Chapter 1 of 6
A Family, A Foreshadowing
Leonardo carried this panel with him for years and died still refining it. Three generations sit folded into a single sloping pyramid: aged Saint Anne, her daughter Mary perched on her lap, and the infant Christ tumbling toward a lamb. Notice how every figure leans into the next, a chain of glances and gestures that pulls your eye downward.
Behind them the world melts into hazy blue peaks. What looks like a family at play is also a parable, for the lamb is the coming sacrifice, and the mothers already seem to know.
