Allegory of Painting (The Death of Leonardo da Vinci)
Original title: Allegory of Painting (The Death of Leonardo da Vinci)
kurzbeschreibung
Giuseppe Cades takes the death of Leonardo da Vinci as the subject of this etching (ca. 1780–99) and recasts it as an allegorical image. The dying artist lies on a bed, surrounded by mourning companions. The print weaves historical narrative together with allegorical interpretation, in the visual language of Neoclassicism.
Description
A group of figures gathers around a man reclining on a couch, close to death. Their historicising garments and the grief conveyed through gesture and posture give the mourning its expression. A statue stands out toward the rear of the image. The arrangement feels balanced, with the dying man as its focal point, and the rendering stays within a range of graded greys. Soft, diffused light picks out the contours of figures and objects.
Context
Cades, an Italian painter and printmaker active in Rome and a figure of Neoclassicism, made this print in the second half of the eighteenth century, when interest in Leonardo da Vinci as a universal genius of the Renaissance was reviving. Cades links the transmitted account of Leonardo's death (in 1519 in France) with an allegorical heightening in which painting itself is embodied as an art. This sheet belongs to a series of prints in which Cades treated historical and mythological subjects.
Impact
The balanced arrangement and the calm, soft light call up a solemn, almost devotional mood. Historicising costumes and the statue in the distance lend the scene something timeless and elevated. Clear lines and the Neoclassical manner underscore both the dignity of dying and the stature of the artist.
Technique
The print was executed as an etching, an intaglio process in which the drawing is incised into a metal plate and the plate then bitten with acid. The greys come about in printing with black or brown ink on paper. The process allows fine lines and hatching that capture the details of the figures together with the play of light and shadow with precision.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)