CHAPTER 8 : LA RENAISSANCE EN ITALIE (3) UN ARTISTE : LEONARD DE VINCI

 THE RENAISSANCE (3)

CHAPTER 8: A RENAISSANCE ARTIST — LEONARDO DA VINCI
CHAPTER 8: A RENAISSANCE ARTIST — LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452–1519)
Jacques Rouveyrol

I. TRAINING
An illegitimate child of a Florentine notary and a peasant woman, Leonardo did not receive schooling that would qualify him as a “man of letters.” His artistic training was empirical. He learned in Verrocchio’s workshop.

II. FROM PERSPECTIVE TO SHADOW

1. The concern with movement.

It is the movement of forms and forms in movement that interest him, especially swirling forms. Why?

2. The conception of space.

For him, space is not an abstract container of bodies but a fluid, plastic “medium” from which forms emerge (and to which they return). Hence the invention of sfumato, which erases the sharp boundary of the line between form and background. It is in this margin, where the passage from the formless to the formed takes place, that the essence of painting lies. It is this invisible that he seeks to make visible.

3. The paradoxes of drawing.

Leonardo invents technological drawing.

Yet it must show what is not visible to the naked eye.

Anatomical drawing, for example, offers synthetic views of what can only be seen in parts.

Preparatory drawing for painting serves the same function but works in reverse. Instead of defining the form by the line, it starts from an undefined movement of the hand, and from the chaos of strokes, the form must emerge.

Front side of the page

Back side of the page

As soon as it has been invented, the form must fade away to reveal its origin: it belongs to the “medium” from which it was born.

Shadow, for Leonardo, plays an essential role because it allows him to abandon perspective — with which, moreover, he never ceased to take liberties. The “medium” (atmospheric light, illumination: light and shadow, reflections) affects both colors and forms.

From the Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre (1483) to the one in London (1503), shadow advanced, bringing the figures forward and further unifying the figures and the background.

III. THE WORK

1. The Florentine period (1470 – 1481/82)

From the Dreyfus Madonna to the Benois Madonna, it is the twisting movement of the bodies that pulls the figures out from the background and ensures their unity.

L’adoration des Mages non seulement néglige la perspective mais encore la règle albertienne qui veut que l’historia soit un lieu d’ordre. Ici, au tumulte de l’histoire humaine qui se déroule dans la partie haute s’oppose un autre tumulte, dans la partie basse, dont la signification est très différente. L’Epiphanie est un moment de «crise », en effet, mais cette crise est le passage du désordre d’un monde qui est celui du péché (du tumulte) à l’ordre d’un monde racheté par la venue de Dieu dans le premier.

The Last Supper is another moment of “crisis,” shown by the “tumult” of figures freed from the constraints of the perspective in which they are placed. This crisis corresponds to the transition from faith to religion. This transition occurs through:

1. the creation of a sign (of recognition): the Eucharist, and

2. the formation of a group of believers adhering to this sign (the Church), a group itself founded on the exclusion of those who do not adhere — here, Judas.

The painting depicts the moment of the Eucharist and the identification of a “traitor.” Judas is placed immediately to the right of Jesus, alongside Saint Peter and Saint John: the three pillars of the Catholic religion.

2. Portraits

Leonardo da Vinci focuses everything on the twisting movement that brings the figure out from the background and moves it toward the viewer, inviting them into the work.

The Mona Lisa, placed in front of the parapet, exists in the same space as the viewer. Her smile, which seems to bridge the two levels of the horizon framing her face, will be found in all subsequent works. The “mother’s smile,” according to Freud.

There is undoubtedly still much mystery in the life and personality of Leonardo da Vinci. However, what stands out about him is:

1. A Renaissance artist: the versatility of talents and interests — drawing, painting, architecture, machines, anatomy, philosophy, etc.

2. What he contributed specifically to the history of painting: the abandonment of strict perspective and the development of a technique based on shadow and light, on the ambiguous relationship between figure and background.

3. Finally, what he helped inaugurate through his special interest in movement — especially twisting movement: the serpentine figure of the coming Mannerist period.