Leonardo da Vinci -- and several of his painted masterpieces -- will be coming soon to a theater near you, thanks to London's National Gallery. The museum said it will broadcast a virtual tour of its blockbuster exhibition "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan" to cinemas around the world in early 2012.
The exhibition, which focuses on paintings by the famed Renaissance artist, has been a popular hit in London, where ticket scalpers have been doing brisk business for the show. The museum said the virtual tour was taped live on the eve of the exhibition opening this fall.
You can see the trailer for the broadcast in the video below. Times art critic Christopher Knight traveled to London to review the show, describing it as "moving and unprecedented."
"Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan" is scheduled to run through Feb. 5 at the National Gallery.
The National Gallery's worldwide broadcast marks yet another example of arts organizations using cinema to broaden their audience base. Companies that already produce regular cinematic broadcasts include the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the L.A. Philharmonic and the National Theatre in London.
Forget DiCaprio, Another Leonardo Will Be a Film Star
By RANDY KENNEDY for the New York Times
If you can’t get into “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan,” now at the National Gallery in London – and you can’t unless you’re willing to get in line at dawn with all the other people hoping to snag one of the 500 tickets a day not sold in advance for the blockbuster exhibition – then soon you might at least be able to go see the movie.
Beginning Feb. 16, “Leonardo Live,” a high-definition movie, will open in theaters across the United States, Europe and Canada, and also in Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand, after a limited run in Britain.
The movie, made during the installation of the exhibition and just before its opening, provides a virtual walk-through of the show, with commentary from scholars and curators . The exhibition, which continues through Feb. 5, was five years in the making and brings together 7 of Leonardo’s 14 extant paintings, along with 60 drawings, several of which relate to the apostles depicted in “The Last Supper.”
