Unlike other Florentine Renaissance artists such as Fra Angelico and Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci was not personally religious for most of his life. Yet his interest in human nature allowed him to interpret Christian subjects in a way that still moves those of us who believe that in Jesus, God became man.
An example of this human reading of the sacred is the first version of his Virgin of the Rocks, now in Paris. Mary sits in the centre; on her right, St John the Baptist kneels in prayer; on her left, the baby Jesus gives a blessing. Behind Jesus, a kneeling angel points across to John the Baptist. In a further, intersecting gesture, Mary has one hand on St John’s shoulder while the other descends towards the head of her Son.
