Da Vinci, close-up and almost complete, in London show

By Anna Tomforde Nov 9, 2011, 12:50 GMT

London - A landmark exhibition bringing together most of the surviving paintings of Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci opened at London's National Gallery on Wednesday.

The blockbuster show, Leonardo Da Vinci, Painter at the Court of Milan, is hailed by the gallery as a unique chance to see the rare works all in one place and to 'feel and see' the paintings.

'Something of this kind has never been seen before and will probably not be seen again,' said curator Luke Syson.

It took the National Gallery five years of painstaking work to bring the nine paintings lent to the gallery from over 30 institutions and collections to London.

Altogether, some 15 oil paintings of the 15th century master are thought to have survived, the most famous among them being the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris.

The London exhibition, which opened Wednesday, differs from previous shows in that it looks at da Vinci's aims and ambitions as a painter, rather than his talent as an inventor, scientist and draughtsman.

'He took up painting and turned it into something of a kind never seen before. He transformed painting forever,' said Syson.

Da Vinci's work from his Milan period represented 'everything that was visible and invisible in the universe,' he added.

The exhibition aims to shows how da Vinci's art developed from 'being a mirror of nature to something able to depict the invisible.'

The show has been hailed as the 'most complete display' of da Vinci's paintings ever seen. The London Times newspaper called it as being amongst the 'most sensational shows of our century.'

Out of the nine paintings on show, seven have never been seen before in Britain. They are flanked by more than 60 of the famous da Vinci drawings, sketches and studies, as well as some paintings by his pupils.

Loans have come mainly from the Louvre in Paris, but also from the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Vatican and the Ambrosiana in Milan, among others.

The highlight of the exhibition is The Lady With an Ermine which, loaned by the Czartoryski Foundation in Cracow, Poland, recently proved a resounding hit at a leading Renaissance exhibition at the Bode Museum in Berlin.

The London exhibition includes da Vinci's breathtaking Madonna Litta from the Hermitage Museum and two versions of The Virgin of the Rocks, which are being shown together for the first time.

The National Gallery's own later version, which it bought in 1880, is juxtaposed with the first, loaned by the Louvre.

Da Vinci's preparatory drawings for The Last Supper are also on display, together with the earliest-known full-scale copy of The Last Supper, painted by one of his students.

About a third of the loans made for the exhibition are drawings from a collection owned by Queen Elizabeth II. 'Their generosity in lending has made this whole exhibition possible,' said Syson.

With attendance predicted to hit record levels, the gallery expects some 2,500 visitors daily to pass through its doors between now and the close of the exhibition on February 5, 2012.