Leonardo Da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man

click here for more details, find new or used items	Martin Kemp Our price £9.74 (£14.99) New from £8.00 Used from £9.88 Pages: 432 (Paperback) ISBN: 019920778X Pub: Oxford University Press Pub date: 2007-10-18 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 142482

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THE MARVELLOUS GENIUS (3/4 people found this helpful)

Drawing on a multiplicity of sources-including the Madrid manuscripts -- Professor Kemp traces the evolution of Leonardo's vision of man and nature and presents 188 line drawings and halftones that embody the richness of his vision. He takes us into the mind of Da Vinci, trying to show us how the great mind thought, what his concerns were, what he accomplished and what kind of a man he was. It is rare for an author to be allowed to bring out a revised edition of a book published twenty-five years earlier. One cannot be blamed for wondering if the Press was originally keen to take advantage of the interest aroused in the uneducated classes by the novel and film, 'The Da Vinci Code'? Whatever the reason, it is good to have this marvellous book back in print.

The author has corrected and updated the text and, where new information (especially of the paintings) or understanding is relevant, has rewritten various passages, with particular reference to the publication of Salai's inventory. In some cases he has inserted new material and now includes all paintings 'that contribute definitively to his autograph oeuvre'. The book remains essentially what it was when first published, 'a cultural biography' of a genius who never ceases to fascinate.

In fact, Leonardo has always been regarded with awe; the breadth of his mind and the frightening range of his interests make him unique. Considering that more than 500 years have elapsed since his birth, a great deal is known about Leonardo, his family and the details of his life. Both his grandfather and his father were notaries, semi-public officials in Renaissance Italy akin to commercial lawyers. Although Leonardo was illegitimate, when he was baptized no less than five sets of godparents were present at the event, an indication of the happiness sparked by his arrival in a previously childless household. His life was the subject of the first psychobiography, Freud's famous treatise, which, despite historical and linguistic lapses, still remains full of insights. Freud's essay, in turn, elicited from Meyer Schapiro a classic article about Leonardo and Freud.

Apart from a liaison with Leonardo's mother, Caterina, who was married off to a local farmer, his father was married four times, producing 11 additional children. Despite vast age differences, Leonardo maintained an ongoing exchange with his brothers and sisters. He even left them 400 florins in his will. Leonardo also appears to have established relationships with his father's wives, particularly the fourth one. There is evidence to suggest that Leonardo's father actively furthered his son's career; in any case, a rapport between them can be inferred until the father's death in 1504. This traumatic event may have affected Leonardo's work, coinciding as it did with a particularly creative period. Although past 50 at the time, an emotion-filled Leonardo noted, with a tremulous hand, both the day and the hour of his father's death in two places among his papers.

In the Kemp's book, we also have detailed information about Leonardo's thoughts, his friends, even his personal life. Certain themes, often set in the form of prophecies, fables or riddles, crop up regularly in his writings, including that of being unappreciated. Characteristic is the following example: "Those who do the best will be struck the most, and their children will be taken away, stripped, and their bones will be crushed and broken." Although this is written in reference to walnut trees, an autobiographical connection may be assumed. To see Leonardo as a whole man, not exclusively as an artist, is the admirable aim of the author. For his raw material, he relies heavily upon Leonardo's own words, drawn from the notebooks as well as the posthumously published 'Treatise on Painting.'

Kemp's grasp of Leonardo's scientific and artistic writings is exceptional and exhibits a commanding control over the entire history of thought that was available to Leonardo and his contemporaries, drawing a number of convincing analogies. For example, he relates Leonardo's designs for an ideal church to his drawings of the human skull. The author observes that "within the bony dome of the cranium, sectioned along the main axis like some of the temple designs, (Leonardo) searched for the inner secrets of proportional design, the secrets which were the vital concern of every Renaissance architect from Brunelleschi to Palladio."

In another insightful connection, Mr. Kemp relates Leonardo's puzzling drawings of grotesques to a traditional literary form practiced by Florentine writers, including Leonardo himself, known as `facezie'. These were satirical, sharply worded stories concerning human weaknesses. Through this connection, certain of Leonardo's drawings are given a new narrative dimension. Furthermore, Kemp has the uncanny ability to explain Leonardo's inventions and his engineering experiments even to readers who may not have a scientific turn of mind.

However much the scientific aspects of Leonardo's work provide insights to the whole man, one can hardly deny that what triggers our interest is Leonardo the artist. He was above all a painter, and it is in this capacity that his influence was the strongest. The LAST SUPPER and the MONA LISA are probably the most familiar images in Western painting, but here the author's discussions become perhaps too cluttered by effusive, uninformative language. A small criticism, because on the whole, Martin Kemp has written an enticing book remarkably free of errors, and with impressive scholarly expertise. If at times he becomes too enthusiastic about his subject, we can surely excuse him and fully empathize in wonder.

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