the son of God and saviour of men. That's why paintings of her and the baby Jesus are very common in and important in Christian art.
      (3 votes)
  • leafers ultimate style avatar for user Hana
    it says it is the second virgin.
    isn't it version?
    (2 votes)
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  • leaf green style avatar for user Qrious
    At , how can one tell it's John the Baptist to our left and Christ to our right?
    (2 votes)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user ReidThePlumber
      John the baptist is often shown pointing at Christ or a lamb and often portrayed carrying a long thin crudely made cross. In this painting John's whole body is pointed towards Jesus as he prays to him.

      Fun bible fact: Mary and John the baptist Mother knew each other.
      Luke -55 talks about how both the virgin Mary and Elizabeth the mother of John the baptist knew each other. The Angel may be there to witness or testify of the event. An angel also came to speak with Mary and also to Zacharias the husband of Elizabeth before either had even conceived a child. An angel again came to Mary after Jesus was born.
      (3 votes)
  • female robot ada style avatar for user bella K. Duncan
    who is leonardos asisitant?
    (2 votes)
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Video transcript

(jazzy piano music) - [Man] We're in the National Gallery in London, and we're looking at the second version, by Leonardo da Vinci, of The Virgin of the Rocks. - [Woman] There's another version in Paris. This, they think, is the second version, perhaps some of it completed by Leonardo's assistants, and we should remember when we read that, that that's how artists worked - That was normal - Right - That was normal - It's not a big deal, they had a workshop, they had assistants, assistants sometimes helped to complete the work of a painting and the idea, of course, is that the work of a painting is really not the actual painting, but it's also the idea. - Especially important for Leonardo. So, why is it that there are two versions, and why such a long period for this painting. It was started in 1491, it wasn't finished until 1508, and you can actually argue that it was never finished. - The commission was started and Leonardo was promised a bonus when he completed it, but the bonus that he got didn't live up to what he expected, and he - He sold it to somebody else - He apparently gave the painting to someone else, and then he had to work on a second version, and that's what this is. The Virgin of the Rocks is an interesting subject, cuz, for me, I normally think about Mary seated on a throne in Heaven. Here we have another way of presenting Mary, which is Mary seated on the ground, as a type of image of Mary called the Madonna of Humility, showing Mary's humility, seated on the ground. - Also means that the natural world has become a kind of throne, or is it more exalted than it would have previously been understood, in other words, I think in the Renaissance, nature itself is given a kind of respect and a kind of attention. But that's quite a landscape, this is not just a meadow, as we might see in a Rafael. - Right - So maybe we should actually just focus for a moment on who everybody is and what's going on here. We have the Virgin Mary who's the primary figure and really functions at the top of that pyramid of figures. She's embracing with her right arm a child, a baby, the slightly larger of the two, slightly older of the two, and that would be John the Baptist, who in turn is praying to the figure that is in turn blessing him, and that is the Christ Child, and then over to the right is an archangel. - And we can barely make out her wings behind her. Mary's gestures and the position of her body are incredibly graceful, she tilts her head to the right, kind of shifts her shoulders over, her hips move in the other direction, the way the right arm reaches out, the left hand comes forward, the position of her body is very complex, and to me that's really the signal we're in the High Renaissance, and of course that's what Leonardo develops, is this new, High Renaissance style where we have bodies that move very gracefully in very complex ways, and compositions which are unified, as you said, this one, where all the figures make up the shape of a pyramid. - It's interesting, as I'm looking at it, it seems as if Mary's hand on John's shoulder is actually a fairly stern one. Almost as if she's directing John to Christ. And look at the painting virtuosity here, look at the way in which her other hand, her left hand, is foreshortened. It seems to sort of encapsulate the space that Christ exists in, but is in no way directing him. And then, of course, there's that angel, which looks on with a kind of beauty and a king of elegance that is breath taking. - That speaks of the divine and this heavenly space that they occupy. And you're right, if you think about it, the way you just described it, which is that Mary's sort of ushering John toward Christ and Christ existing in a space unto himself, in a kind of extra divine realm within this divine realm. It really helps to make sense of those gestures. - And remember that, in the foreground, is a very still body of water, which can have a kind of double reference, both to Mary's purity, that undisturbed water, but at the same time, a kind of foreshadowing of the baptism of Christ by John, many years later, and of course this is an apocryphal story of their meeting as they both flee the Massacre of the Innocents. - And we know that this was commissioned by the - Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. - In Milan - And that may have a sort of secondary set of references referring to her purity again, and the way in which this painting seems to really emphasize that. You've got the purity of the water, you've got the protected garden, all metaphors, and then you've got that flash of yellow across her waist which really draws attention, and the fact that all of these figures, and their faces, and their arms are all surrounding that almost sort of oddly empty central space. - And sort of revolve around - Absolutely. - That space of her womb. - The atmospheric perspective is gorgeous. - Well and the darkness of the painting is striking, especially as you look around at other Renaissance paintings, and this is a technique that Leonardo developed called sfumato, which means a kind of smoky haziness, where figures seem to emerge from the darkness of the background, and they don't have any of those hard lines around them, and I think this is also part of that High Renaissance softness and grace. - There's a kind of accuracy to the anatomy of the figures, to the botanical specimens, and even to the geology here that I think also reminds us that Leonardo was not just a painter, but was somebody who understood the natural world, was fascinated, and studied the natural world, and painting was one part of that series of professions. - Leonardo took that to an extreme, but that was also true of so many Renaissance artists that interested in anatomy and science. Although, Leonardo is the quintessential Renaissance man. (jazzy piano music)