![]() 1503-1506) really seems to look at us and to have a mind of her own. “To us, this preoccupation with social rank of artists may be difficult to understand, but we have seen what importance it had for men of this period.”ĭetails from one of Leonardo's anatomical sketches, 1510įor an appreciation of how greater learning and study can improve a painter’s technique and standing, Gombrich alights on da Vinci’s best-known painting, which in turn demonstrates one of the painter’s best-known innovations. “He thought that by placing it on scientific foundations he could transform his beloved art of painting from a humble craft into an honoured and gentlemanly pursuit,” writes Gombrich. Yet scientific learning also served a social ambition, beyond improving his creation of art, as Gombrich acknowledges. To truly depict a person's physique, for example, da Vinci knew that he must first understand how a human's muscles and skeleton fit together. “All this exploration of nature was to him first and foremost a means to gaining knowledge of the visible world, such as he would need for his art.” “It is likely that Leonardo himself had no ambition to be considered a scientist,” writes Gombrich. How could a painter excel in such fields of knowledge? Perhaps because such learning improved both his art and the artist’s standing more generally. Preparatory drawing for Adoration of the Magi (c 1481)ĭa Vinci continued to pursue these and other areas of learning throughout his adult life, privately deducing such revelations as ‘the sun does not move’ in his notebooks, an assertion that perhaps anticipated the heliocentric theories of Copernicus. He argues in his canonical work of art history, The Story of Art, that da Vinci did not take up these diverse fields of learning to distance himself from the role of the painter, but rather to elevate its position.Īs Gombrich explains, da Vinci began his career apprenticed in the Florentine workshop of the painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio where he studied metalwork, the human form, plants and animals, optics, perspective, and the use of colour, among other disciplines. Yet, today, on the anniversary of his birth, are we correct in regarding da Vinci as much a scientist as an artist? Not according to the great art historian EH Gombrich. With his studies of biology and civil engineering, astronomy and human anatomy, the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci is the polymath we think of when describing a Renaissance man. On the anniversary of his birth, how the Renaissance Master used learning to raise the status of painting ![]() ![]() ![]() How Leonardo da Vinci used science to elevate art Leonardo da Vinci's illustrations for a giant crossbow, 1488–1489. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |