Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi Discussed by Alastair Sooke & Christie’s Specialists

you never won and welcome to Christie's I'd like to introduce the speakers for this afternoon we're honored to have an Isuzu will away from London do as they are critic and presenter we have one story under 48 from New York who's our head of old master paintings and we fuser who is our chairman of firm contemporary so before we start to talk I think someone going to be very interested to see a painting that we have on the stand gallery so without further ado I give you Leonardo da Vinci's Salvador mandible 3 2 1 what a tremendous piece of theater and thank you all very much indeed for coming as Alexandra mentioned I've flown over from London and my flight is due to go back tonight there is this typhoon and the only reason that I've been thinking if I have to stay over that'd be fantastic but I feel like the scene is very appropriate for Leonardo's towards the end of his life he of course famously claims in his drawings of known as the del use drawings for these wonderful apocalyptic scenes and so there's always this is the point I guess about him as an artist and as a man he created so much and there were so many different aspects to his endeavor there's always some relationship that you can find in the real world but today of course we're not talking so much about the dead news stories we're talking about this extraordinary work of art this painting probably dates from 1499 1500 I'm delighted to be joined by France every week before we get into the specifics of the picture I know that this is very sensitive but I wonder whether you can say anything at all about how this has come to be this is in Hong Kong because this is unbelievably rare so as an option when you think about arts like anyone who thinks about art if you're an artist if you're creator the number one artist comes into mind is the beach it's ground zero of art history this is where everything comes from every artist look at it every creator look at his art every option specialist they get as the benchmark the gold standard of art so it was you know getting at the beach she was always a question that I got from friends that I grew up with have you already seen it I mean she will you get it done in she and I would always answer it's impossible why is it impossible because at the time it was known that it was only 15 degrees and they would all be they were all in museums so it was like a question that it was just a question that would always come up we could always answer this is never gonna happen and then in 2005 we heard everybody heard it was this incredible news of the rediscovery of 16 painting by Leonardo da Vinci which was made international news immediately everybody talked about it and from that point on it was one in private hands all the others are museums all of them 14 of them are Europe and one of them in America so suddenly it was possibility that one day this painting would come an option fortunately is sold privately and I was lucky enough to know the owner of the painting and always kept an image of it in my office saying one day I would like to try to get this painting at all it's the ultimate and then the last few years I've been regularly calling the owner and said I think it would be a good moment I began ahead of time and then this year we were working out with a colleague of mine back in New York on an Andy Warhol after the bin she called a 60 lap supper which is reproductive work that he did after reproduction of the Last Supper and suddenly had we had this incredible late wall and I called the owner and I said if you want to ever want to do it it's time to do it because we have the perfect context so so basically he said okay you can come and see it so I come from so I said I cannot tell you what it is I just come on the plane with me on a secret location in Europe bodyguards everywhere security lasers I didn't want to tell him because he would not have controlled himself he would sell and then we arrived is pull this huge metallic door and there we see the painting it took him a few minutes before he understood what was going on I almost had to I have recovered yet it has at least it hasn't recovered and then this was the first time that we saw the picture in May and we had actually seen in the National Gallery in London where it was shown to the public for the first time so this is it there was an important exhibition wasn't 2011 I think in London 2011 this picture had been shown through first time the reason that it was in private hands is because this painting had had disappeared you might want to talk about the whole yeah I mean the story of its discovery and then coming to market but I mean it's an amazing anecdote you tell about taking France about to see it I mean you you you head up the almost a specialist division have you ever sold clean off a painting because there's new we've mentioned so few exists yes I mean works like do appear very rarely on the market and their drawings and and as we know is a incredibly prolific leonardo was holding and keeping notes was writing enormous amount and drawing in the Mosman of drawings probably three or four sheets the day so there are vast holdings of drawings and Queen's collections in the DNA Bill Gates has a whole codec he has of all codecs which bow for him and promote from Christie's in 1994 for about thirty million dollars and the biggest holdings of them all is in Diablo Tiana in Milan so drawings to appear in and we were surprised last year but recently a recent discovery in France in the portfolio just by sheer luck really specialists from another world can go on but his hands on another going by I don't know the Vinci created a huge huge stair as well as biggest you know this covering the faint him of course so yes joins do do a beyond the market and they are incredibly valuable but did you have any inkling that if the painting that Louie was taking me to see could possibly have been by Leonardo did he just dismiss he can be very secretive but he kept he kept the makers secret that I said I'm still as I said I'm still recovering from from the emotions because you know I've seen it in the National Gallery in 2011 and I remember thinking well what is this picture that everyone is talking about and I couldn't wait to see it and when I saw it and I soon realized that this picture was perfectly in its place on the wall it's not every every hour is he walks around he said I can't get over it I mean when it started this job like you know 15 years ago which is well before 2005 I was like you know we would've never guessed that it's just a painting whatever come to market it's the holy grail of all artists and say there's a holy grail about painting I think it's tempting to say I know new in your spare time you go spearfishing I mean this is landing the biggest one you like you know my concerns I guess yeah I have I like big fish on my way yeah there is something about this this job that you get a bit of an adrenaline rush when when you go after the biggest painting and everybody is I remember the story of one day that those run from those race stones still you have them here in Hong Kong but they they run after a rabbit a plastic rabbit and if they actually end up catching the rabbit is in front of them and if it end up catching it which is very rare because it's there if they go too fast or this is affected in the machinery and they catch the rabbit they will never run anymore you can because they realize it's not real there is something as I said this is the holy grail in our business so I have to say that if you wants to get a DaVinci you start wondering what's next you know so it's a big experience because you are my friends are saying but what are you gonna do next yeah before we get into the history and the specifics of the painting and again to do with the sale and it's so rare for Leonardo to come to auction how do you even begin going about setting an estimate that's the thing as the ad that says for this there is that produced Master cotton for the rest there is it's priceless you know this is a bit the same we this is completely priceless we pretend that we know how to price this work would be lying to you we we don't know usually when I was saying this is my calling usually when I if I take the Francis Bacon at auction we have an estimate of 60 to 80 million dollars we immediately have people calling the front desk and why are you selling painting for so much money this is so expensive and it's a scandal load and you know how dare you you know and and there is a contrary we have people calling the front desk every day saying they should be a 2 billion dollar painting 2 billion yeah so it's the first time it ever happens you know and so we we don't know we don't know how to price this has never been a painting of this importance ever adoption and I don't know we just decided that 100 million seen my girl because around number and this other was was an agreement with that had something agree with it but the value that there's no you know usually would be price a work of art there's always a comparable there's always a work similar that's sold before you have a system on the internet you can look at our prices and artnet and all that to compare there is just nothing to compare it with so in the end it's going to be worth what someone is ready to pay for it and that's that's always gonna say and we have to start somewhere so we and then the other the only way to really know what this picture is truly would it is to bring absorption so that the world can discover it or the world can assess it everyone that could be a competitor again can have it a good start of it and this is what this is creating because I think I remember speaking to the former of this picture when the picture with the painting was on the economics efficient at National Gallery and asking him what he felt he should have done with this painting instead of selling it privately he said you know ocean was always at the back of my life cocaine is the way that you will establish the rights and the right price for this and instigate the competition that it deserves but to come back to pricing it was interesting because as I said usually you if we said a bacon of Freud or Apollo you just look at other follows similar or how they sold it the size then it was nothing to compare to so we with my college when we're thinking about it we were comparing to a screen system you can buy a petrol chemical factory in Texas for the same price or you could or this soccer player that just over 270 to Neymar and then I know which one I'd rather have my colleagues like would you prefer to have an 8 mark of four or five years of this prime or a DaVinci for the rest of your life and for history you know so we were comparing it to other things out there and how this and then you know most people as you would say that many football play I prefer to have an America where people who talk about baseball players that were selling for the same price and everybody was any agreements that thing one of the last to be cheap but the last the Vinci 400 was actually perhaps a better deal I mean the other intriguing thing I think about the sale is that it's being positioned not in a specialist old master often and there's a sense I guess that all the old masters Leonardo is the one who more than any other has that blockbuster timeless quality timeless appeal I suppose I mean I wonder whether you could talk about the thing like you know yeah I think there's something incredible was the Vinci is that the Mona Lisa the Melissa was the first and ultimate viral image before internet before even before printed media this image was already viral he has incredible capacity of creating this mystery and this aura and no one can really put their finger on it which makes which makes everyone of this painting literally go viral and and there is something because it's not it's something when you look at the Mona Lisa and you turn away you can never really completely have it in your head you have to look at it again when you look at it again it's different than what you actually thought it would be and it's the same thing with this painting and we've now been living with it for a while because we have we consign the picture while a course was under complete secrecy and I've been going every day to look at it as it was our baby and every day and every hour it's a different painting and they interest it's not it's almost like a molecule which is unstable and this is what the Vinci knew or could create create images languages that were not fathomable by her brain we can't never factor them and because as a result they have this incredible aura and no DaVinci is actually comprehensible our brain just cannot be killed wrap our head around the same way that we cannot wrap our handle wrap around creation of the origins of the world it's a very very similar week I think that's an ugly image the unstable molecule to describe the way they're not his work functions but it might be worth taking a step back and thinking about how he gets there because you're talking about the works his real maturity the great works of genius like the Mona Lisa this probably dates around about 1500 for 2009 1500 and of course you know he was a man you know he seems superhuman and in many ways was but he did he was born somewhere he did have an apprenticeship he learns his training if you like and his style to begin with was slightly different and perhaps it's just worth we could look in this way now you compare the slide Francois which talks about the chronology of Leonardo's career we will take your very very briefly in here to there another's life and and chronology well what we need what we need - so Leonardo was born a nun Shannon which is a small village outside of Vinci which is a brother in the province of Tuscany outside of wedlock from a peasant woman and it has arena was there anything exactly and a notary of wealthy notary follower from Florence lived with his mother for about five years I think before he ended up in Vinci was his father and and his family there and then soon after his father secured for him he you know the place and their walkers - you are so the luckiest was the greatest artist in Florence at he's a sculpture he was a painter I mean it's what can I jump pictures I feel like it's maybe worth emphasizing what that artists are seeing the art market was lighting products at the time a stat that my not from red and I love is that this was a city where off was everywhere for people to see they were supposedly is about fifty thousand people the population of Florence at the time and the line is that there were more wood carvers than there were butchers which tells you a lot about a society how much it values are now Verrocchio's strikes me and you will know much more about this Amit but that he and he typifies and perhaps an older model of the artists assertive artists craftsmen who did a little bit of everything it's a young thing exactly that exactly he was a sculptor he was a carpenter there was a carpenter's office there there was they were working with metal it was a real Studios workings to you know lay another into that studio and learned over all these trades and was from parochial and he is believed live now the world there's a famous David in the bow Genoa in Florence he's believed to impose for for for the that sculpture so he was also a model at times young man which is such a tantalizing thing I mean part as well it might be worth mentioning that you know a principal source for our knowledge about Leonardo is the famous artist story of the father of our history Giorgio Vasari 16th century Italian obviously grows about lives of the artists expect Leonardo but in that you hear lots about his appearance saying that he was supposedly extremely good-looking very very strong you know I don't know whether we believe this but he could bend a a horseshoe with his own hands and had this kind of real feeling of grace the whole time but you find in the work so he took it took service to you as a storm Oh with Elysee and quickly started collaborating with with the master himself and and very soon and very soon service about he then entered as as he was apprenticed and and mature his work he then entered the Academy of st. Luke which is basically the blessing or as I said if you were allowed to see what joy exactly if you were an artist you were part of that and and he continued to work in various to you until he set up his own studio and started having his first commissions in in Florence do you have a slide of the famous picture where he and rocky almost side-by-side exactly what will just speak to this one very quickly and we'll flip back if you don't mind we are on the on the right hand side you have the baptism of Christ on and on the left are all the other right I'm saving all the other names okay Heather you forgive and you so this is the baptism of Christ which is a collaboration work really if it started by voq and they all give does the two figures here on the right hand side which sin John the Baptist and the Christ figure and on the left hand side and conspicuity for language on sanity and I think it's it's quite telling looking at this picture of seeing how how difference the two painters are already and in a way that various figures are still placed like there would be previously in a frieze next to each other without any interaction really where each other except for the fact that he is baptized in Christ these two angels are very close together and they form almost 1:1 shape one figure there's much more communications between them and it shows you how well now though it's already surpassing and advancing in himself into the you know the high Renaissance independent and the step ahead of where art was before he was before he came into work I know there's a payoff to the story which I don't want to stay like just before we do these with those angel because it's quite hard to see on the slide but if you imagine zooming in on those two faces it's the contrast between the way they've both been painted that is the clue to this new talent on the scene that Barack EO was so daunted by because the one let's just get this right who's on earth on the right as we look at the painting is looking back has this slightly pug-nosed face and you can tell perhaps that the coarseness there's a slight element of the studio apprentice the kid who was just around is probably the model for that but for that angel Leonardo's angel bow has a very different quality immediately you have this announcement almost of something quite otherworldly very very graceful and from the off not only in his physical appearance and dress but his the way he painted people always spoke about the way he injects into painting this is almost his revolution for art history a sense of this supernatural grace and angels as such always see another sides our key key parts of Leonardo's work and it's quite important to remember that too because often more recently the 20th century people have tried to miss a point made by the National Gallery exhibition in 2011 the people have tried to over secularize Leonardo say that he wasn't necessarily a practicing Christian and so on but actually look at the number of times he is painting Christian subjects and of course that's what we're going to find here Rocio I mean just to finish the story was looked at this and was so gobsmacked by what Leonardo had created and so sad in a sense that Leonardo had completely dropped him with his angel that he laid down his paintbrushes and never painted again probably slightly conventional sports exaggeration but it's a nice and that be daunting to drive you to the picture on the right we should just think we're going back to that sort of potted history the biography of Leonardo this is mid 1470s isn't it this is his first great portrait of a woman there yeah but you know it's slightly different to the monavie's so this is the only picture by they're not even in America this is another national gallery and it said make sure that as use a slightly different to his later style and this had mistakes you still it's not my house so much harder but you know Leonardo here represents a very noble woman called Geneva DaVinci and you know there's nothing by mistake and that what we see here is behind her his a bush of juniper which is a sort of pine tree which I lose directly to her her name's and is a terrific clue to actually describing who she was so for a long time this picture wasn't it remain remain indictment and identified until until they actually found the record of that particular person and an inventory and and and how and how they managed to match them up and real and name actually it's a very it's a fascinating story this was a picture that was bought by national out in the gallery in the 1960s and then to find it made an amazing it was it was the greatest sale of all times I think it's awful about five million dollars what was it boy success I think that's interesting because I think that was when the Mona Lisa went on tour around the world and famously drew enormous crowds and you have a sense I mean I understand yesterday two thousand people were queuing to see this exactly a sense of an international tour it's quite something you know that blockbuster appear that Leonardo is is sort of and it continued me it continued to be the biggest draw of of the National Gallery emotion is it is the centerpiece of the museum you will see a few people in front of it and it's the picture that they were one comes in admire was one of the things I was find fascinating think about him we're talking about him as a painter obviously this is this is a painting that Christie's will be selling but you know you go back to the 14 70s he did become a member of the guild the same Lutz but he didn't seem to be that ambitious as an artist he spent a long time with rocket before he set off by himself and eventually he does move to Milan and finds it becomes his patron is the future Duke of Milan a man called annuda because sports in the model or the mall and there's his fascinating document I don't know whether do may have a slide of it or not but where he absolutely heard this is fantastic here we are where he stood him he always present to see me doesn't exactly could do for the powerful figure in my lap and an embassy we essentially fascinating because describes all his skills you know there's normally to about not to me mathematics I mean he presents himself as a Renaissance man he's got he's got tremendous skills I mean he's that are completely diverse and and underneath their tongue where he's hiding the fact that he is also a very good painter and I think it is literally the last thing he talked I think I when I'm the painter by the way by the way would you think I mean I think is partly because he's picturing looking for work he talks specifically about his creating ingenious war machines and in many of the manuscripts the drawings that you were talking about Franz oh yeah we all know you all know them they're these strange things probably never even really built perhaps just fantasies but now to show you oh yes these creation of a tank it's almost like the dust coming up from behind I don't know whether that's supposed to be guns inside or has a cartoonish as though it's suddenly scooting off qualities captain he can actually inject so much dynamism even in his drawers he's obviously obsessed by Anatomy and there you can see this thing was rolling here on the left hand side on the right hand side and also he started an entire notebook a book of drawings and studying horses he supposedly kept horses himself and one of the really big things he did in Milan was a work that sadly was destroyed and has been lost but he persuaded Ludovico that he Leonardo could create an enormous and I mean colossal 24 foot high equestrian portrait of his father he was I think what francesco first you and of that family in milan and this must have compete with the horse that had been done by Donatello so I wasn't she and he which is now in Paulo this great Monument which is still in front of the Basilica Padova and this is there was a certain competitive aspect to this whole you know man and part of our being so close together and these two principal T's have had that competitive flow going on he never built the horse because there any male the motor he built the mother exactly but the the bronze that were selling a set-aside for for the horse ended up being used in cannons because in 1499 the Milan sort of the invasion of the French which the armies of Charles d8 I believe invading and the broad switch and views and transforming the horse never came into existence which which comes to yet another word that remained unfinished I wish I think I know that I cut in you were going to allude to that right back in the 14th 70s in Florence weren't you that very quickly you know because if you think about these different phases of his career he has the the Florentine apprenticeship he's born a days right outside of Florence he moved to Milan spent 17 years there which brings us up to the point of this painting and then you had the sort of last years of his life but very soon he builds that reputation for not actually finishing works of art right and that brings us to oh he's incredibly diverse in his interest as we just explained here he probably and that's speaking to to a restorer who studied this picture at great length he probably would think he probably picks up his brush maybe 15 20 30 minutes a day he was waiting for the perfect life probably at dusk or dawn and painted very very very slowly perfection he's a perfectionist he just is a settle because obsessive character would work in glazes and wouldn't let things by and and this is why I saw this picture such as the one I'm just going to be showing you right now right here which is a sincere old which is now in the Vatican have remained and that have remained unfinished there's another famous sort of earlier work which which he penned in Florence which is also a Venetian is today and do fitzy I mean he did you know on that theme there's a lovely story about supposedly when Leonardo is in Milan and he's working on the last son credibly famous work of art which was painted on the wall which well there we go this is a place in in a sort of religious house as it were where it was almost like an extension of the sport so that's the family of the Jeep's name his court he'd diner twice a week Leonardo was true to create this enormous mural and supposedly he would spend half his time working on that colossal equestrian monument and then he run across town just to one extra stroke on this mural and that was it and then just pause and look for a long time and then leave and he greatly irritated the prior of the convent and there are a number of people who he's working for patrons who find that quite frustrating including a pose where you might and eventually at the end of his life he finds a patron who will allow me whatever he wants which is the new French King that's the wind slightly jumpy head well we're jumping your head I think it's not a bad idea to jump ahead because we oughta be about this big yeah yes so huge season in Milan he'd been assistances and I just wanted to thank you well this is big the voice major patron you know because the previous slide is just worth pointing out that's the Dukes mistress exam on the right he was supposedly ugly as you can see in the painting which is international gallery show up in gorgeous Yonkers which is in cracker right now bull enters a famous picture she's all in a narrow Mane which is a symbol of purity as well and I think parts of this is thinking about portraits and works where we see faces part of the extraordinary strength of that painting is that unlike the tradition from say the previous century what you see is almost like a moment in real time there's a sense of psychology because if you look either twisting to the left as though someone possibly her lover the Duke has just arrived and so it creates an even more heightened sense I guess of reality doesn't it at the time he pitched this I mean his is in them he's in Milan and he has established a workshop and that's where he he starts working with several of his pupil named mikoto join or shall I or prof you so at that time he sees Greece it's such a big name in and he's then at that from this already favorite or remembers exactly but but he's already now inspired new and younger artists who who became very big favorites and great artists in the old right and of course it within leonardo scholarship a lot of debate is often surrounds particular works about whether it's in leonardo oryx one of his pupils you mentioned bolt ratioed famously and every picture has its complex history should we should we be talking about everywhere when we got to likewise say here we are yes Mona Lisa and I think we were just putting them together on one side because that you know these two as you were mentioning earlier these two pictures with pretty much painted at the same time he famously took the Mona Lisa with him to France which leads us to is the last and and asked at the end of his life he lived with it and left it in France when he died and and 1590 his lane his last patron was also on the first who gave him a castle to live in could fulfil you say next next to his his summer resident Imam was he was extremely extremely close to the king of the world dear dear friends and France was very young and really wants to import a brilliant Italian artists to his court and a bit like the week with bringing this painting to Christie's he did the same I think for the practical his snared is man and so he had a beautiful an unpaid wonderful end of life there we was a literally allowed to do what he pleased so he painted a bit he continued his drawings continued his writing and brought enormous lives through the course of the winter I think it also links back to something Louie was saying before about the way Leonardo uses foils and paints are these tremendously thin beautiful delicate veils of paints just tiny touches which are being built up because one of the fascinations permit knew it but thinking about Leonardo the end of his life when he's living in France completely away from everything he's known and essentially being paid just to be Leonardo designing you know pageants for the courts and skeptical masks things that were supposedly extraordinary parties lavish and sophisticated incredible but completely lost and obscure now history because no record survives and he kept in his studio a number of paintings including of course the Mona Lisa and just would carry on working and refining and refining very very subtly changing things in a very delicate fashion to the end and he was known for this style which you know I think we see here this is from Otto Smokey's style there's no sharp consoles everything is quite blurred his missus Tino you've only talked about the mysterious quality as well this technique is basically oh you can see her here around the neck and you have this this depth that is created with pity he would put hundreds and hundreds of layers of fine there was very little pigment so they would only be a few molecules combine some idea of pigment per layer which would create this death basically and when it creates its incredible transparency and it allowed him to create what we see here which you have the hand that isn't very much into focus because he knew about optics before we rediscovered about he was studying it and you see the hand is perfectly into focus and them in the face which is much more behind as this lesson focus and somehow somehow glory but that's not really the word because it's behind this cloudiness which also refers to the divine and the intangible I think in what I've read that if you look as we look at the picture that Christ's his left eye but to the right as we see it there's actually evidence that Leonardo was using the heel of his hand to not smudge that's a rather precision works too often the console which is precisely to create this otherworldly mysterious and this has been found exactly above his eyebrow and it's difficult to see with the naked eye but it is absolutely yeah see with the microscope when it wasn't eyes it was just describing in quite simple terms what we're looking at this figure this is Christ in a particular guys as Salvator Mundi which means Savior of the world and it's presented in the manner of a traditional icon religious icon where you have someone who's faced on frontal and it's our encounter with divinity quite often Christ would be depicted wearing reds here Leonardo's dressed him in blue using very expensive pigment created using lapis lazuli this exotic stones are nothing you find in the quarries of Afghanistan complex trade network brings it to Italy and if you first look at this you'd be forgiven for not realizing that it's Christ you know you think back to the early painting we're talking about with the Angels and you can see the golden halos there is no halo clear there's no minimus of lights that surrounds the head he holds this all which is an all of a material called a rock crystal very pure quartz but of course and warm in a sense is a symbol of kingship but there is clearly something here which is this is not and this is this is now subjective response for me you guys have been looking at this really closely you must say that yours is in a moment but I feel like this is one of the fleece supernatural otherworldly it's almost like this is a visitation from some other realm that's the effect that Leonardo creates so that we are brought for a moment face-to-face essentially with God the Son of God and I say that as someone who's not at all religious but this is line that I'm sure one of us was about to say at some point where people have compared the rarity of finding a new work by Leonardo to that of discovering a new planet and I think that's a really appropriate image for this because I feel he has almost this spaceman quality is coming from some other realm and other world altogether and Leonardo in doing that is almost elevating himself as the artist to the status of God in a sense the divinity of creation right yes if there's a you know he's witnessed well you know I thought this picture has also been called numerous occasion as the male model design you can squarely see the D relationship there was as the Mona Lisa is tangible representation of a female figure here in the figure of a sublet of money this is what little darling gives us for the male figure it's the Holy Spirit it's a picture you know that aspires protection I mean and a little now they're here I think you know as at the more we think about the another and all his other obsessions I think the others just showing off he is really showing off his skills at is understanding of anatomy you know in showing the way that the hand is working together you can really feel that he's understood of how her hand functions and the bone structure within their hand like no other artists really have grasped before and and hasn't really been equaled very well after and and and the play of life that you've seen the globe is yet again another word with another of his obsessions I mean you know on that theme of you know I mentioned Masari this lives of the artists this crucial source for Leonardo one lovely detail that Masaryk tells us that Leonardo was obsessed with there's a strange Strode effect now but and let's not let that distract us obsessed with hair with ringlets of hair and often in his paintings which you see here he's really relished painting all of this physics of glorious cascade of hair with his very subtle golden highlights twisting round which you know afterwards at there's a moment to inspect do have a closer look at that that sense of the mystery is that we talked about this tomato that smoky mysterious quality of technique but also just a simple thing I know this will sound a bit obvious perhaps at the hand it's not pointing so often in Leonardo's work you find figures who are pointing and they seem to be gesturing it at what at something almost unsolvable something enigmatic again this otherworldly quality about I feel here Christ's hand which is raised in blessing is almost gesturing upwards towards that celestial realm which is what we're supposed to feel menacing that we have and there's also something to say about the orb itself we spoke to the countless expert since we got kinda working and it's very interesting to when you see its Salvator Mundi the savior of the world this holding is or he's holding something round the sphere this was at a time before Copernicus before getting near where people still thought that the planet was flat and he the she knew they are not new that the world was round it was just not something you could say at a time but at the same time he's saying it without without saying and in his writing somewhere he he also understood that contrary to the common thought and the biblical thought the deep that the planets the Sun didn't actually go around the planet that there actually was a contrary that the planet went around the Sun somewhere he wrote the Sun doesn't move which meant they are which exactly meant whatever of what is actually happening this is by holding this this orb of course it has a religious symbol but it's also a celebration of science of geometry of authority and of enlightenment I mean I think it's worth it's very briefly saying on that because and this is one of the glories of any great artists is that there are often multiple layers of meaning and interpretation the material of your when you look at it up close under light you can see Leonardo's painted various specs and it's quite clear that it's meant to be this material I mentioned earlier very pure form of course but rock crystal the interesting one of the interesting things about rock crystal is that during the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance people had lost the technology of how to cut this very hard material they note about that in antiquity and the technology had been lost so the idea of being able to create flawless pristine sphere from rock crystal was a technical impossibility until I might forget maybe the sixteenth century when they rediscovered the technology but it's exactly what Louie in France were talking about Leonardo's his fascination in engineering in technology in science that's what that is an emblem of our entire universe this spirit liked our world but also these interests in optics and pristine forms and it feels utterly appropriate that that's what the Son of God I guess is is holding and in what aspect also would like to bring up is if you look through the garment on his dress which is this crisscross here and actually if you will have the opportunity to do look closer later it's an incredibly intricate garment it's an X it's a jigsaw of behind resolve it goes up and down in the way that it actually very very complex and and and that again is something that you know the person that just reflected upon this picture quite a bit and restored it brought to my attention that this is I think and then she posed and I think it makes perfect sense it's sort of an illusion to infinity and which I think works perfect the slide of these studies because there are drawings that relate to the painting in the Royal Collection on there exactly able to try and understand how how this picture because obviously before Leonardo paints a picture he he he did practice in some way his drawings are absolutely fence fascinating and here on the you you see the two drawings that he used and that are now in the Royal Collection that are exactly related to this this picture here so you can see the sleeve and the way that their hands is pointing and and the and the other drawing you see the garment and the understanding of the Falls so he it's probably an example of naturalism he really is paying close attention to the way the drapery works and fall Caesar and then Falls and also then there's the incredible MOT spasm the intricacy of the ornament of what Christ is wearing and again this is another Leonardo obsession he created this image of a sort of interleave and into woven or perfect to be massive knot which was a famous sort of work which some people but why are you wasting your time doing this but it's just the nature of his mind was that he was obsessed with so many different things in that sense as you say that it is trying to grapple understand infinities packing as much as possible into a relatively small space we also told I mean we have opted on the screen here we've heard the prince which stays from which was designed by a hauler and we states from the 1650s form and which actually brings us to another important point of this picture is the prognosis this picture this is a bit that was made when the big win win the South immunity was there all English collection and we believe that the picture was painted for King Louie the 12th and that by the senton ended up with Henrietta Maria and this is French royal family French the friendship of the royal family and when a tamale was worth 1625 to Charles the first talking secondly yeah and they believe that the depiction then made made the voyage with her or when she came to to England I believe there is documentary evidence from their own onwards we have documentary evidence of this picture for a story the last week I was in London we had our Christie's auction in London and we happen to have the nephew of the Queen that works at Christie's his name is Lord snow and I want search for the paintings so I said could I go on visit the archives of the Queen so we literally went to Buckingham Palace and he introduced me to the curator of the creator of the world collection and he said what are you here for Arjuna said I just want to know about dr. moonda yeah just wait a minute and he went into boxes and he pulled something Addison here we have it Salvator Mundi in the collection of the chart kings Charles first of England and when I was pretty incredible which was this quince yeah it's quite a story I think because we quite we're running short of time but doing what I mean is there anything else you were about to finish up there and some questions obviously never equals you know often imitated but never equal that thought it was interesting to show you a painting after Leonardo the inspiration that he has on generations of artists officer of his time and thereafter this is a this is a copy and probably the best copy that exists of our picture so this is how we knew all along because of the you know on graving and all these numerous copies we knew all along that this there was a missing Salvatore would be and by the other and the delight of the to this discover to do those fights which breezes all here and well let's shall we move on so if there are any questions I don't know whether we have a roving mic but please put up a hand and there is a mic there's a question down in the front so so you could just wait for a second for the bike to come thank you we are on a live video server from man in China and we have like over 10,000 people watching so the most frequently question I've heard it's been conservative for six years so what do you know about the conservation what's the most difficult part of the whole process I know the details wouldn't be like yeah so the reason this painting was rediscovered is that it had been over painted painted over and one of the explanations that some of the expert think is basically if you look at the painting it has its very feminine and it's possible at some point in time it was deemed too feminine too feminine and someone over painted it and had a mustache and a beard and all that it was it was almost a joke and that's why basically it disappeared and it was people thought it was just a vulgar copy of a copy and so when this picture got we discovered the person who saw it that the hand both has now been over painted and he saw this and he said this is not possible his hand is delivered by God and so basically they decided that they this person decided that they wanted to to investigate so they bought the painting and then the birth of his famous respirator and in New York who works on major paintings and they basically basically started painting the the over paint this of course you have to be very careful because you want to just take what you know the top layer which that was added and you have to go very very very slowly to be sure not to damage what's what's below the good thing is that painting that was done as painting it was done in 1500 and the pigment and the bindings was so bound together that is a pretty clear distinct distinction between the later layer of it came so it's pretty easy for a restaurateur to to make with Microsoft microscope to make a distinction of where to stop but even even though II think they mean technically it's a very very laborious bozo it was literally microns by microns by microns until he got because you don't get too technical about it but you know one thing often happens in the point of restoration and a conservative looking at picture its analyzed in various ways and there were it was put on the infrared was maybe a less amazing no disc defines exactly the picture will put on there for red and then the way variation was prepared and the pouncing that that you can and the outliers that were used to create this picture was worth this are visible in that infrared which has been incredibly interesting fine which are copies doesn't agree but also the defenders start we made for combat in the other I mean you what essentially what this reveal as I understand it let me if I'm wrong is that you can see traces of Leonardo rethinking the painting as is painting it so if you look at this and there's the thumb it was originally in a different position and at some point during its composition he changes that and something similar happens with the con the left palm that you see through the wall so as France was saying and this is crucial evidence and then you can equally you know in in the face of several changes which you which copyist wouldn't have never take the liberty to do I mean anyway we to go back to the restoration that was put on it you know sort of allowed to slip through the cracks and to be protected through through the years and and not being on the walls of the museum today we hope it will go in the museum and we're very happy that the museum didn't get it until now are there any other questions thank you figures because I see the sketch before that is actually I think it's actually not that centered cubic unit left one of the sketch show you there because I after I'm looking at it is it these pictures relating to some competent proportion or something because you can actually spread it you find to the prince I think the thing with the prince is that what is most likely is that Haller sees this painting at the English Court in the middle years of the 17th century and draws from it and then he creates this print later perhaps presented to Henrietta Maria the Queen so what's great about this are historically is that it's meant that prior to this discovery people have always suspected that Leonardo created a picture known as crisis Salvator Mundi because his direction of the print that means she gives you which means Leonardo da Vinci painted this so we know from that print that's that's what was most interesting in terms of evidence from that friends if you like to answer the question about the proportion and geometry I think unique has already spoken a little bit about that this is clearly a major fascination to Leonardo I personally haven't was looking at it trying to unravel that sort of sense of them you know perfect geometry i wouldn't surprise me in the least of it with a hair gonna fill me this book so there would be i actually asking you whether you have studied those my golden ratio between the composer heaven yeah the face we should have put a slide that that the golden ratio is definitely at work in this painting the face is all built according to the golden ratio of the hand from the from the bottom of the sleeve to the top fingers according to and the ball fits in a perfect golden ratio squaring it and again you can you can see it mathematically but it just when you look at it just for the parable things are not starting to place there is this is golden number really it really works I also feel that one of the appeals of the painting is that if you think of the leaving aside the science bit but think the tradition of religious icons they were often as I said earlier very very stiff and actually what you find here as a result of some of those other techniques of that smoky quality to the paint in the mystery is it feels from the moment you have an encounter with Christ as one of us as a human it has in this way that Mona Lisa was placed from its inception as being his wonderful example not to listen realism yeah but the difference here and I and again that's another expert who made that to me if you look at his eyes you can actually not do eye contact with him and there is a slight misalignment which was on purpose of the eyes and not exactly the same plane and that's that was actually maybe a trick for us to be an eye in a way which is you can't really this is not a portrait this is a presentation of the sublime the divine and he basically looks contrary to the Mona Lisa that he locks her her eyes into you this this the sizes your basically looks straight for you and you cannot really engage in eye contact with him and it's very interesting to see to see this a play here some questions at the back shall we if you maybe there's a couple of questions on the side and there's one right at the back if you very much I've got a question for every stroke I've been a big fan of yours since I'm a master of modern arts so I'd like to do is there any similarity and difference between your research a huge huge differences I guess there was if you like Leonardo epitomizes the tradition he's a founding father of the high Renaissance we all know that that tradition that he creates lasts this is a very broad brush forgive me but till the end of the 19th century and then you see almost you could call it like another renaissance with the discovery of modern art which personally I find phenomenally exciting I mean I love Matisse as an artist I mean some of my personal way into Leonardo's a subject as I made a program a few years ago specifically about Israel as an anatomist and the thing that was so fascinating there is I mean you talked about how that's informed by this time and he's made this he's already extremely well versed in and that he's drawn real skulls he's been cutting the skulls up but if he creates in his drawings in his notebooks a system of representing something utterly complicated which at the time would have been extremely difficult to get to grips with actually you know and that's why some bodies for so long without wanted to go through that and he also starts to anticipate things that medical science would take centuries to catch up with famously there's a discovery about the heart where he works out the flow of blood through the heart will have a particular effect of closing an aortic valve which I think I'm I'm saying did not was not found again until the 20th century so that's not the kind of research you find good on remittance he certainly wasn't interested in that and I find you know that documentary side with Leah not have seen the breadth and scope of his interest is the original remains madness what's so inspiring about Henry yes well hang on wait a second just for that but I also mentioned do you find some similarity between these two masters when you do research between items off the top of my head I've never particularly thoughts myself Matisse and Leonardo have strong in correspondence and as you can see it's not me desperately thinking to contact I'm sure at this moment Louie is about to jump in and say yes yes I think maybe it's partly a sense of their attitudes you know Matisse was known as the wild beast now Leonardo was because he was you know so fiercely dogged he could like committed to creativity Leonardo was not that he was a peacock clothes was something of a dandy extremely graceful or both it was supposedly very strong but I think when you find true geniuses you find people who are not compelled to be confined here is the connection famous story about Leonardo supposedly he would go around in the streets of Florence and find people selling caged birds and he would buy the birds and open the cage and release them because he was so in sync with freedom if you like and Matisse himself found he collected birds which in that sense is the opposite but he found in birds a real sense of freedom for his own art and he find in the late great cutouts this soaring flop flying sort of maybe we have time for one more question which I think thank you very much for coming to us today on the type of day I guess my question is regarding the color because we can tell them that Prentiss usually in my belief I think Jesus wears a blue mantle with a red tunic inside so what was really interesting to me is that he's this Jesus is in blue so I'm wondering how that comment or is that an artistic choice no just the fact that the background was black I think that's all you do see the coach come on it you know the blue exactly the blue color here it indicates that you the patron of this of this painting was a very very wealthy man because there's a lot of lapis lazuli here which is an incredibly incredibly expensive pigment appropriately son of God yeah most of the copies of his painting work being red because as we highlighted in the slide here the artist didn't have access to the grouping which are the plan was barracks and many of them here we are is it it's very very little blue there instead of is it the case that the darkness of the background actually helps to date it as well one noticeable thing when he goes to Milan we saw some of the paintings before you see that dark background behind the mistress you know in Milan particularly likes painting on walnuts as the support that's the panel and this is on this long art so it makes people thinking dates from that period that 40 probably the end of his time in the lab you know thinking that he probably painted it over a long course of time hi hello hi I'm we're Koba social and online platform we're also doing Facebook live and we push we don't we're not as big as the the China media but anyways we have a question from our editorial team and the question is is Europe or the world psychologically ready if such an important piece of art history remains in Asia we would be thrilled we European and I think Leonardo will be thrilled to be in Asia Leonardo at a time was extremely interested by the thinking of the of the East and the advance in science and in geometry he was looking at what thinking from the art world from from Far East Asia from every every thinking that was coming to them the the trade routes and the simple world was not only it was not only materials and it was also ideas and he was very much into that so he got a lot of inspiration his eyes was very much trying to work so to answer your question I think to be you would be happy to see evading this part of the work that's probably a very appropriate place to end so thank you for sharing this with us today [Applause]

Channel: CoBo

Views: 76,240

Keywords: Leonardo da Vinci, 達文西, Christie's, Alastair Sooke

Id: 9NeLMJfQpK8

Length: 63min 30sec (3810 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2017