Читать книгу The da Vinci Legacy - Jean-Pierre Isbouts - Страница 18

The crucial role of Leonardo’s drawings in the continued development of his Leonardeschi, both during and after his lifetime, is vividly illustrated by a mysterious project from this period, known as Leda and the Swan. The original story is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This Roman author tells us how the Greek god Zeus fell in love with the beautiful Leda, wife of King Tyndareus of Sparta. Zeus, in the guise of a swan, proceeded to seduce her. As a result of this encounter as well as marital congress with her spouse, Leda conceived and bore two sets of twins, each delivered in an eggshell. Helen and Polydeuces were the children of Zeus, while Castor and Clytemnestra were the children of her husband Tyndareus.

It was obviously a risqué subject. It’s therefore not surprising that during the quattrocento, several artists played with the theme, but hesitated to develop it into a full-blown painting. All such scruples disappeared in the 16th century. The story of Leda and the swan became a highly popular motif, possibly because it enabled artists such as Antonio Allegri da Correggio and Michelangelo to depict the passion of human intercourse, with the swan as a proxy.

Leonardo’s first exploratory drawings for this theme date from around 1503 and 1504, during the contemplative hiatus in Florence. An early attempt, now in Windsor, is sketched on the same paper as a rearing horse that appears to be related to the composition of the Battle of Anghiari. Leda kneels in classic contrapposto position, her torso turned away from the infants crawling next to her.

This “kneeling Leda” concept was further developed in several drawings. One, now in the Devonshire Collection in Chatsworth House, includes Leda’s suitor Zeus in his swan disguise. In this more articulated composition, the nude Leda kneels next to her newborn children on her right, while the swan kisses her tenderly on her neck at her left.

A later version, possibly executed in Milan and now in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, shows a variation on this theme. Leda is still kneeling toward her children, but her head is now turned toward the swan while her left hand caresses its neck—thus restoring some of the charged passion of the story. This composition formed the basis for a painting by one of Leonardo’s foremost Leonardeschi, Giampietrino. It was possibly begun around 1506 or 1507, and now is held in Kassel, Germany.

Leonardo da Vinci, Study for Leda and the Swan, ca. 1503–1504

Of all of the Leonardeschi, Giampietrino’s is perhaps the most consistent and recognizable style, deeply beholden to Leonardo, particularly in the execution of atmosphere and emotional expression. This is also true of his full-length painting of the Nymph Egeria, now in the Brivio-Sforza collection in Milan, which appears to portray the same model who sat for the Kassel Leda and the Swan. On this basis, some historians have argued that the Kassel painting should be dated around 1510.

Giampietrino, Leda and the Swan, ca. 1506–1510

In the meantime, however, Leonardo had developed a second approach to the Leda motif. In this final and most satisfactory solution, Leda stands in a classic contrapposto pose. While her torso is turned toward the libidinous swan, her voluptuous thighs face the beholder, and her gaze is turned the other way, toward the four infants scrambling out of their broken eggshells. This “standing Leda” version probably dates from 1504, when Raphael briefly joined Leonardo’s studio, for we have a drawing by the younger artist that closely follows this composition.

Raphael, Study for Leda and the Swan after Leonardo, ca. 1504

For many years now, scholars have energetically debated whether Leonardo actually executed a painting based on this composition, or whether it was left to his studio associates to translate the drawing or perhaps a more finished cartoon into a panel. The consensus today appears to favor the idea that Leonardo did execute a finished painting—his only portrait of a full-length female nude. This is also suggested by the famous study of Leda’s hair, dated around 1505 and 1506, which indicates that Leonardo’s ideas for the painting were far advanced at that time. Additional evidence may be found in a 1590 report by the Italian artist and author Gian Paolo Lomazzo, who saw a Leda and the Swan in the royal collection at Fontainebleau. Another observer, the 17th-century scholar Cassiano dal Pozzo, saw this work some thirty years later, describing it as:

A standing figure of Leda almost entirely naked, with the swan at her and two eggs, from whose broken shells come forth four babies. This work, although somewhat dry in style, is exquisitely finished, especially in the woman’s breast; and for the rest of the landscape and the plant life are rendered with the greatest diligence. Unfortunately, the picture is in a bad state because it is done on three long panels which have split apart and broken off a certain amount of paint.21

Leonardo da Vinci, Study for Leda and the Swan, ca. 1505–1506

This work then reappears in inventories of Fontainebleau, dated 1692 and 1694, only to vanish after that date. One theory suggests that it was burned on orders of the Marquise de Maintenon, the second wife of Louis XIV, a deeply pious woman who despised all forms of overt eroticism. The Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni, who visited Versailles in 1775, confirmed that the Leda was no longer on display, but also noted that the work was not included on a list of paintings that the Marquise had reportedly ordered destroyed.

Cesare da Sesto, Leda and the Swan after Leonardo, 1508–1510

That the painting was once highly popular is unquestionably true. At least five Leonardeschi painted copies of the Leda, all after 1510, which suggests that the original must have been completed at that time.

Francesco Melzi, Leda and the Swan after Leonardo (the Spiridon Leda), ca. 1508–1515

What is so remarkable about these copies is that none of the background vistas are alike. Leda is alternatively positioned in front of a rock-like formation near a lake, or against a Flemish panorama of deep, rolling fields, or framed by a landscape dotted with homes and castles perched on a hill. This would argue in favor of the idea that Leonardo never finished a painted version with a background in place—quite in contrast to the attention he lavished on the backgrounds of his paintings from around 1506 onward.

Of all these copies, the version by Melzi, the so-called Spiridon Leda, appears to be the most accomplished, and perhaps closest to Leonardo’s original, if indeed there was one. For example, the treatment of Leda’s hair closely resembles Leonardo’s drawing in Windsor. The vegetation in the foreground is executed with meticulous precision, as is the sfumato texture of Leda’s skin, in marked contrast to the copy by Cesare da Sesto, where the plants and trees are a mere afterthought, obviously depicted with little interest. In the copy painted by Il Sodoma, the variations from the original theme are even more striking. Instead of four infants in their eggshells, we now see two children of toddler age, with a village and several figures in the distance. Taken together, these versions display a remarkable homogeneity when it comes to the nude figure of Leda herself, while almost everything else appears to be subject to the invention of the artist.