SPEAKER 1: We're standing in
front of an unfinished painting by Leonardo da Vinci. It's a big painting. And interestingly, it's
almost a perfect square. SPEAKER 2: It's
really unfinished. It's not just that it has
parts that are unfinished, but it's really just
the underpainting. SPEAKER 1: This is The
Adoration of the Magi, a moment in the Christian story
when Christ has been born and three kings from
the east, guided by the star of Bethlehem,
come to Mary and offer Christ three gifts, frankincense,
myrrh, and gold. What's revealed to us here is
Leonardo's working method-- not only his brilliant
drawing, but the way in which he constructs figures. Remember that Leonardo is first
and foremost not a painter. He's really a scientist. He's really an engineer. He's somebody who looks
and understands nature. SPEAKER 2: We have a sense of
Leonardo's deep understanding of human anatomy. Even when he's painting
clothed figures, he's really understanding
the skeletal structure. He's understanding the
musculature of the body. SPEAKER 1: If you look
at the group of figures to the right, about
mid-level, you see one figure that almost
looks like it's a skull. And it's as if
Leonardo is literally constructing the bones
before he'll put flesh on them, before he'll
put clothes on them, before he'll add color. That's a group of
figures that's often referred to as the philosophers. But maybe we should discuss
the central group first. SPEAKER 2: So we have
Mary and the Christ child front and center, forming
a pyramid shape together with the Magi in front. And that's a shape
that we see very often in paintings of the
High Renaissance that provide a stable form. And you see that right
here in the foreground with Mary and Christ. SPEAKER 1: That's especially
important in this painting, which is so chaotic, where
there's so much going on. On the upper right,
for instance, there's actually a battle. You have two horses rearing up. On the upper left,
you have the fragments of what look like some sort
of classical architecture. You can see these
wonderful steps in perfect linear perspective. Leonardo actually did
some brilliant drawings in preparation
for this painting. But let's look a little more
closely at what you just said, and see if we can define
those lines a little more exactly. If you start with the Virgin
Mary and you look at her face, she's glancing across the top
of her son's head, down his arm. He picks up, actually, her
glance and brings our eye down until it's met by one of the
Magi who's offering a gift. We can actually run that
line down past his toes to the corner of the painting. Or we can actually
pick up from Mary again and go the other way. If we go down the bridge of
her nose, across her shoulder, picked up by the kneeling figure
in the foreground at the left. What's interesting, as you said,
this is not simply a triangle. But this is a pyramid that
actually comes forward as it moves down. SPEAKER 2: --and
exists in space. I'm struck by the way that
Leonardo is paying attention to all of these human
reactions to what's going on. And we've got lots
of faces half hidden in the darkness and
a lot of gestures. And it really reminds me, in a
way, of Leonardo's Last Supper, where you have Christ
in the middle forming a kind of pyramid shape
with his outstretched arms. And all the chaos,
and the reactions of the apostles around him, but
this real sense of stability in the center. SPEAKER 1: That's such a
characteristic of the High Renaissance-- this
notion of balance, of a kind of perfection,
of a sense of the eternal. But then, of course, how
do we as humans, react? There's another
element here, which is important and very
characteristic of Leonardo. And even though this is
just the underpainting, we can make it out. And that's this
technique of sfumato, which in Italian is smoke. And it tends to create
a kind of visual glue that creates a kind of harmony
between forms within the paint, brings things together,
and keeps paintings from having that
sense of the isolated, so much a characteristic
of the early Renaissance. SPEAKER 2: Right, so instead of
figures being defined by lines, the figures are enveloped in
atmospheric [? haziness ?] or softness, that
kind of smokiness. And they almost seem to emerge
out of the darkness into light and fade back into
the darkness again. And so Leonardo's unifying the
figures in yet another way. Not only in the
pyramid composition and through their
glances and gestures, but also into that
smoky atmosphere. SPEAKER 1: We see this
beautiful chiaroscuro, this beautiful smoke,
this beautiful line, this beautiful composition,
this complex sense of emotion. I'd love to know what
this painting would have looked like had
it been finished. SPEAKER 2: Me too.