Controversies have swirled across the Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, ever because the portray was bought for $450.3m in 2017 to the Saudi royal household. Arguments have revolved across the image’s price ticket, restoration, attribution and even its present location, however now there’s a new debate.
The Christ determine on the planet’s costliest portray “is sporting ladies’s garments”, in response to a brand new research by Philipp Zitzlsperger, a professor of Medieval and Trendy artwork historical past on the College of Innsbruck, Austria, whose specialities embody the symbolic which means of clothes in Renaissance artwork.
In “The Which means of Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi”, an article within the newest version of Artibus et Historiae, a semi-annual journal printed by the Institute for Artwork Historic Analysis, Zitzlsperger analyses the clothes intimately. He argues that the “low-cut, rectangular neckline” of Christ’s tunic is unprecedented each for a Renaissance depiction of Christ and for a male sitter “of an elevated social standing”. He says that in all different work of Christ of the interval, Christ’s tunic has a a lot larger collar near the neck, and {that a} low-cut and embroidered neckline are typical for feminine portraits of the interval corresponding to Leonardo’s La Belle Ferronnière (round 1493-94) within the Musée du Louvre and Raphael’s Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino (1502) within the Galleria degli Uffizi.
Blue on blue
The equivalent blue color of Christ’s tunic and himation (a type of cloak) additionally factors to a feminine prototype, the Austrian artwork historian claims. He says that in virtually all different modern depictions of Christ of the Fifteenth and sixteenth century through which the Saviour has a tunic and cloak, the tunic is painted pink and the cloak blue, and that the blue-on-blue mixture is a typical wardrobe selection for photos of the Virgin Mary “from the twelfth century onward”.
Zitzlsperger’s “working speculation” is “that the monochrome blue of the Leonardo Salvator’s himation and tunic signifies the union of Christ and the Virgin within the individual of the Salvator Mundi… the cross-gender parts prolong even to the colors of the vestments”. He even claims to look at a “slight elevation [of the tunic] suggesting the beginnings of a breast revealed by the low neckline”.
Zitzlsperger locations Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi throughout the context of the “aesthetics of gender fluidity” in Renaissance Italy, citing Mario Equicola’s Libro di natura de amore (1525). In that e-book, the Italian Renaissance humanist declared: “The visage of a girl is praised if it has the options of a person; the face of a person if it has female options.”
“Somewhat too sensationalist”
Different Leonardo students have questioned Zitzlsperger’s conclusions. Frank Zöllner, a professor of artwork historical past at Leipzig College and the creator of a number of articles on Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi, says the paper is “an necessary contribution” however “somewhat too sensationalist”.
Zöllner provides: “To color a costume that’s much like ladies’s costume doesn’t make Christ feminine. Moreover, there are Byzantine photos of Christ Pancrator through which Christ is dressed completely in blue—for instance, within the Hagia Sophia mosaics in Istanbul—and Giotto painted a ‘blue Christ’ in his Stefaneschi altarpiece. Both means, costume is a key challenge for our understanding of the portray.”
“It merely appears higher”
Matthew Landrus, a supernumerary fellow at Wolfson School on the College of Oxford, factors out there’s an occasional single-colour red-on-red selection for Christ’s attire in 14th- and Fifteenth-century Flemish portray. “One motive for the selection of a blue tunic and himation may very well be that it merely appears higher rising from a black background,” he says. “It’s stylistically a wise selection. Is there a deeper which means for this selection of color? I’ve not seen sufficient proof for that declare.”
Martin Kemp, an emeritus professor of artwork historical past on the College of Oxford and a number one Leonardo scholar, says: “If it had been to be true that the ex-Prepare dinner model [Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi] is exclusive within the color of Christ’s clothes, this may assist Leonardo’s authorship.”
Zitzlsperger defends his concept. “The Salvator’s apparel doesn’t make Christ feminine, however it doesn’t make him male both. That’s why I discuss androgynous depictions of Christ. The rule (two colors) is confirmed by the exceptions (one color). From my expertise as a scientist, I do know that critics are very glad to falsify the rule by emphasising the exceptions.”
