{"id":401,"date":"2014-01-10T15:46:22","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T15:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karenessex.com\/?page_id=401"},"modified":"2025-03-29T15:13:38","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T15:13:38","slug":"leonardos-swans-facts-behind-the-book","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/?page_id=401","title":{"rendered":"Leonardo’s Swans: Facts Behind the Book"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Leonardo\u2019s Swans<\/em> reveals the drama behind many of the artist\u2019s most famous paintings, answering questions that have remained mysteries for centuries:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Who are the mysterious beauties in Lady With an Ermine<\/em> and La Belle Ferroniere<\/em> and why were they chosen to be immortalized by the great Leonardo? In which of his paintings do they appear as religious figures?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014How did Leonardo come to paint The Last Supper?<\/em> Whose ambitions did it truly serve, artist or patron? What were the artist\u2019s intentions for the mural? How did Leonardo break with the many hundred\u2013year tradition of how painters represented this event? Why did he leave it incomplete until he found the perfect model for Judas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Leonardo\u2019s legal entanglements over The Virgin of the Rocks;<\/em> how he clashed with the monks who commissioned the painting, but changed the nature of religious painting in the process. How his models for the Blessed Virgin and for the angel Gabriel were actually the duke\u2019s most exalted mistresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014What was the genesis of the Mona Lisa,<\/em> and why did it become Leonardo\u2019s obsession?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014The excerpts from Leonardo\u2019s notebooks that introduce each chapter are, in fact, excerpts from his notebooks and letters, so that the portrait of the artist is not conjecture or fantasy, but drawn from Leonardo\u2019s own thoughts and experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014The works of art in the book are the actual works of Leonardo. The female characters dramatized in the book\u2014Isabella and Beatrice d\u2019Este, Cecilia Gallerani, Lucrezia Crivelli\u2014are the flesh and blood subjects of these paintings. Their rivalries for the affection and favor of the notorious Duke of Milan\u2014as well the obsession of Isabella to be painted by Leonardo\u2014are documented in historical sources and are rendered herewith based on those sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Book Excerpt<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reader’s Guide<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Q&A<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0Facts<\/a>\u00a0 | Inspiration<\/a><\/p>\n

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Audiobook<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Hardcover First Edition<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Paperback First Edition<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leonardo\u2019s Swans reveals the drama behind many of the artist\u2019s most famous paintings, answering questions that have remained mysteries for centuries: \u2014Who are the mysterious beauties in Lady With an Ermine and La Belle Ferroniere and why were they chosen to be immortalized by the great Leonardo? In which of his paintings do they appear as religious figures? \u2014How did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":44,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-401","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1943,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/401\/revisions\/1943"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}