On February 5 London’s National Gallery closed its doors on one of the most successful art shows ever.
The exhibition had visitors lining up before dawn or who paid over €400 to get a ticket
The exhibition ‘Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan’ had visitors lining up outside before dawn or paid more than €400 to get a ticket.
But seeing this exhibition is about to get a lot easier: It’s coming to a cinema near you.
Following the path of opera, concerts, theatre and ballet, this exhibition – billed as the most extensive show of the artist’s rare paintings ever staged – is about to become the first-ever museum show transmitted in high-definition to cinemas world-wide.
‘Leonardo Live’ will be screened on more than 500 movie screens around the US and world-wide, including Malta, on Thursday and later dates.
The museum walk-through is interwoven with comments from figures in the British art, dance, theatre and literature worlds. Filmed on the eve of the exhibition’s opening in November, the roughly 100-minute film being presented by St James Cavalier in collaboration with New York producer-distributor BY Experience and British production company Phil Grabsky Films.com.
The National Gallery exhibition features more than 60 drawings and paintings the artist created as a court painter to Duke Lodovico Sforza in Milan in the 1480s and 1490s. Given the delicate nature of many of the works, among them international loans that have never travelled, the show will not be seen anywhere else.
The film goes straight to the exhibition’s highlights, including the cheeky juxtaposition of two paintings of women who may have been linked romantically to Leonardo’s patron, Sforza.
At the National Gallery, The Lady With an Ermine, a depiction of the duke’s comely 16-year-old mistress, gazes across the room at La Belle Ferronnière, which scholars say may represent an idealised version of the duke’s wife. Some commentators swore there were sparks flying between the two paintings.
Also on show for the first time are the Louvre’s Virgin of the Rocks and its restored counterpart from the National Gallery.
The commentary moves from the erudite to the irreverent, such as the description of the Michelangelo-Leonardo feud in which the latter referred to Michelangelo’s muscle-bound nudes as “looking like a bag of walnuts”.
There are only four screenings of this documentary which will be held exclusively at St James Cavalier, Valletta.
www.sjcav.org