 |
La Belle Ferroniere
ca. 1490 |
One of those trailing teaching from Carl Marx that still haunts me is the lesson of seeing objects of creation and ideas in their historical context. I tend to look at Art in chronological order. It allows you to see the genius of the past, and lets you comprehend and live the genius of the present. After 3 days of non-stop art, I came across the first real painting, the first one that breaths.
I had never felt anything from this painting before. I always admired Leonardo Da Vinci. It is one of the first biographies I ever read, but for me he was always the inventor with a pencil, not an artist. La Madonna of the rocks is an amazing jump in proportion and study of the human body. It takes a curious person to see and recognize patterns in the human body that nobody had dared for centuries. In a time when the human body was off limits, it takes the simple sincerity of truth enlightening you of your small human consequence for you to focus in the mundane of the human body and make it profound by perfecting it.
I knew La Mona Lisa was ahead overcrowded by a mass of followers of all races and nationalities like the welcoming of the Queen of Earth. Many of the followers were almost as much about the Da Vinci Code as about facing the enigmatic Madonna. I looked along the hall at those amazing quattrocento paintings and everything I had seen previously killing time.
I made myself see the least known works postponing facing the crowds for as long as I could. The Madonnas, the amazing rubbery babies and their postures while the Madonnas gesture to pick them up. But it is not really for me. I have never felt the passion for these paintings, only the admiration of the technical master.
And I come across La Belle Ferroniere. Subtle. Quiet. She is walking away not even interested in my presence. Look deep into her eyes, and you realize she is really not looking at you. The same way La Mona Lisa hides her true feelings, La Belle Ferroniere looks away without telling you. Every other painting so far is immersed in some story, or looks straight into the camera to be admired. She glances over to my right completely ignoring me. Every other painting up to this point is a pose for the observer. This is the master that after giving life to its creation, his piece doesn't need the viewer anymore. This is the first offering of a true dialog with the admirer, and she does it by pushing him away.
I hadn't felt like this in so long. Where has she been all these years. It is the discovery of a new painting that you didn't know or that you knew but you had never actually looked at or understood. Here is a painting I have never paid so much attention to and when I am in front of her, she pays me back by looking away. She pays me back for all those years of disinterest. She ignores me like a teenage love. She knows my presence, and she is not posing for me like every other piece of Art. She doesn't need to. The rest were created to be seen. This one was created to be herself. She is so aware of her own life that she chooses herself again and walks deeper back into her world without hesitation about where she belongs.
I kind of felt like asking where has she been hiding. Why? How could she? How can someone top this feeling of awe?
But Da Vinci is not done. I realize I am 3 feet away from the original. Given it is not that famous, it doesn't have the heavy security and the long corridors protecting her. I look to the sides looking if someone is witnessing the same thing, but I am alone...with her, and I feel I have just become another of her guardians. This makes my discovery more overwhelming. Nobody signaled me she was special. She found me. It is a woman brought to life by her master and only to him she belongs. I am standing in the same position Leonardo Da Vinci would have stood while painting on the canvas over 500 years ago. I can see his age, his beard, his brushes almost interlinked with his long hair, the mess of his mind invading my surroundings. I can see the curse of not being able to complete his works finding excuses to move on to something else. It all disappears, and all is left are her eyes containing what only she has seen. Five hundred years ago, Leonardo Da Vinci stood where I was in front of her and blew his final stroke breathing life and she went on to live walking away from me.
The Master of "the Presence" is Vermeer. You can step into the scene. His paintings are in a constant dialog with the viewer from the moment his eyes fall upon the canvas. It is not a discovery; it is a mutual recognition from both sides. Vermeer produced this masterpiece on 1665.
Da Vinci painted La Belle Ferroniere in 1490 almost 200 years before Vermeer. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Da Vinci ends to be science. He is simpler. He is creation itself.
