A portrait enables us to discover a great deal about a person, even without knowing it. Through the eyes, the expression of the face in general, clothing and gestures, we can try to reconstruct the world in which the person portrayed lives, his or her way of thinking and seeing things.
Leonardo was well aware of this. In his portrait of a Musician, he succeeds in grasping the impulses in the soul of the subject he portrayed. Through the likenesses of Cardinals Federico and Charles Borromeo, the portraits by Titian and Moroni, by Fra’ Galgario, Hayez and Appiani, we can learn the stories of many people, and even seek to imagine the stories of those whose identity is unknown to us.
The Musician exhibited in the Aula Leonardi will then be compared with the portraits created by the artists who were followers of Leonardo, in a dialogue between different faces that brings out the fundamental significance attributed to the representation of the feelings.
The itinerary could also be followed in reverse, starting from Leonardo’s Musician and only at the end reaching the works exhibited in the first rooms of the gallery.
Aula Leonardi
