The Battle of Anghiari is an unfinished work by Leonardo da Vinci
In the middle of the fifteenth century, all of Italy was fragmented into city-states, principalities and duchies, which waged territorial wars among themselves. In June 1440, one of the many battles took place - the battle of Anghiari, which gave a temporary truce to Milan and Florence. She brought victory to the Italian League, which was headed by the Florentine Republic. Great importance was attached to this victory. Seventy years later, the Great Leonardo was asked to paint the wall of the Grand Council of the Signoria Palace. The theme was chosen by da Vinci himself. The Battle of Anghiari interested him. Another wall was painted by Michelangelo, and Niccolo Machiavelli, a young, promising official, was watching the progress of the work.
Preparing for battle
It was one of the stubborn and bloody battles for the freedom of Tuscany. Coalition troops concentrated near the small town of Anghiari. They included about four thousand soldiers. The forces of the Milanese more than doubled the army of the league. There were about nine thousand of them. In addition, two thousand more allies joined them. The Milanese believed that the surprise of the attack would certainly be the key to their victory. Therefore, they planned to start the battle on June 29. But the dust on the road raised by their army warned the leader of the Florentines, Attendolo, of the advance. He began to prepare for a decisive battle. Subsequently, it will be called the Battle of Anghiari.
The course of the battle
The vanguard of the Milanese army, consisting of the Venetian knights, blocked the bridge over the canal. Namely, the water barrier served as protection for the Tuscans. But the Milanese were advancing. And the fierce battle of Anghiari began. The Florentines fiercely defended their freedom. Four hours later they cut off a third of the Milanese from the main army. The battle then continued throughout the night. And ended with the victory of Florence.
Location of the fresco
In 1499, Leonardo once again left Milan and moved to Florence. In it, he will stay intermittently for seven years: until 1506. During these years, starting in 1503, he worked on a large commission from the Florentine seigneury - a fresco for the Council Hall. The drawing was called - "The Battle of Anghiari". He was supposed to depict the victory won by the Florentines over the Milanese about 70 years ago. The wall of the Great Council Hall was huge, larger than the one on which da Vinci had painted The Last Supper.
"Battle of Anghiari". Leonardo da Vinci
She remained only on cardboard. Looking at him, Pushkin's Poltava comes to mind: "Stomp, neigh, groan, and death, and hell from all sides." The "Battle of Anghiari" depicted by Leonardo is a ball of people and horses. They are intertwined so closely with each other that the work has become like a sketch for a sculpture. The rearing horses are reminiscent of those striking in the master's early work, The Adoration of the Magi. But there was joy, and here - frenzy and rage. The hatred of warriors who rush at each other is transferred to horses, these fighting machines. And they bite people and horses of the enemy, kicking.
It can be assumed that Leonardo's idea was not to depict a mass battle scene, but to visibly reproduce people drunk with blood, brutalized, losing their human appearance and blinded by rage. The "Battle of Anghiari" by Leonardo da Vinci is considered by himself as an accusation of war. He remembered Cesare Borgia's military campaigns all too well, which he called "the most brutal madness." It is topical and important to this day, almost five hundred years later. The "Battle of Anghiari" as an indictment of the war is quite modern, as it responds to timeless issues.
"Battle of Anghiari": description
It has no scenery, landscapes. And the warrior costumes are fantastic. They cannot be associated with any specific time. Trying to generalize the apotheosis of the battle to make it even more impressive, Leonardo used an interesting compositional technique - all the lines are collected inside a simple geometric diamond shape. In the vertical line, where the swords cross, there is one center of the composition. The second goes along a horizontal line that divides the cardboard in two. It is impossible to look away, and the genius himself removed everything superfluous from the center, where chaos, bringing death, and unbridled rage open before us in all their unsightly nakedness. It distorted faces and bodies.
The facial expressions of the depicted people are worked out to the details. The movements are frantic. Horses are cut, people are crushed... And no one cares about them. Whether Leonardo portrayed the climax of the battle or the whole course of the battle seemed to him as such, it is already difficult to judge. It is known that he worked a lot with historical sources and wrote an epistle to the signoria, which has not survived. In it, he expressed his thoughts related to the future fresco. His “Treatise on Painting” remained, in which Leonardo writes that he wanted to create a large-scale work. It was supposed to consist of a number of episodes. The huge space of the wall made it possible to place on it a large number of people participating in the battle. But the plan was not realized.
Two geniuses
Michelangelo painted his cardboard "Battle of Kashin" in his own workshop. Two geniuses did not seek to compete with each other. They worked at different times and did not want to compete. However, in a sense, the competition still took place. When da Vinci depicted horses, he understood that he was the best at them. And Michelangelo also used his most powerful skill - the display of naked male bodies. Like da Vinci, Michelangelo did not complete his work. She remained only on cardboard. And for several months, two cardboard boxes were in the same room. At this time, both of these creations were a school for all artists: both young and experienced. They came to them and made copies of them.
