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Leonardo’s sketch show

Leonardo Da Vinci was undeniably a man of ideas and his capacity for innovation carries over beautifully into his painting. 
In the National Gallery’s current exhibition, Leonardo’s technical skill, not only in painting but in sketching and anatomical recording, is showcased in a way that highlights his fresh and unique (for his time) concentration on the humanity of his subjects: their characters, personalities and the nuances of their expressions. 
In the very first room of the exhibition (if you have been lucky enough to procure an audio guide), your attention will be breathily directed to Leonardo’s Portrait of a Young Man, painted in 1486 and described by the voice-over as ‘revolutionary’ in his time. The three-quarter profile of the subject was a radical departure from the traditional convention of portraiture, the profile view. Leonardo’s young man poses naturally and accessibly. His features and expression are more pronounced and characterful; he is absolutely ‘human’. 
This humanization of his subjects carries over into his unconventional paintings of women.  As with The Young Man, Leonardo softens his subjects, turning them to face out of the frame. By imbuing their faces and postures with character and personality, he makes their stance inviting rather than imposing; as the excitable voice-over eulogises, ‘you can fall in love with’ the women of Leonardo’s portraits. 
To achieve such vividly human depictions in his paintings, Leonardo made copious sketches and studies of the varieties of human expression and pose largely from life, occasionally from sculpture and, infamously, from dissected bodies. In this exhibition, the curator, Luke Syson, has made a careful and inspired decision to surround the famous (although admittedly few) paintings of Leonardo with the preparatory sketches that built up to them. Wandering around a room in the exhibition, you see a stranger built into a Madonna in several stages. It is in the last room, dedicated to The Last Supper, Leonardo’s greatest and yet most disappointing masterpiece, that this relationship is best showcased. 
A series of sketches line the walls and for each one there is a depiction of where this sketch has been worked into the final painting. Thus, we can see an old man’s head transformed into a disciple; and a dramatic sketch of a group of grotesquely depicted gypsies worked into Leonardo’s depiction of Judas. 
The Last Supper is the ultimate exemplar of the painter’s skill: each figure in the painting is dynamically realised. Bursting with character and emotion, they are essentially recognisable. We ourselves have felt the emotions we see played out on that artistic stage. 
Therein lays Leonardo’s genius: enabling identification. The viewer of his paintings can very naturally identify with the subjects he depicts because we can identify with their humanity, even when the subject is divine. In Leonardo’s paintings the divine is rendered as human, and thus the human becomes divine. It is the ultimate humanist agenda for art and it is proof of Leonardo’s genius that he was so radically ahead of his time. 

Leonardo Da Vinci was undeniably a man of ideas and his capacity for innovation carries over beautifully into his painting. In the National Gallery’s current exhibition, Leonardo’s technical skill, not only in painting but in sketching and anatomical recording, is showcased in a way that highlights his fresh and unique (for his time) concentration on the humanity of his subjects: their characters, personalities and the nuances of their expressions. 

In the very first room of the exhibition (if you have been lucky enough to procure an audio guide), your attention will be breathily directed to Leonardo’s Portrait of a Young Man, painted in 1486 and described by the voice-over as ‘revolutionary’ in his time. The three-quarter profile of the subject was a radical departure from the traditional convention of portraiture, the profile view. Leonardo’s young man poses naturally and accessibly. His features and expression are more pronounced and characterful; he is absolutely ‘human’. 

This humanization of his subjects carries over into his unconventional paintings of women.  As with The Young Man, Leonardo softens his subjects, turning them to face out of the frame. By imbuing their faces and postures with character and personality, he makes their stance inviting rather than imposing; as the excitable voice-over eulogises, ‘you can fall in love with’ the women of Leonardo’s portraits. To achieve such vividly human depictions in his paintings, Leonardo made copious sketches and studies of the varieties of human expression and pose largely from life, occasionally from sculpture and, infamously, from dissected bodies. In this exhibition, the curator, Luke Syson, has made a careful and inspired decision to surround the famous (although admittedly few) paintings of Leonardo with the preparatory sketches that built up to them. Wandering around a room in the exhibition, you see a stranger built into a Madonna in several stages. It is in the last room, dedicated to The Last Supper, Leonardo’s greatest and yet most disappointing masterpiece, that this relationship is best showcased. 

A series of sketches line the walls and for each one there is a depiction of where this sketch has been worked into the final painting. Thus, we can see an old man’s head transformed into a disciple; and a dramatic sketch of a group of grotesquely depicted gypsies worked into Leonardo’s depiction of Judas. The Last Supper is the ultimate exemplar of the painter’s skill: each figure in the painting is dynamically realised. Bursting with character and emotion, they are essentially recognisable. We ourselves have felt the emotions we see played out on that artistic stage. Therein lays Leonardo’s genius: enabling identification. The viewer of his paintings can very naturally identify with the subjects he depicts because we can identify with their humanity, even when the subject is divine. In Leonardo’s paintings the divine is rendered as human, and thus the human becomes divine. It is the ultimate humanist agenda for art and it is proof of Leonardo’s genius that he was so radically ahead of his time. 

 

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