![]() ![]() Among other exhibitions, more than 50 of Leonardo works are currently on show at The Royal Museums of Turin, including his “Codex on the Flight of Birds,” and the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice is displaying Leonardo’s celebrated “Vitruvian Man,” along with two dozen other drawings. Seeing all of this up close is a singular experience and this year provides a variety of opportunities to do so. Whether torn at the edges or marked with pulp, stains or watermarks, every one of Leonardo’s originals contains its own centuries-old residue. “The archaeology of these drawings is fascinating,” he says. The back of the page shows a crudely drawn profile ( not one of Leonardo’s, Clayton assured me) as well as remnants of red sealing wax, which was likely used to adhere the map to a board for presentation. The writing on the map reads conventionally from left to right rather than right to left, Leonardo’s distinctive mirror writing, suggesting it was prepared for a professional commission-not for the artist himself, which was more typical of his other drawings, Clayton says. The artist’s exquisite map of the Valdichiana, in southern Tuscany, contains other idiosyncrasies. Leonardo’s plan of the northern Italian town of Imola bears testimony to this: crease marks running horizontally and vertically reveal where it was folded into four and a small hole has been worn through the center of the paper. ![]() Cramming some 600 drawings into a single leather volume containing just 234 folios was clearly challenging. The sculptor Pompeo Leoni acquired Leonardo’s drawings and subsequently bound them into at least two albums, one of which landed in the Royal Collection. Other alterations continued after Melzi’s death, around the year 1570. The missing chunks only add to an already convoluted array of disparate subjects on the front and back of the paper-a young man’s profile a decorative dress a hydraulic device an esophagus and stomach. “You have a drawing something like this, where Melzi had cut bits out there,” he said, pointing to angular gaps at the top and on the side of the paper. “No reproduction,” Clayton says, “captures the range of tones and the subtlety and the life of these drawings.”ĭuring my visit, Clayton held up one of these pages to show me the end result. In one drawing, he renders a one-inch study of the Leda in just a scattering of pen and ink marks in another, he portrays the drapery on Madonna’s arm, a study for The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, in breathtaking transparency using red and black chalk strokes heighted in white. Texture and blemishes pop from the pages and one can see the vigor with which Leonardo worked-the depth of color he explored in his paper washes and chalk, the energy of his brush marks, and his remarkable dexterity. But seeing Leonardo’s artistry in its original form is a wholly different experience, a privilege I had last fall when I viewed a selection of the collection at Windsor Castle. Reproductions of Leonardo’s drawings, widely accessible in books and online, lay bare his extraordinary ability to capture and visualize information. ![]()
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