Focus on this artwork and explain the Interpretation.
Due to a paucity of contemporary records, some scholars have proposed theories as to the purpose of the painting. Some believe that the tension in the subject's face is intense because he has just finished or is in the process of performing. Other scholars see the painting as a representation of Leonardo's self-proclaimed ideology of the superiority of painting over other art forms such as poetry, sculpture and music. Leonardo declared at the beginning of his incomplete Treatise on Painting:How Music Ought to be Called the Sister and Junior to Painting. Music is to be regarded none other than the sister of painting since it is subject to hearing, a sense second to the eye, and since it composes harmony from the conjunction of its proportional parts operating at the same time. [These parts] are constrained to arise and to die in one or more harmonic tempos which surround a proportionality by its members; such a harmony is composed not differently from the circumferential lines which generate human beauty by its [respective] members. Yet painting excels and rules over music, because it does not immediately die after its creation the way unfortunately music does. To the contrary, painting stays in existence, and will show you as being alive what is, in fact, on a single surface.
These words seemingly disapprove of music's ephemeral nature, in contrast to painting's material and permanent physical qualities. This theory suggests that the sadness in the young man's eyes is due to the idea that music simply disappears after a performance. Another interpretation is that Leonardo was moved to depict the man's beauty. More likely, given the odd and seemingly intimate aesthetic of the painting, is that it was made as a personal gift for a close friend.
superiority of painting over other art forms Treatise on Painting