Flora

Flora from 1530 by Bernardino Luini depicts the classical goddess of flowers and spring. The subject allowed Luini to demonstrate his skill in rendering feminine beauty in the idealized manner derived from Leonardo, with the floral attributes providing decorative richness. Oil on canvas — by the sixteenth century the dominant medium for ambitious works — allowed successive glazes of transparent color and freedom to rework the composition. Luini's absorption of Leonardo's sfumato technique—the soft, atmospheric modeling that dissolves contours in shadow—was more thorough and more commercially successful than any other Lombard follower, making him the primary vehicle for Leonardo's influence

The figure of Flora is rendered with Luini's characteristic soft modeling and idealized features, the floral elements adding color and decorative interest to the gentle, Leonardesque composition.