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 | In [ 75 Scientific Method], almost all of Leonardo's painting "John The Baptist" can be seen, with its characteristic pointing finger. Leonardo himself was known for this characteristic gesture. This means that the holo-workshop scenario is, in [75 Scientific Method], set in at least 1513, as that is the earliest date experts conjecture for when the painting was started. |
c.1513-16, oil on wood, 69 x 57 cm, located in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France
 | It is the only surviving painting from Leonardo's time in Rome when his patron was Giuliano de'Medici, brother of Pope Leo X. It is probably the last painting that he ever made himself. |
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In [68 and 69 Scorpion] and [75 Scientific Method], Leonardo's "The Annunciation" can be seen. In both episodes only part is seen and it is turned on its side. |
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X-ray pictures taken in the modern age have been used to prove that "John The Baptist" is an original work by Leonardo.
"John The Baptist" seems as if Leonardo was putting his theories about painting into perfect exemplary practice. Many of his artistic achievements are applied in textbook form:
- sfumato This was Leonardo's technique for painting what one cannot see, namely the air between objects or in the difficult shading around a figure's eyes. The Italian word "sfumato" can be translated as "vaporous, hazy, misty". Hard to define but easy to understand visually, Italian writers used the word "sfumare" to describe an especially soft, almost imperceptible, graduation of tone and shade in a painting. In his notebooks, when discussing light and shade, the theory of colours and the art and practice of painting, Leonardo stated that light and shade should merge into each other without any visible transition, as if a fine veil of mist was shrouding the objects. The technique reached perfection in his painting "The Virgin And Child With St Anne" and, especially regard to the eyes, in the "Mona Lisa".
- chiascuro This was the technique of modelling the figure to allow the body to emerge as a 3-dimensional form without using a single line.
Six books on Light and Shade
Six books on Light and Shade
Six books on Light and Shade
Six books on Light and Shade
Theory of Colours
Theory of Colours
Theory of Colours
| Giorgio Vasari, the biographer of great artistic men including Leonardo, and whom Janeway mentions to Tuvok in [79 Concerning Flight], stated: "How he [Leonardo] seeks after a black, darker than al the others ..... But his painting finally becomes so dark, that there is scarcely any light there any more....but all this was done to make the objects stand out in greater relief and to lead art.....to perfection." |
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 the Room of the Segnatura, Raphael's fresco "The School Of Athens". Straight face-on view, 261Kb
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The pointing gesture is a trademark of Leonardo's work (for instance, see the Maestro's "The Madonna Of The Rocks" first version here) and the gesture is famously mimicked in Raphael's fresco "The School Of Athens" in which Raphael represented great artists of the day (including a late addition of Michelangelo) and in which, so it is universally thought, Plato represents Leonardo complete with upward-pointing finger. But the pointing finger originally occurs in art derived from the Bible because it was John the Baptist who announced or pointed to the coming of Christ into the world. However, Leonardo's John is quite different from previous Christian depictions. The Stanze di Raffaello (Italian for "Rooms by Raphael") in the Palace of the Vatican in Rome are papal apartments with frescoes painted by the Italian artist Raphael and his workshop, and were originally intended as a suite of apartments for Pope Julius II. They were to be completed redecorated, possibly to outshine the previous pope, Alexander VI the natural father of Cesare Borgia whom Leonardo worked for over a period of 10 months. Holo-Leonardo refers to his patron as being "ruthless as a Borgia". Julius II commissioned Raphael and his workshop to redecorate the rooms in 1508 or 1509, with the fresco started 1509, finished c.1509-10. The Rooms are called The Hall of Constantine, The Room of the Heliodorus, The Room of the Segnatura and the Room of the Fire of the Borgo. The second from last was the first to be decorated by Raphael's frescoes as it was intended to give a grand impression, for this was the study in which the Signatura of grace tribunal was originally located, where at the council for the Apostolic Signtura most of the important papal documents were signed. Raphael wanted to bring together the spirits of Antiquity and Christianity, and the theme in this room was that of wisdom. Raphael, perhaps rather cheekily, as he was only in his mid-twenties with presumably a long life ahead (however, he died aged 37), did a self-portrait of himself at the lower righthand part of the fresco. Perhaps the Pope did not mind or liked it or did not notice. |
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above: the only instance in our sight of Holo-Leonardo, which is in [68 Scorpion, Part One] and [79 Concerning Flight], when he points upward, which occurs in the latter when he is about to demonstrate what a device which he says gives out "a bolt of lightning", which device is known to Janeway, Tuvok and the television viewer as a phaser! It is not known whether the scriptwriters intended this moment to remind us of Leonardo's famous upward-fingerpointing gesture, for the gesture looks like the natural gesture of anyone in this situation, and the gesture is not similar enough to Leonardo's characteristic trait.
 Salai, by an anonymous artist, 1495 |
Leonardo based the saint's features on those of Giacomo Caprotti known universally by Salai (also as Il Saliano) ("little devil"). Salai was an intimate of Leonardo's from the age of 10 when he first arrived at the Maestro's workshop, and remained a close friend until the Maestro's death. It is conjectured that Leonardo had an erotic relationship with Salai. |
When Leonardo left Rome in 1516 to travel to France where he arrived in 1517, he took "John The Baptist" with him and kept it there until his death. In this way, France acquired one of the Maestro's most famous works. (Likewise, France acquired the "Mona Lisa".) "John The Baptist" is located in the Louvre Museum, Paris.
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