Bastard of Florence

Welcome to "Leonardo da Vinci's tumblr", which serves as a multimedia collage of the different factors in Leonardo’s life that defined his career trajectory and fostered his insatiable curiosity, curiosity being the greatest influence on his earlier years, rather than pure expertise. Our blog features imagined first-person accounts from Leonardo himself as well as critiques and commentaries from his “contemporaries” about some of his most famous early works.

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When the greatest geniuses are working less they actually accomplish more.

Leonardo da Vinci

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Sfumato e Chiaroscuro

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Sounds of my childhood in the countryside

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Featured Contributor: commentary by one of my contemporaries

Piece: Adoration of the Magi San Donato in Scopeto

Date: 1482 ca.

Museum: The Uffizi

Medium: Drawing in charcoal, watercolour ink and oil on wood

Size: 244cm x 240cm

Leonardo da Vinci had just opened his own workshop in 1477 after working in Verrocchio’s until he was twenty-four. During this time the Adoration was a popular theme to paint in Florence and had been painted by Botticelli who painted around seven different iterations. It was also popular at the time to include the family members of those commissioning the painting into the painting itself. Botticelli did this with the de’Medici family, however, Leonardo chose to instead find better suited real-life models in the streets of Florance.

After being commissioned with the Adoration in 1481 by the monastery of San Donato Leonardo “set out to make [it]… filled with energy, emotion, agitation, and messiness” (Isaacson 2017, 77). His concept took the pyramidal concept in wide use at the time and infused it with the motion of a vortex that was centered on the baby Christ. Not a single body represented is in a simple pose. Each individual contorts and reacts with emotion to those surrounding them. The complex nature of the figures was only achieved under the advice of Alberti who recommended imagining the human body from the inside out (Isaacson 2017, 74-80).

Once again, Leonardo’s curiosity with perception and optics pushed him to pursue a painting full of complex figures and to try out the underlying spiral structure. It seems as if each painting was a chance for him to further explore how to show the connection between the motion of the physical body and the emotion of the mind as well as complexities often overlooked by other artists. Unfortunately, this painting was left unfinished. It was a daunting undertaking and Leonardo’s curiosity and knowledge allowed him to know what he did not know making it all the more difficult to finish a painting to his satisfaction.

Ignoring the ranking, check out how the Adoration has been painted by other artists from the Renaissance and other periods. What similarities or differences do you see?

https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-adoration-of-the-magi-in-art-art/reference

Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo Da Vinci.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Simon & Schuster, 2017. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat07528a&AN=mlc.b4695140&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Le Gallerie Delgi Uffizi. “Adoration of the Magi San Donato in Scopeto.” Accessed March 17, 2021. https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/verrocchio-leonardo-baptism-of-christ

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Featured Contributor: commentary by one of my contemporaries

Piece: The Baptism of Christ

Date: 1470-1475 ca.

Museum: The Uffizi

Medium: Tempera and oil on panel

Size: 177cm x 151cm

The Baptism of Christ was a collaboration between Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci. This painting is useful in understanding Leonardo's curiosity with explaining what he saw and exploring the most realistic ways to paint what he saw. Through curiosity and scientific inquiry, Leonardo studied human perception and ways to best paint what he observed. When looking at The Baptism of Christ we can compare the angel to the left, done by Leonardo, with the angel on the right, done by Andrea. When constructing the contours of the human body, many artists of the time would use lines and edges as seen in the angel’s head and face painted by Verrocchio. Leonardo’s angel however has no clear edges that break down the face into its smaller features. The translucent nature of Leonardo’s sfumato technique works best when using oil paints rather than the tempera that Verrocchio used (Isaacson 2017, 52-55). This calls to attention Leonardo’s curiosity into which materials and techniques could best achieve realism. Oil paints had just come to Italy and were not in widespread use. The entirety of Verrocchio’s workshop would have been trained in the egg yolk based Tempera, including Leonardo, so his use of oil paints comes as a surprise.

Through careful observation of the world driven by curiosity, Leonardo decided to go against Verrocchio’s use of hard edges inspired by Alberti’s treatise. Leonardo wrote “Paint so that a smoky finish can be seen, rather than contours and profiles that are distinct and crude” (Isaacson 2017, 55).  Leonardo’s use of sfumato inspired the next generation of artists, those of the High Renaissance.

Can you notice the difference in the angels faces? Verrocchio’s angel seems emotionless and flat-faced when next to Leonardo’s.

Read a little more about the technique of sfumato and its use in Raphael's Alba Madonna in the link below.

Chiaroscuro and Sfumato - Development and Ideas | TheArtStory

 Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo Da Vinci.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Simon & Schuster, 2017. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat07528a&AN=mlc.b4695140&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Le Gallerie Delgi Uffizi. “The Baptism of Christ.” Accessed March 17, 2021. https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/verrocchio-leonardo-baptism-of-christ

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Featured Contributor: commentary by one of my contemporaries

Piece: Annunciation

Date: 1472 ca.

Museum: The Uffizi

Medium: Oil on wood

Size: 90cm x 222cm

The Annunciation was painted by Leonardo da Vinci while he was still working in Verrocchio’s workshop. It is considered one of his earliest solo works as hinted at by the many flaws within. When analyzing the perspective of this painting, the two biggest flaws that stand out are the garden wall and the positioning of the Virgin Mary in relation to the lectern. Looking closely at the garden wall it appears as if it were viewed from a higher vantage point than the rest of the painting. It also has an odd angle at its opening. Switching over to the Virgin Mary we see that she is positioned further back than the lectern (Isaacson 2017, 56-59). This is most easily seen when comparing the point at which the lectern rests on the ground and the point where Mary’s legs appear to make contact with the ground. This positioning makes her right arm, which comes across her body to the left side of the book, appear unnaturally long.

A likely reason for the flaws was Leonardo’s lack of expertise in perspective, especially a technique called anamorphosis where images are distorted to appear normal from a specific vantage point. Being curious with optics and how individuals would interact with this painting, Leonard da Vinci attempted this very difficult technique in the Annunciation. It was originally intended to be hung over a side altar where individuals would have viewed the painting from below the painting and to the right (Le Gallerie Delgi Uffizi).

Try tilting your screen and viewing the painting from below and to the right. Does this make the angle of the garden walls opening and the Virgin Mary’s arm appear more correct? 

Here are some examples of anamorphosis in some contemporary 3D art pieces. 

Stunning Portraits By Bernard Pras Can Only Be Seen From The Right Angle | Bored Panda

Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo Da Vinci. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Simon & Schuster, 2017. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat07528a&AN=mlc.b4695140&site=eds-live&scope=site.

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The Lion, the Ermine and the Swan–Animals in Leo’s Earlier Works

The lion in Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Ermine in Lady with an Ermine

Horses and other mammalian creatures in Adoration of the Magi 

Horse study for the Sforza monument

The Swan in Leda and the Swan. 1503. 

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Curiosity in Mastering the Human Form

Featured Contributor: a critique from one of my contemporaries

|In his prolific series of anatomical drawings, he included a woman’s anatomy, which according to Walter Isaacson has a “crude and flawed depiction of female genitalia, looking like a forbidden and dark cave.”  

In later years Leonardo would call himself a “disciple of experience.” Leo does not seem to have demonstrated the same depth of curiosity in the female form as he did in the male, or cadavers....That might just explain why his depiction of female genitalia resembles a cave.

Isaacson claims that Leonardo was a “master” of painting women, but if we are consistent and hold Leo’s renditions of women to the same high standard of anatomical exactitude present in his drawings of horse hooves and skeletons–is this really true?  Even his masterpieces of women are often portrait renditions of their torsos–like the Mona Lisa, the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci and the Madonna. On one occasion, according to Vasari, Leo painted only Medusa’s decapitated head. Even in paintings like Annunciazione and Adoration of the Magi, where technically speaking, anatomically complete women are present, their lower halves are concealed by the drapery of a dress. Given the extensiveness of his drapery studies, this is no surprise. He was a master of fabric. 

Lady with an Ermine. 1489. 

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Featured Contributor: commentary by one of my contemporaries

1474-1478. Oil on Panel. 

The Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci–a young Florentine woman– was one of the several times Leonardo da Vinci secured a commission through the wide-ranging networking of his father, Piero. 

Though Leo went above and beyond in his rendering of Ginevra in an unorthodox three-quarters pose, the portrait is one of the many occasions on which Leo rendered a woman’s torso but nothing beneath it. Here we celebrate Ginevra’s 1474 marriage in leg-less oil-based glory. 

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Why did my Vitruvian man far exceed that of my fellow collaborators and artists? I was not more skilled than them in mathematics, nor more well-read in Latin, yet my depiction of Vitruvius’ “perfect man” overshadows their sketches by far and is well recognized into modernity. The secret to this masterful depiction was simply my bountiful curiosity, which drove me to scrutinize Vitruvius’ measurements, and conduct my own anatomical dissections in order to create my own set of parameters. While my friends’ pursuit of the Vitruvian man ended after our dinners, my drive led me to form my own expertise on the subject of golden ratios, fueled by infinite curiosity. This curiosity proved to be the only difference between where other’s stopped and where my investigation began.

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quick to start, struggles to finish

difficulty with deadlines and finances

procrastinates due to perfectionism

yet.....

spontaneity, bursts of hyper-focus (almost manic-like), sociable and outgoing, crave variety and despise stagnancy, wide and diverse interests (compatible with polymathy)

My neurodivergent ways is what separated myself from my contemporaries, and while cumbersome when it came to deadlines and financial matters, it’s what led me to create some of the greatest art, inventions, and sketches. All the great Renaissance painters grew up in workshops as apprentices, just like me, most of us would be considered experts in our fields. So what set me apart? My insatiable curiosity

sources: https://thecharmedstudio.com/help-for-artists-with-adhd/

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If I were alive in modern times, I probably would’ve been interested in the neuroscience behind divergent thinking (or what is categorized as “learning disabilities”). As a child born out of wedlock, with two different homes, I had a rather free and unstructured childhood, which conveniently suited my learning style. I spent much time, outside in nature, exploring the rolling green hills of Vinci, and it is there where I first began my ceaseless sketching (although none survive from this time period). Impaired executive function (in the prefrontal cortex) allowed me to jump from interest to interest with ease. I would’ve kept myself entertained for hours on end, exploring the natural world and drawing what I saw. Perhaps difficulties with emotional regulation and my impulsivity is what would’ve prompted my father to take me to Florence, hoping that an apprenticeship would provide the structure and discipline needed to rear a hyperactive child.

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Where I frolicked as a child

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