Five hundred years after his death, the world still marvels at the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance master who painted the Mona Lisa, but also left behind around 7,200 pages that documented his life’s work, often in scribbles and sketches.
From detailing how the
aortic valve in the heart works to creating an underwater diving apparatus, a
glider, and the precursor to the helicopter, Leonardo left a wealth of
scientific studies and mechanical inventions that are still studied today.
“Even after 500 years,
Leonardo remains the greatest artist-scientist — he was not just a great artist
who dabbled in the sciences; had he not painted a single work, his scientific
researches would still mark him out as one of the great figures of the
Renaissance. To combine both achievements in a single individual is quite
remarkable,” says Martin Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings at the Royal
Collection Trust and curator of the Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing, an
exhibition of 200 drawings at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace (until
October 13, 2019), a selection of these will then be on show at the Palace of
Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh from November 22, 2019 to March 15, 2020.
Among the works on
display for the first time will be two blank sheets that, under ultraviolet
light, reveal a beautiful series of previously unknown studies of hands and
horses’ heads, circa 1481.
“We can always learn more
about the way in which Leonardo put his drawings and paintings together — not
big new discoveries, but a steady process of increased understanding. What I
think we see more and more is that Leonardo was an intensely practical artist,
who adapted his limited range of materials with great ingenuity to obtain the
effects he desired,” says Clayton adding that he believes drawing is the key to
understanding Leonardo as it was his primary activity, around which all his
other work revolves.
Vincent Delieuvin is a
curator at the Department of Paintings, The Louvre, responsible for
16th-century Italian paintings and one of the curators of a Leonardo da Vinci
exhibition at the museum (starting October 24). Pointing out that Leonardo set
up a new working method, based on scientific investigation and experimentation,
Delieuvin says, “He wanted his paintings to be more than just the mirror of the
external forms of nature: he was looking for the life inside it, in order to
paint it. Nobody had done that before, nor after him. The sfumato (technique)
gives to his paintings this vibrancy of life, which is so special and
fascinated us.”
In Florence, where
Leonardo trained as an apprentice to the artist Andrea del Verrochio, the
Palazzo Strozzi is celebrating the teacher with a major retrospective that will
also include works from da Vinci and other pupils, such as Sandro Botticelli
and Pietro Perugino (running until July 14).
In Milan, where Leonardo
lived from 1482 to 1499 — and where The Last Supper fresco can be seen in the
Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie — the Castello Sforzesco is reopening the
newly restored Sala delle Asse, where Leonardo decorated the walls and ceiling
with intertwining plants with fruits. Meanwhile in Venice, the Gallerie
dell’Accademia is exhibiting the rarely displayed “Vitruvian Man,” along with
25 drawings.
The artist spent the
last three years of his life in France, having been invited by the young king
Francois I, and the Château du Clos Lucé, Amboise — his last home which is now
turned into an impressive museum dedicated to his life — is exhibiting a
monumental and newly restored tapestry of The Last Supper, which was made for
François I and is on loan from the Vatican Museums (June 6‑September 8).
Meanwhile the Domaine de Chantilly in the North of Paris is unveiling a new
exhibition in June around the Monna Vanna — dubbed the “Nude Mona Lisa” — a
charcoal drawing which had long been believed to be by Leonardo’s studio but is
now, after extensive testing and research by the Louvre, believed to be from
his own hand as part of preparations for painting the Mona Lisa.
Delieuvin says constant
technological progress, such as scientific imaging, are helping to get a better
understanding of how Leonardo worked: “Both the genesis of his ideas of
compositions and the way he painted are clearer nowadays. We can really see
things we couldn’t see before. Conservation treatments have brought a lot of
important information about his pictorial technique. The execution of a
painting was very special for Leonardo, because he had a very high idea of what
a painting was. We can see that in the way he painted.”
“The exhibition is to
illustrate how he placed utmost importance on painting, and how his
investigation of the world, which he referred to as ‘the science of painting,’
was the instrument of his art, seeking nothing less than to bring life to his
paintings. Painting is the synthesis of all his life and work,” Delieuvin says.
The Louvre’s
international retrospective will also present the latest research findings,
critical editions of key documents and the results of the latest analyses
carried out in laboratories or during recent conservation treatments.
“The most important
thing is to remind (people) that Leonardo da Vinci was not a ‘scattered’ man:
it is often said that his attention always wandered, and it is true that he was
interested in almost every field of knowledge but his work is very coherent and
that’s because painting gives unity to all his interests and researches,”
Delieuvin explains, adding “every research he made had one goal: to be the best
painter.”
A longer version of this story was first published in PRESTIGE June Edition