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Leonardo and Me

I use imagery to connect what I know to what I can see and experience in new places with

new people. Connections add layers to the whole of who I am. I have seen a through-line across my travels where specific images reappear at different times and places. The best example is Leonardo da Vinci, whose work I encountered in high school, Italy, Paris, and most recently, Washington. 


A long-ago minor interaction prompted my interest in Italy and the Renaissance. I had a revelation in an unlikely location - tenth grade World History. A student teacher led mostly disinterested students through the Middle Ages, the Crusades, and the beginnings of journeys of trade and discovery to the East. As was this teacher’s custom following some mundane assignment, he plodded through the rows of desks, stopping to question individual students quietly, personally.  He asked me, “What might come next after the Crusades? What might be next, as these people saw new lands and experienced new cultures?” 


Until then, despite being a good student, history was only a memorized timeline consisting of this happened, then this, then this. A glimmer emerged at his prompting, connecting seemingly unrelated events to a logical advancement—a period of enlightenment, a fusion resulting from exposure to new things and ideas. 


For my teacher’s query, what's next was the Renaissance, beginning in the 15th century, forged from gatherings of people interacting with different cultures, germinating fresh ideas incorporating a little of this and a little of that. These adventurous people engaged with unknown, exotic lands and cultures. Travels, both real and imagined, created a spark, travels like the Crusades beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries, Marco Polo’s journey from Venice to China in the late 13th century, and even Dante’s pre-Renaissance journey of the mind and soul, The Divine Comedy. “What’s next?” my teacher asked.


Pre-Renaissance travels inspired creativity, and trade provided the powerful with the means to commission art for pleasure. These two factors formed a symbiotic relationship, resulting in a prolific outpouring of art. Leonardo da Vinci was the foremost of the Renaissance artists who crept into my consciousness and made themselves a home. More than his art, his drawings captured my imagination. 


In my travels, I kept running into Leonardo da Vinci. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say I kept seeking him. My first in-person experience of Leonardo’s art was in Italy. Italy was also my first overseas adventure. I was traveling with a church tour group from Northwest Arkansas. We saw perhaps too many churches, but we also roamed the halls of art museums preserving and sharing some of the most revolutionary and valuable art the world has ever seen. In Leonardo’s case, those stops included the Uffizi Gallery’s Renaissance art, where I saw the “Adoration of the Magi” and the unfinished “Annunciation.” 


As I walked along in Florence, I thought about walking those dusty streets and seeing not one of the great Renaissance artists but several of them. In his book Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Isaacson relays a story from a central piazza of Florence where a small gathering discusses a passage by Dante as Leonardo walks by. The group seeks his opinion. At that point, Michelangelo walks past. Leonardo suggests he might want to answer the question, which offends Michelangelo, who replies brusquely. 


Imagine a city and a group of artists where these discussions were a part of daily life. I picture Michelangelo as a taciturn, no-nonsense guy. I picture Leonardo as more like me in temperament. I see him as a little bit ADHD and prone to a smart remark or two. I imagine Leonardo is inviting me, “Do everything that piques your interest. Nothing is ever lost by learning new things, even if you don’t see how they connect.” I imagine him as an infinitely more talented but kindred spirit regarding my curiosity, which sometimes leaves me unfocused, attempting too many things. 


It was seven years after this first overseas excursion before I made a second foray to Europe. I discovered Leonardo da Vinci again at the Louvre. After going down to the check-in area and back up a couple of flights of stairs, we finally arrived at the Louvre gallery, where little resided other than the “Mona Lisa.” 


There were maybe 50 people ahead of me in the roped-off maze that prevented crowding too closely to the painting. Thick protective glass encased the priceless treasure, which limited my ability to see the nuances as well as I had hoped. It’s a small portrait, and though easily recognizable, the intricate detail was challenging to see at any distance. Still, it was a wonder to be standing just two or three feet away from something treasured for centuries. I’m thinking, “Leonardo, I am sorry that perhaps your greatest piece of art has come to this. I’m sorry, the “Mona Lisa” is caged in a too-thick protective glass box that is, sadly, completely necessary.” 


Viewing the “Mona Lisa” as a woman was critical to my experience. Leonardo’s painting of this woman’s mystery has captured intrigue worldwide. Walking the streets of Italy helped me understand when and where Leonardo painted her. I found enlightenment in this quote from Walter Pater in his 1873 book of essays, The Renaissance. “We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in its marble chair, in that circle of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has chilled it least. The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all ‘the ends of the world are come,’ and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed!” I found the idea of Leonardo imparting a soul to the Mona Lisa intriguing.


Reading about the painting in Isaacson’s book helped me understand and search for indications of Leonardo’s anatomical research. I tried to see if her eyes would follow me, but either they didn’t, or the protective glass case kept me from seeing it. Her eyes don’t really move, but Leonardo’s research into vision helped him paint eyes using shadows and light that were unique to him.  My reading was valuable for a better understanding of what I saw, which could have appeared to be just one more portrait from that era. Sometimes, I don’t know what I don’t know, but in this case, I knew there was more to the “Mona Lisa” than a casual look or a selfie could offer.

 

My early interest in the Renaissance whetted my wish to see Leonardo’s creative genius as displayed in his sketches and notes. His paintings “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper” are world-renowned, but they are only one chapter of Leonardo da Vinci’s creative life. Much of Isaacson’s book is devoted to the artist’s explorations in anatomy, science, and engineering, along with many inventions evidenced through thousands of drawings and notes in a collection of sketchbooks stored in libraries and museums across Europe. 


After viewing the “Mona Lisa” in the Louvre and other of his works in Italy, I found it more challenging to access his sketchbooks due to their locations. When the museum in Milan shared twelve pages of these inventive sketches and accompanying notes with the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington, I jumped at the opportunity to see them. The sheets were a selection from the Codex Atlanticus collection of his drawings from 1452-1519. These twelve represented his early work through the end of his life.


It’s difficult to imagine that I can have personal access to these treasures and experience this outpouring of Leonardo’s genius and creativity. Many have documented people’s reactions to first-hand experience of great art in the most eloquent ways. My response varies by the particular work of art and the atmosphere around it. Still, I often feel reverence or awe, like standing in a lofty, high-ceilinged cathedral. I sense my mind clearing and being etched anew with a grander view of everything. 


The library displayed the sketchbook’s valuable and fragile pages in a room in the basement with low light. They were inside thick protective glass boxes to protect the paper and ink from light, humidity, and people. This group of his sketches was representative of his mechanical and engineering drawings. The organizations in Italy that arranged the exhibit were making a point about Italy’s history and leadership in design of all types, highlighting mechanical innovation for this particular cultural exchange. The permanent home of this collection is Milan, Italy.  


Leonardo used several different materials to write and draw. His writing was difficult to decipher, regardless of the language. He was left-handed and wrote backward from right to left in a mirror image. Staring at the documents, they didn’t appear to be 800 years old. The drawings didn’t seem unlike engineering drawings from my lifetime. 

Even as I gazed at the papers and the printed descriptions posted to the side, it was hard to process how far ahead of time his thinking and imaginings were. The drawings suggested that Leonardo’s insatiable curiosity was critical to the Renaissance’s explosion of culture and knowledge.


Seeing Leonardo da Vinci's work in three countries and reading about it in multiple books built a framework for connecting me to other experiences I have had. It established a lattice to weave new ideas into my existing knowledge of history, art, and invention. Enjoying his work repeatedly in differing formats and settings provided an additional layer of strength to my frame of reference for everything else. It made all the connections more cohesive. Leonardo inspires me to keep learning new things and exploring new places and ideas.


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