Leonardo’s paintings, from notebook to canvas

Leonardo is equally well known for his paintings as he is for his scientific drawings and inventions. Yet while we still have around 7,000 pages of Leonardo’s sketchbooks notes (including the 250 folios of the Codex Arundel), only around 15 paintings have survived.

Many of the pages of Leonardo’s notebooks feature sketches that bear a resemblance to details from his paintings. These are examples of Leonardo’s process of thinking while drawing.

Other notebook pages show how Leonardo applied his precise observations of the natural world to the representation of the natural world in his paintings. The Codex Arundel thus contains numerous examples where we find tantalising glimpses of Leonardo the painter.

These drawings of rivers flowing through a mountainous landscape are echoed in the background of many of Leonardo’s paintings.

On first impression this page appears to be blank. However, on closer inspection, a number of sketches are barely discernible…

Here for example, it is possible to make out a sketch of a child’s head, seen from above. This, and three other sketches on the sheet, appear to relate to figures that Leonardo painted in The Virgin on the Rocks.

The images become more apparent when viewed under ultraviolet light… Now seen more clearly, it is possible to see the similarities between the sketch the young Christ as depicted in the painting.

The next sketch is of the lower half of the body of a kneeling child, which closely corresponds to the figure of St John the Baptist.

The third sketch is of the right foot of a child, very similar to the right foot of Christ.

The fourth sketch of the left foot corresponds to Christ’s left foot.