THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Holland Cotter
PARIS — To judge by the marketing hullabaloo, the Leonardo da Vinci retrospective that opens here Thursday at the Louvre should be the visual equivalent of a 21-gun salute and a trumpet-and-trombone choir. Blockbuster’s plastered all over it, and rightly so. Timed-ticket sales for its one-stop run are moving right along.
But the marvelous show you actually see, honoring the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, is, tonally, some other thing: quieter, slower, better. It’s a succession of major painterly melodies set among ink-drawn pre-echoes and reverbs. It’s a confluence of presences and absences — art that’s there and some that’s not — both equally potent. [
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| “The Madonna of the Rocks” at the Louvre. |
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| “Christ and Saint Thomas,” a bronze sculpture by Leonardo’s master, Andrea del Verrocchio. |
