Leonardo’s Skull Rocks
Top: Detail of Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks (1483-6), Paris
Bottom: Detail of human skull inscribed by a phrenologist, 19th century (Photo by Eszter Blahak)
Art is visual which means, contrary to a lot of theoretical discourse, so are its secrets. And if you train your eyes to search for similarity rather than difference, you'll be amazed at what you can discover.
Few paintings have been analyzed as much as Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks in Paris but no art historian, to my knowledge, has ever noted that the cave is a visual metaphor for the antiquity of the human mind and, in particular, the artist's. Here in a scene that has never been recognized as such, Leonardo's Virgin sits inside his mind as a symbol of spiritual purity, divine contact and creative force. She has, metaphorically speaking, produced this immaculate conception in Leonardo's mind (or skull), Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks!
For the full analysis on EPPH, see Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks (1483-6).
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Reader Comments
You take the very top of this painting of the detail of Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks. Let’s just say and stay in all the sky area that is above the rocks. Now I want you all to imagine that Leonardo face is hiding in there someplace in just the sky. Search until you find one little one, and when you do, just move your eyes a little to the left until you find another small one. Then move a little further to the left or to the right and even up or down until you find other ones. then these clusters of small faces formed themselves into larger ones of the artists. You start looking more closely and you find that he is all throughout the complete sky. Now you are starting to see the way the artist seen it and how it help them in continuing to create their great compositions.
Cheers
vanrijngo
Bob Miller
09 Oct 2016