The Louvre's Historic Leonardo Da Vinci Exhibit, 5 Things We Learned; PBS
"5 things we learned at the Louvre’s historic Leonardo da Vinci exhibit," PBS NewsHour, Arts Oct 23, 2019.
If you had to name the most famous painting in the world, there’s a better than-average chance you’d name the “Mona Lisa” — the jewel of the Musée du Louvre, and one of the iconic artworks that immortalized the name Leonardo da Vinci. That crowd-pleasing painting is not in a monumental new da Vinci exhibit that opens in Paris on Thursday to mark the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death. With so many other treasures, it’s not entirely missed.
- Visitors wait in a long line to see the "Mona Lisa" up close.
Fewer than 20 paintings by the self-taught Italian master are known to exist today — and several of those don’t make an appearance in this show.
But the museum took over 10 years to bring together more than 160 drawings, manuscripts, sculptures, and yes, paintings, by the artist and his circle of students. The exhibit traces da Vinci’s time under the tutelage of noted Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio; da Vinci’s own artistic evolution, complete with drawings that demonstrate his interests in botany, engineering, geometry and human anatomy; and ending with his last years spent in France, where he died in 1519.
Amid the much studied masterpieces are unfinished works like “Saint Jerome,” whose face is far more detailed than the lion that lies by his feet. The exhibit, too, is punctuated with meticulous drawings of the human body (muscles, movement of the arm, proportions of the head, etc.), of plants, of mathematical studies, of imagined flying machines, and so forth.
With few finished works of art to his name compared to other Renaissance masters, da Vinci has historically been seen as a brilliant procrastinator, or an artist who went down many “detours.” The Louvre exhibit, however, frames it differently. Curator Vincent Delieuvin said da Vinci’s pursuits demonstrated an “original way to paint.” He was not interested in painting thousands of portraits, frescoes or many different variations of the Madonna.
“He decided to base his art on science, but as he wanted to reproduce all nature, he had to understand all the nature,” Delieuvin said. “So he took a long time studying geometry, mathematics, optics, [botanicals], anatomy, everything on Earth, to be able to reproduce it in his paintings.” Da Vinci preferred to paint perfect pictures, he added, even if that meant, in the end, “only a few, but wonderful ones.”
Here are five things to know from the Louvre exhibit about da Vinci’s approach to art.
1. Mona Lisa’s good “vibrations” are not forgotten.
There has been a lot of discussion about what is and isn’t included in the decade-in-the-making exhibit. Several of the masterpieces are here. The lady in “La Belle Ferronniere” carries a trademark inscrutable expression. A copy of his “The Last Supper” mural overlooks rows of da Vinci’s drawings. “Benois Madonna,” borrowed from St. Petersburg, shows the infant Jesus gingerly cradling his mother’s hand. In “Portrait of a Musician,” something draws the man’s attention out of frame, while “Saint John the Baptist,” the long-haired religious figure, points toward the heavens with a smile...
Read More, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/5-things-we-learned-at-the-louvres-historic-leonardo-da-vinci-exhibit
Da Vinci's "Head of A Woman (La Scapigliata)," partly noteworthy for its unfinished state.
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Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci, by Leonardo da Vinci, 1474-78, National Gallery of Art. The only Leonardo painting in America.
Flawless chalk-white skin, porcelain-fine features, and a reserved, somewhat impenetrable expression reflect the refinement of the 16-year-old Ginevra de' Benci. Like most portrait subjects of the Renaissance, she was from a wealthy family, and educated. She was also known as a poet and learned conversationalist. Young women of the time were expected to comport themselves with dignity and modesty. Virtue was prized and guarded, and a girl’s beauty was thought to be a sign of goodness. Portraitists were expected to enhance—as needed—a woman’s attractiveness according to the period's standards of beauty...https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/da-vinci-ginevra-de-benci.html