Born on this day in 1452 in Tuscany, eventually ended up under the patronage of Francis I in Amboise --
Leonardo is mostly thought of as a painter, it seems, but he was really the all-time Renaissance Man.
What are your favorite moments in your travels with Leonardo connections?
The Air & Space Museum in DC had an exhibit of Leonard and I was lucky enough to see his actual leather notebook and his backwards writing. They also had models of his never-realized inventions.
I was in Paris in Oct of 2019 and the Louvre had a Leonardo da Vinci Exhibit that we were able to see while there. It included 160 works ranging from paintings and drawings. It was so great to be able to see that, while it took up most of our time in the Louvre, we were still able to see a few other things as well.
I put this one in the general category here on the forum because our encounters with da Vinci range so widely -- right off the bat we have Washington DC and Paris!
I am wracking my brain trying to remember where we saw an exhibition on Leonardo. I remember it was better then I thought it would be and extremely interesting. He really was a man ahead of his time.
Agree, Leonardo was really the all-time Renaissance Man. Favorite moments so far: The Uffizi, the Louve, Galleria Dell’ Accademia, Château du Clos Lucé his final home in Amboise and the 1997 Seattle Art Museum exhibit of Bill Gates Codex Leicester (manuscript of da Vinci scientific work.) https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19961111&slug=2359193
Happy 570th Birthday Leo.
Another DC encounter, this one at the National Gallery of Art, came around a corner and boom, there it was! Ginevra de’ Benci. It was so cool to be able to get up close to it with no crowds, unlike the prior da Vinci painting I saw, from afar … and behind glass, and with masses of people crowding around.
Hoping to catch a da Vinci exhibit some day of his many inventions and drawings.
Touring his home in Amboise, France. In one room there are models of many of his inventions and designs. The one that has always stuck in my mind is the ballbearing. https://www.leonardodavincisinventions.com/mechanical-inventions/leonardo-da-vinci-ball-bearing/ I have to wonder if that is the most widely used concept he's ever come up with.
As the saying goes - " All art is craft , but not all craft is Art " Leonardo was a brilliant artist as well as a craftsman . This PBS documentary shows how he created his masterpieces . - https://youtu.be/kjDqx3XOGMo
In Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has some drawings that were done late in his career, and in the wake of the famous heist at the museum they keep the da Vinci pieces unlabeled and a little out of the way, but if you root around you can find them.
https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/10779
That heist back in the '90s was the single worst art theft in history, never solved:
https://www.gardnermuseum.org/about/theft-story
