Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol [25]
Leonardo immortalized the dramatic moment after Christ announced one of his disciples would betray him, with each reacting emotionally and asking, “Lord, is it I?” Through a range of gesture and expression, Leonardo revealed for the first time in art the fundamental character and psychological state of each apostle. His use of perspective, with all diagonal lines converging on Christ’s head, fixed Christ as the apex of the pyramidal composition.
Unfortunately, Leonardo was not temperamentally suited to the demands of traditional fresco painting, which required quick, unerring brushwork instead of accumulated blurred shadings. In “The Last Supper,” he experimented with an oil/tempera emulsion of his own invention that failed to bond to the plaster. Even during his lifetime, the mural began to disintegrate. It didn’t help that the building was used as a stable and then partly destroyed in World War II. Behind a barricade of sandbags, mildew reduced the fresco to a sad ruin. Today it is being restored square inch by square inch.
Leonardo, “The Last Supper,” c.1495, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Leonardo revealed the disciples’ character through facial expressions and gestures.
Leonardo, “In the Womb,” c. 1510, Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.
The Notebooks
Evidence of Leonardo’s fertile imagination lies in the thousands of pages of sketches and ideas in his notebooks. His interests and expertise encompassed anatomy, engineering, astronomy, mathematics, natural history, music, sculpture, architecture, and painting, making him one of the most versatile geniuses ever. Although the notes were unknown to later scientists, Leonardo anticipated many of the major discoveries and inventions of succeeding centuries. He built canals, installed central heating, drained marshes, studied air currents, and invented a printing press, telescope, and portable bombs. From his study of blood vessels, he developed the theory of circulation 100 years before Harvey. He was the first to design a flying machine and first to illustrate the interior workings of the human body. His sketches of the growth of the fetus in the womb were so accurate they could teach embryology to medical students today.
MICHELANGELO: THE DIVINE M. As an infant, Michelangelo (1475-1564) was cared for by a wet nurse whose husband was a stonecutter. The boy grew up absorbed with carving, drawing, and art, even though his family beat him severely to force him into a “respectable” profession. But the Medici prince Lorenzo the Magnificent recognized the boy’s talent and, at the age of 15, took Michelangelo to his Florentine court, where the budding artist lived like a son.
Michelangelo did more than anyone to elevate the status of the artist. Believing that creativity was divinely inspired, he broke all rules. Admirers addressed him as the “divine Michelangelo,” but the price for his gift was solitude. Michelangelo once asked his rival, the gregarious Raphael, who was always surrounded by courtiers, “Where are you going in such company, as happy as a Monsignor?” Raphael shot back, “Where are you going, all alone like a hangman?”
Michelangelo refused to train apprentices or allow anyone to watch him work. When someone said it was too bad he never married and had heirs, Michelangelo responded, “I’ve always had only too harassing a wife in this demanding art of mine, and the works I leave behind will be my sons.” He was emotional, rough and uncouth, happy only when working or hewing rock at the marble quarry. His wit could be cruel, as when he was asked why the ox in another artist’s painting was so much more convincing than other elements. “Every painter,” Michelangelo said, “does a good self-portrait.”
An architect, sculptor, painter, poet, and engineer, Michelangelo acknowledged no limitations. He once wanted to carve an entire mountain into a colossus. Michelangelo lived until nearly 90, carving until he died. His deathbed words: “I regret that I am dying just as I am beginning to learn the alphabet of my profession.”
WHO PAID THE BILLS?
Before