'Followers of Leonardo' Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts Budapest
- 7 Oct 2021 5:41 PM
If we see several Madonna paintings by the better-known followers of Leonardo on the walls of the museum, we get the feeling that we are looking at a large group of twins with the same number of interchangeable, almost identical, lively little children.
We may honour one of these with our careful attention, primarily out of respect for the enormous authority of the master who established the school, but it is enough if we just cast a quick glance in the direction of all the others.
We become rapidly satiated with the flattering harmony and that self-promoting beauty that completely lack Leonardo’s essence of seeking the secrets of man and nature with an almost demonic restlessness.
Let this now be a unique experience in which we take five such paintings to look behind the superficial identity of followers of Leonardo and not merely repeat the generalities of “epigones” and “penny ante work”.
The compositions of Boltraffio, Bernardo Luini and Giampietrino attract our comparison with one common motif, the movements of the infant Jesus which are triggered in all three paintings by the basic instinct of curiosity.
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Museum of Fine Arts Budapest
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