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| | Leonardo da Vinci: The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne |
 | | And this kinship reminds me that Leonardo, like Blake, developed peculiar ideas about angels, seeing them not as guardians, but as intermediaries who, in order to warn man that his reason is finite, stand at his elbow and propound unanswerable riddles. |
 | | And as I search from place to place in the Virgin with St Anne for signs of Leonardo's hand my responses are sharpened far beyond the point of passive enjoyment, and the faculties of memory which are brought into play greatly increase my sensibility. |
 | | I remember that the Virgin with St Anne was painted at a period in his life when his mind was absorbed by three scientific studies, anatomy, geology and the movement of water. |
| www.artchive.com /artchive/L/leonardo/st_anne.jpg.html (1975 words) |
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