Wildgrain Art Deco

Thank you Wildgrain for sponsoring. Visit http://wildgrain.com/artdeco and use code ARTDECO at checkout to receive $30 off your first box PLUS free Croissants for the life of your membership! Go behind the painting with Art Deco at https://BehindThePainting.com Exclusive videos on the art you love 🎨 🖼️ New content every month! This is Ginevra de’ Benci, painted by Leonardo da Vinci when he was about 22 years old. Nearly thirty years before he would begin the Mona Lisa. You could call her the mother of the Mona Lisa, because many of the ideas that would later make that painting revolutionary first show up here. Ginevra sits before a vast Italian landscape. She wears a simple brown dress trimmed with gold with a black scarf draped over her shoulders. She wears a sheer blouse fastened with a tiny gold pin. The bodice is delicately laced up in the center with ocean blue thread echoing the peaceful river that winds through the landscape behind her. Ginevra’s pale skin almost glows against the dense halo of juniper leaves behind her head. Juniper was a symbol of chastity, one of the most prized virtues a Renaissance woman could possess. Ginevra’s name is also a variant on Ginepro, the Italian word for Juniper. So it’s a pun as well. And Ginevra likely would’ve appreciated this clever visual wordplay since she was known for her love of poetry. Ginevra de’ Benci was the daughter of a powerful Florentine banking family who were socially tied to the ruling Medici family and second to them in terms of wealth. She was intelligent, engaged in poetry and philosophy and moved within elite circles, where conversation, literature, and intellectual exchange were part of daily life. She had many admirers, several of whom wrote poems praising her beauty and intellect. Some scholars believe this portrait was commissioned to commemorate 16-year-old Ginevra’s marriage to 32-year-old cloth merchant, Luigi Niccolini. But Leonardo didn’t just paint the front. He painted the back. If we turn the panel over, we find another sprig of juniper. This time encircled by a wreath of laurel and palm. A banner wraps around the branches with a Latin phrase that translates to “Beauty Adorns Virtue”. But here’s where it gets interesting. Infrared examination revealed that beneath this inscription was an earlier Latin phrase that translates to “Virtue and Honor.” That just happens to be the personal motto of a man very close to Ginevra: Bernardo Bembo. The laurel and palm wreath framing the juniper were also personal emblems associated with Bembo. Which brings us to theory number two: That this portrait wasn’t commissioned by her family at all… But by a 42-year-old Venetian diplomat and humanist, Bernardo Bembo. Ginevra’s well-documented admirer as well as her platonic lover. Thank you for watching! Credits: Smoke effect from Vecteezy stone wall from Vecteezy lowvolt sparks.wav by FreqMan -- https://freesound.org/s/32682/ -- License: Attribution 4.0 Divertissement by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Distant Tension by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Arcadia - Wonders by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Frost Waltz by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/