‘I’m very attracted to this work for its wonderful description of sunlight, which the artist has made almost tangible. It is also a beautifully balanced composition, and the only thing I can discern missing from the work is a nude or two romping towards us through the flowers. Of course, I firmly believe all art should have a romping nude or two somewhere in the composition, so my opinion on that might not be quite so rational as I could wish.’

The trunks and branches of trees have often seemed to have a vaguely human shape to me, with their boughs reaching skyward. The photo I worked this piece from had very strong resemblances to human forms in the two most prominent trees, emphasised by the strong light. I made definite efforts to soften this resemblance whilst I was drawing although I still recognise them as being there. It’s never occurred to me to wonder whether they are clothed though.

I’ve read or heard that the subconscious notices everything whether the conscious brain brings that into awareness or not - as that’s how subliminal advertising works, it seems an accurate statement. A technique to stimulate creativity known during the renaissance was recorded in two major records from the time.

Leonardo da Vinci
Young Woman (so-called pointing Lady)
c1516
The Royal Collection
© 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

A WAY OF DEVELOPING AND AROUSING THE MIND TO VARIOUS INVENTIONS.

I cannot forbear to mention among these precepts a new device for study which, although it may seem but trivial and almost ludicrous, is nevertheless extremely useful in arousing the mind to various inventions. And this is, when you look at a wall spotted with stains, or with a mixture of stones, if you have to devise some scene, you may discover a resemblance to various landscapes, beautified with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys and hills in varied arrangement; or again you may see battles and figures in action; or strange faces and costumes, and an endless variety of objects, which you could reduce to complete and well drawn forms. And these appear on such walls confusedly, like the sound of bells in whose jangle you may find any name or word you choose to imagine.

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
Volume 1

Trans by Jean Paul Richter 1888

Piero di Cosimo
Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci
c. 1480
Oil on panel
57 x 42 cm
Musée Condé, Chantilly, France

‘… He would sometimes stop to contemplate a wall at which sick people had for ages been aiming their spittle, and there he descried battles between horsemen, and the most fantastic cities, and the most extensive landscapes ever seen: and he experienced the same with the clouds in the sky.’

referring to Piero Rosselli,
known as Piero di Cosimo
Vasari, 1568

‘The Penguin Book of Art Writing’ p446
ed Martin Gayford & Karen Wright
ISBN 0 140 25451 X