Notebooks (3 page)
Authors: Leonardo da Vinci,Irma Anne Richter,Thereza Wells
Tags: #History, #Fiction, #General, #European, #Art, #Renaissance, #Leonardo;, #Leonardo, #da Vinci;, #1452-1519, #Individual artists, #Art Monographs, #Drawing By Individual Artists, #Notebooks; sketchbooks; etc, #Individual Artist, #History - Renaissance, #Renaissance art, #Individual Painters - Renaissance, #Drawing & drawings, #Drawing, #Techniques - Drawing, #Individual Artists - General, #Individual artists; art monographs, #Art & Art Instruction, #Techniques
Between the end of 1481 and the beginning of 1483 Leonardo took this knowledge and approach to nature with him to Milan to work for the court of Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of Milan. In a now famous letter to Ludovico, a sort of job application, Leonardo promoted his talents in this order: military engineer foremost, then architect, water engineer, sculptor, and painter. Given the unstable political climate of the time, with Milan allied to Naples and Ferrara and the Pope approaching a war with Venice, it is understandable that Leonardo emphasized his military skills. It was also a sign of the militaristic emphasis in that city, which was more of a feudal city-state than the republic of Florence. A court appointment was in many ways an ideal position for Leonardo because it took away the pressure of depending upon commissioned work as would be necessary for an independent artist. Crucially, this gave him time to explore all of his interests while earning a steady salary.
Milan possessed wealth of a different kind to Florence. It was the centre of an economic power which exported armaments, wool and silk, and agricultural produce. It was far bigger than Florence with an impressive scale best symbolized by the magnificent Gothic cathedral which was being built. It had not absorbed the influences of the classical style to the extent of Florence, but it was aware of them. Although the court of Milan had its fair share of scholars, poets, and philosophers who were familiar with the current trends, it was the artist-engineers such as Bramante and Francesco di Giorgio who stood out most prominently in the court. We are not sure exactly how quickly Leonardo was absorbed into the Milanese culture, but by the 1490s he was regarded as a valuable fixture of the court, who could discourse in a wide range of subjects, sing and play the lute superbly, provide fables and witty comments for any occasion, and design spectacular sets for theatrical and musical performances.
It was during his stay in Milan when he was in his thirties and forties that he would begin his notebooks in earnest and mature and develop into a powerful thinker, bringing together Florence’s more Neoplatonic philosophy with a Milanese Aristotelian approach and adding his own belief systems surrounding his approach to man and nature. His intellectual development during this time was prodigious and seems to have exploded into an understanding of the underlying unity of nature through his development as a natural philosopher.
It is possible to trace his intellectual and practical developments in Milan through his notebooks, which began around 1485 with the drawings and notes in MS B (1485-8). This and other early notebooks are filled with architectural drawings, practical and fantastical military designs, and hydraulic studies in keeping with his work for the Sforza court. They also include memos, scribbles and sketches, chemical recipes, and studies for perpetual motion machines. The list gives an idea of the varied nature of the content of the notebooks. Sometimes repetitive in content, they include extracts from other books, personal notes, and varied calculations. Most of the notes are accompanied by drawings, diagrams, and visual observations. Words often serve to explain the images and images often illustrate an idea, demonstration, or experiment. One can imagine Leonardo, with a pocket book tied to his belt, jotting down a thought or sketching an interesting face in the street, or in his studio drawing diagrams and writing down conversations with himself.
Leonardo was not fluent in Latin, a considerable disadvantage, as most of the philosophical and scientific texts were written in Latin. Whereas all men of letters and science were conversant in the language, Leonardo struggled with even a basic knowledge. The notebooks from Milan show that he was trying to teach himself so that he could read the texts first hand. He defended his inability to read original texts by attacking men of letters for relying on the writings of others rather than thinking for themselves. Leonardo cited experience which ‘has been the mistress of whoever has written well’ as his source (p. 4; C.A. 327
v
). He went further, saying that ‘all sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, mother of all certainty . . . true sciences are the result of Experience which has passed through our senses, thus silencing the tongues of litigants’ (p. 7; Urb. 19
r
). This was more than a convenient excuse for Leonardo. Relying on first-hand knowledge has its base in Aristotle and was an approach Leonardo deeply believed in. It was experience, ‘the true mistress’ (p. 3f.), which would reveal how the world operated. It was experience that brought wisdom. Without it, there was no foundation. Although the Aristotelian idea of relying on nature was certainly known and understood in the Renaissance, Leonardo’s development of the idea and dogged adherence was his own. It begins to explain why we have thousands of sheets of notes and images investigating and reinvestigating the world around him.
v
). He went further, saying that ‘all sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, mother of all certainty . . . true sciences are the result of Experience which has passed through our senses, thus silencing the tongues of litigants’ (p. 7; Urb. 19
r
). This was more than a convenient excuse for Leonardo. Relying on first-hand knowledge has its base in Aristotle and was an approach Leonardo deeply believed in. It was experience, ‘the true mistress’ (p. 3f.), which would reveal how the world operated. It was experience that brought wisdom. Without it, there was no foundation. Although the Aristotelian idea of relying on nature was certainly known and understood in the Renaissance, Leonardo’s development of the idea and dogged adherence was his own. It begins to explain why we have thousands of sheets of notes and images investigating and reinvestigating the world around him.
Leonardo’s belief in experience was fundamental. However, his notebooks reveal that he was also researching the classical texts for the principles of nature—its laws—which could provide him with the criteria for investigating experience. His notebooks also include a number of book lists, the most complete of which is from the Codex Madrid II. Of some 116 listed works, around a third are concerned with natural philosophy. Texts of particular interest to him are in the areas of anatomy ( Johannes de Ketham’s
Fasciculus di Medicinae
), geometry (Euclid’s
Elements
), optics (John Pecham’s
Prospettiva Commnis
), natural laws (Albertus Magnus’
Opus Philosophie Naturalis
), and the mapping of the heavens and earth (Ptolemy’s
Cosmography
).
Fasciculus di Medicinae
), geometry (Euclid’s
Elements
), optics (John Pecham’s
Prospettiva Commnis
), natural laws (Albertus Magnus’
Opus Philosophie Naturalis
), and the mapping of the heavens and earth (Ptolemy’s
Cosmography
).
Throughout the notebooks there are studies from anatomy to mechanics which follow the method of creating an experiment or demonstration to prove a point. He applied the same belief to the arts, citing Nature, as always, as the guide: ‘The painter’s work will have little merit if he takes for his guide other pictures, but if he will learn from natural things he will bear good fruit . . . those who take for their guide anything other than Nature—mistress of the masters—exhaust themselves in vain’ (C.A. 387
r
). Leonardo did not, however, take this to an extreme. He did indeed believe in learning from others and advised students of painting to learn in the following way: ‘The youth should first learn perspective, then the proportions of objects, then he may copy from some good master, to accustom himself to fine forms. Then from nature, to confirm by practice the rules he has learned’ (Ash. II, 17
v
).
r
). Leonardo did not, however, take this to an extreme. He did indeed believe in learning from others and advised students of painting to learn in the following way: ‘The youth should first learn perspective, then the proportions of objects, then he may copy from some good master, to accustom himself to fine forms. Then from nature, to confirm by practice the rules he has learned’ (Ash. II, 17
v
).
An approach based on experience was the foundation of Leonardo’s scientific studies. This can be seen, for example, in his studies of light and shade from his period in Milan (especially C. and Ash. II, the earliest notes on the subject). Light and shade were of extreme importance to Leonardo as they illuminated and gave description to the world around us and he devoted a great deal of time to studying them. Although artists in Italy were also studying these effects, Leonardo took them to a different level, devising formulas and rules for the effects of light and shade on surfaces and reapplying them to painting in a method known as chiaroscuro in order to acquire tonal qualities which would shape the entire structure of the composition. The application in his painting of methods based on a scientific approach to his studies had by now become a standard procedure for Leonardo. This can be seen in his painting of the
Virgin of the Rocks
(Paris, Louvre), painted for the Milanese Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception for their altarpiece in the church of San Francesco Grande. One of the most striking elements of the
Virgin of the Rocks
is its powerful use of light and shade. Here, the modelling achieved in the faces of the figures was based on detailed analyses of how rays of light ‘percussed’, or struck, the surface of the face. A further direct application of Leonardo’s scientific studies to painting occurs with the subtle, yet accurate way in which he depicts the effects of atmospheric perspective, that is, the loss of colour of an object to bluer tones the further away it is (what he called ‘perspective of colour’), as well as the blurring of its outlines (‘perspective of disappearance’). This can be seen in the
Virgin of the Rocks
and was magnificently applied later in the
Mona Lisa
(
c
.1503-16, Paris, Louvre).
Virgin of the Rocks
(Paris, Louvre), painted for the Milanese Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception for their altarpiece in the church of San Francesco Grande. One of the most striking elements of the
Virgin of the Rocks
is its powerful use of light and shade. Here, the modelling achieved in the faces of the figures was based on detailed analyses of how rays of light ‘percussed’, or struck, the surface of the face. A further direct application of Leonardo’s scientific studies to painting occurs with the subtle, yet accurate way in which he depicts the effects of atmospheric perspective, that is, the loss of colour of an object to bluer tones the further away it is (what he called ‘perspective of colour’), as well as the blurring of its outlines (‘perspective of disappearance’). This can be seen in the
Virgin of the Rocks
and was magnificently applied later in the
Mona Lisa
(
c
.1503-16, Paris, Louvre).
Leonardo believed that an intense study of nature was what brought knowledge to the world. It was through our most important of the senses, the eye, that the world came into our brain, where it was interpreted and stored in the ‘sensus communis’ for the understanding of the soul. The soul’s primary role was to understand the workings of nature, not to concentrate on Neoplatonic thoughts of abstract speculation. Truth was not to be found in investigating the soul, but understanding the world.
While in Milan Leonardo was able to actively apply his interest in architecture. His notebooks include numerous architectural studies including projects for the cathedral, and he was a friend of Bramante, who had arrived in Milan in the 1470s. In architecture, the greatest influences on Leonardo (and on Renaissance architects in general) were Vitruvius, Brunelleschi, and Alberti. Through them, Leonardo followed the approach that geometry and proportion were key in creating a structure and that their proportion should reflect the human body. As with his other interests, Leonardo took his studies of proportion to a new level. Dozens of sheets in his notebooks are dedicated to dividing and subdividing the human body, down to the last finger joint. He dissects the human figure scientifically in order to recreate it artistically: ‘The distance between the chin and the nose and that between the eyebrows and the beginning of the hair is equal to the height of the ear and is a third of the face’ (p. 141). His drawing known as the
Vitruvian Man
shows the proportional relationships of the human body within the geometry of a circle and square (p. 140).
Vitruvian Man
shows the proportional relationships of the human body within the geometry of a circle and square (p. 140).
The studies of proportion and geometry reached another level through a search to find relationships between proportions, echoes of the tiniest proportion in the largest scale. This linking of things is a fundamental aspect of Leonardo’s belief in the relationship of the microcosm, the ‘lesser world’, in this case man, to the macrocosm, the ‘greater world’. Leonardo drew parallels between the ‘body of man’ and the ‘body of the earth’, likening the veins which carry blood through the body to the rivers which carry water through the earth, and the rock formations of the earth to the bones in the body. This approach united man with nature and created a symmetry that resonated throughout the natural world.
Leonardo was not only interested in the human body for its proportions. In Milan he began his anatomical studies which would come to reach an unprecedented level in the field of medical investigation. The earliest dated drawings to survive are a sequence of studies of the skull, as he explored the idea and location of the soul, and other anatomical sketches from 1489. On the same sheet he refers to a book entitled
On the Human Figure
. Other early studies include the eye, possibly because sight was considered by Leonardo to be the most important of our senses. And he was to devote considerable time to the study of optics. Other artists, especially Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio, had considered the study of anatomy important in accurately painting the human form. But this interest was essentially superficial. Leonardo’s initial investigations, probably begun as early as his time in Florence (visible in the emphatic muscles in his painting of
St Jerome
(Vatican, Vatican Museum), would come to reach a profound level as we shall see later. In Milan he realized he wanted to know what made the human body work, how it was designed, and why it was designed in that way. He proposed to write 120 books on the subject. These, however, were never completed.
On the Human Figure
. Other early studies include the eye, possibly because sight was considered by Leonardo to be the most important of our senses. And he was to devote considerable time to the study of optics. Other artists, especially Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio, had considered the study of anatomy important in accurately painting the human form. But this interest was essentially superficial. Leonardo’s initial investigations, probably begun as early as his time in Florence (visible in the emphatic muscles in his painting of
St Jerome
(Vatican, Vatican Museum), would come to reach a profound level as we shall see later. In Milan he realized he wanted to know what made the human body work, how it was designed, and why it was designed in that way. He proposed to write 120 books on the subject. These, however, were never completed.
The application of his anatomical knowledge to painting can be seen in Leonardo’s portrait of
Cecilia Gallerani
(
The Lady with the Ermine
, Cracow, Czartoryski Museum), painted around 1490. Cecilia was at that time the mistress of Ludovico Sforza. The ermine is a pun on her name (
Galee
in Greek) and symbolizes her purity since the ermine would supposedly prefer to die rather than soil its white coat. Not only is the striking modelling brilliantly present, but the hand, with its bony structure clearly apparent beneath the skin, demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the anatomy. The portrait is impressive in another respect. The sitter appears to be distracted by something outside the picture plane. The emotional charge this brings to the painting is wholly new for portraiture as Leonardo leaves us to wonder what is the focus of Cecilia’s interest.
Cecilia Gallerani
(
The Lady with the Ermine
, Cracow, Czartoryski Museum), painted around 1490. Cecilia was at that time the mistress of Ludovico Sforza. The ermine is a pun on her name (
Galee
in Greek) and symbolizes her purity since the ermine would supposedly prefer to die rather than soil its white coat. Not only is the striking modelling brilliantly present, but the hand, with its bony structure clearly apparent beneath the skin, demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the anatomy. The portrait is impressive in another respect. The sitter appears to be distracted by something outside the picture plane. The emotional charge this brings to the painting is wholly new for portraiture as Leonardo leaves us to wonder what is the focus of Cecilia’s interest.
Around 1493, Ludovico Sforza or possibly the Dominican monks at the church and monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie commissioned Leonardo to paint the
Last Supper
, a mural in the refectory adjoining the church. Much of the original work has disappeared, but what is not lost is the sophisticated spatial relationship between the refectory and the painted space, which appears to be a continuation of the room we are standing in. Although depicting the Last Supper was not uncommon, Leonardo infused the scene with a complex interworking of emotions in the Apostles which moves around the central anchor, the eye of the emotional storm, the figure of Christ. Alberti had described and placed great importance on the
historia
, the storytelling role of painting, in this case a biblical subject, and the role of facial and bodily expression in the narrative. In the
Last Supper
Leonardo uses every gesture, movement, and facial expression to tell us the story. He emphasizes the importance of this in the notes for his proposed treatise on painting: ‘Painted figures must be done in such a way that the spectators are able with ease to recognize through their attitudes the thoughts of their minds [
il concetto dell’anima
]’ (C.A. 383
r
), and ‘that figure is most praiseworthy which by its actions best expresses the passion of the soul’ (Ash. II, 29
v
). The intensity of the scene is such that we do not realize the impossibility of being able to seat all these figures at the table.
Last Supper
, a mural in the refectory adjoining the church. Much of the original work has disappeared, but what is not lost is the sophisticated spatial relationship between the refectory and the painted space, which appears to be a continuation of the room we are standing in. Although depicting the Last Supper was not uncommon, Leonardo infused the scene with a complex interworking of emotions in the Apostles which moves around the central anchor, the eye of the emotional storm, the figure of Christ. Alberti had described and placed great importance on the
historia
, the storytelling role of painting, in this case a biblical subject, and the role of facial and bodily expression in the narrative. In the
Last Supper
Leonardo uses every gesture, movement, and facial expression to tell us the story. He emphasizes the importance of this in the notes for his proposed treatise on painting: ‘Painted figures must be done in such a way that the spectators are able with ease to recognize through their attitudes the thoughts of their minds [
il concetto dell’anima
]’ (C.A. 383
r
), and ‘that figure is most praiseworthy which by its actions best expresses the passion of the soul’ (Ash. II, 29
v
). The intensity of the scene is such that we do not realize the impossibility of being able to seat all these figures at the table.
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