Limelight:
Renaissance of a genius
By
Lubna Abdel-Aziz
For five centuries he has been considered the definitive image of the Renaissance Man -- scientist, theorist, painter, architect, astronomer, anatomist, geologist, biologist, engineer, inventor, mathematician, philosopher and musician, Leonardo da Vinci is experiencing a renaissance of his own. For 60 days (15 May 15 -- 14July) the Louvre Museum in Paris is making available to the public a breathtaking exhibit of old manuscripts, of sketches and notes described as akin to touring the mind of a great genius, who helped set an ignorant world on a course of reason and enlightenment.
Notebooks were his life's companions. Out of over 50, only 28 survive. The 12 in France were stolen by Napoleonic troops from Italy in 1796, and are kept in a vault at the Central Bank in France. Now, some 1080 pages have been digitally photographed, whereby a viewer can flip through the pages of 500 year-old notebooks, and marvel at "the ultimate embodiment of a universal man" says exhibit director Varena Forcione. His sketches look as alive today as the day he drew them. His thoughts went so quickly, his hands sometimes couldn't keep up. You can almost picture the artist sketching landscapes, churches, animals, trees, birds in flight, the flowing of water, ripe red cherries or plump green peas, insights into his daily life and deepest thoughts. Leonardo wrote back-to-front style from right to left, allowing his left hand to stay ahead of his writing and not to smear the ink. To decipher his spidery script, the easiest way is through a mirror.
Earlier this year (January 22nd -- March 20th)The Metropolitan Museum of Art held the first comprehensive survey of drawings of Leonardo hailed as "relevant today because it represents the genius of man". It contained 120 rarely seen da Vinci works gathered from collections the world over including "the Leicester Codex" -- notebooks loaned by computer mogul Bill Gates, purchased for $30 million in 1994. "You can really see Leonardo thinking on paper, one of the great creative minds of all time --" said Philippe de Montebello, Museum director.
It is surprising that no filmmaker has brought his biography to the screen. It is eventful enough, but perhaps not so sensational as Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Gaugin or Picasso. Yet the life of this great Renaissance man has brought enough drama to light up any screen. There has never been another artist more fittingly and without qualification described as a genius.
Leonardo was born 15 April, 1452 in Anchiano, a village in Tuscany Italy, the illegitimate son of a lawyer Ser Piero, da Vinci and a peasant girl Caterina. His father took custody of the boy when his mother married and moved away. He grew up in the family home in Vinci as an acknowledged member of the family but his birth was never legitimised.
Leonardo was sent to Florence to apprentice at the renowned workshop of Andrea del Verrochio, like others -- Boticelli, Titian, Rafael, and his greatest rival Michelangelo. Verrochio, was so fascinated by the young boy's drawings that he invited him to participate in a painting commissioned by the cloister of S Salvi "The Baptism of Christ". Leonardo painted the landscape and one of two angels. When Verrochio saw the difference between the two angels he vowed never to paint again.
After 13 years of apprenticeship he started his career as a painter, receiving commissions from leading citizens and monasteries of Florence with the help of Lorenzo de Medici who adopted the young artist. De Medici encouraged Leonardo to apply as court painter to Duke Sforza of Milan. In his communication to the Duke requesting the post, Leonardo writes: "I can build very light bridges, solid, robust, easily transportable, to pursue and sometimes to flee from the enemy...I make bombardments which throw stones almost like a storm......I am also able to give satisfaction in architecture, construction of public and private buildings...conveying water from one place to another....." He got the job!
During that period in Milan, he produced studies of flying machines, mechanics, canals, geometry, architecture and designed everything from churches to fortresses, various military weapons, as well as cranes, tanks, bicycles and even contact lenses. His many interests and passions raced through his mind like purgatorial flames. Perhaps he had too many gifts and he would often move from one project to another before completion. "Tell me, tell me, has one ever finished anything?"
Out of 4000 works of art only 15 are paintings, yet they remain the most dazzlingly poetic pictures ever created. He completed only six during his 17 years at Milan including "The Last Supper" and "The Virgin of the Rocks". It is during these years that he developed the habit of recording his studies in meticulously illustrated notebooks, which today are astounding 21st century viewers.
In 1516, Leonardo was offered the title of Premier Painter and Architect of King Francis I of France -- his last and most generous patron. Despite some paralysis of the right hand Leonardo was able to draw and teach, and produced several studies of cats, horses, dragons, water and various machines, and created the first textbook of human anatomy.
He died three years later. Legend has it that the king cradled Leonardo's head in his arms on his deathbed on 2 May 1519.
How can we discuss Leonardo Da Vinci without mentioning the most famous painting in the history of man. Mysteries still surround the Mona Lisa as well as her creator. By some, Leonardo is described as a strong colossus with a love of physical exercise and violent sports; by others, an effeminate, possessing magnificent physical beauty, playing the lyre and singing with perfection. As for the lady with the mystic smile, her identity is still unresolved. There are as many theories as there are biographers, historians and critics. Vasari, his first biographer, describes her as the wife of Francesco Del Giocondo, a rich Florentine. An anonymous statement links the portrait to del Giocondo himself and not his wife. A later text dated 1625 refers to "a portrait of a certain Gioconda" giving the painting its French title. Is she the mistress of his patron Guiliano de Medici or is she "Isabella of Este", or a self-portrait of Leonardo, or that of a young adolescent boy dressed as a woman -- or is it a little of all of these -- Leonardo's vision of the ideal woman! It matters little! The perfection of his pictorial landscape, its exceptional artistry, "its limpid eyes, bordered by lashes whose execution required the greatest delicacy -- the nose with its ravishing pink nostrils was life itself." Leonardo painted the soul rather than the body and the "sfumato" lighting the portrait through "chiaroscuro" accentuates the work's mysteries. "To plunge things into light is to plunge them into the infinite."
He started the painting in 1503, but never finished it. He packed it with him when he went to France in 1516, because some believe, he loved it too much. It was acquired by the king for his castle at Amboise, later moved to Fointainbleau and then to Versailles. After the revolution in France it found a new home at the Louvre, but Napoleon moved it from there to his bedroom. Following Napoleon, it returned to the Louvre where it has since become a cult object of sacred value. The lady now sits behind glass, guarded by maximum security, and smiles at every awestruck stranger, a universal object of adoration and contemplation, admired by all, understood by none. She will continue to dazzle man's primary instincts until this world breathes its last -- a testimony to the unequalled skills of her creator, a Renaissance genius who envisioned planes, parachutes and submarines before any other man, 500 years ago.
But had Leonardo da Vinci achieved nothing else but the Mona Lisa -- that would have been genius enough for all time!
