Martin Kemp's expertise shines a light onto the true life of one of my heroes, Leonardo da Vinci

 Leonardo – Martin Kemp (2004)

  

            If there is a single human being that exemplifies my definition of an artist it is Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, the greatest of the “Big 3” of Renaissance art.  The other two being Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, otherwise known as Raphael and Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. The omnipresence of Leonardo in our collective human consciousness is unrivalled by any other artist.  From his amazing engineering genius, his deep inquisitiveness about the natural world around us, and his unceasing desire to expand the wisdom of humanity, he drew forth art so timeless as to feel inevitable. His two most famous works, the Last Supper fresco and the small oil painting on poplar universally loved as the Mona Lisa, are the two most recognizable pieces of art the world over, with Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco and his massive statue of David coming in a very close second.  I studied Art and Art History and considered myself well-versed on Leonardo, his life, and his achievements, but nothing could have prepared me for the journey taken with this wonderful book by Martin Kemp.

            I should have been prepared, seeing as how Martin Kemp, the Emeritus Professor of Art History at Oxford University, is the world’s most-renowned scholar and expert on Leonardo Da Vinci, his works, and his life story.  As an art lover, I felt Mr. Kemp’s awe and admiration for the old master on every page.  I share this with him.  Mr. Kemp’s prose is detailed, informative, and full of original ideas.  While there exist many biographies of Leonardo, this concise volume focuses on how we, modern human beings, can truly understand him, and the world he adored, analyzed, and portrayed in his writing and art.  A superlative individual such as Leonardo suffers from the cult of personality that arises around such august personages.  Stories turn into myths and myths turn into legends.  The world accepts the legend as truth, until everyone forgets the true facts.  Martin Kemp has created a magnificent resource for anyone seeking to learn the actual details of Leonardo’s life, patronages, and art-making processes. 

            One of the intriguing details in the story of Leonardo’s life is the tale of his death, and what became of the art he left behind in his studio.  Leonardo, like all great artists and craftsmen of the time, ran a studio of painters and sculptors who helped him prepare materials, prime surfaces, and finish “unimportant” details of paintings so the master could focus on the main subjects portrayed within.  One of these men, a rascally character named Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno who painted under the name “Andrea Salai,” apprenticed under Leonardo and held an unsavory reputation, even though he was one of the main apprentices given the responsibility of running Leonardo’s workshop.  Upon the master’s death, Salai took it upon himself to swipe a good number of completed paintings from the studio, keeping them hidden in his home until his untimely death by bow and arrow.  It was in the accounting of Salai’s belongings that a list of the purloined Leonardo’s was found.  This included the famous Giaconda painting currently hanging in the Louvre.  King Francis I of France purchased the lot soon after, which is why the Mona Lisa is a treasured piece of art in France and not Italy.  If it wasn’t for a shady apprentice, the world may never have heard of the Mona Lisa! 

This book is full of details that flesh out the true life of Leonardo, while also explaining exactly why the grandiose and superlative legends arose about the great man.  Martin Kemp includes dozens of color plates showing beautiful reproductions of the master’s art, along with many black and white drawings exploring the ways in which Leonardo used the act of drawing itself as a form of thinking about, and inquiry into, the natural world around us.  He prized sight above all other senses, and the act of focused looking as the main source of inspiration for any visual artist.  In this he influenced everyone that followed, even if only in rebelling against this idea.  In Leonardo’s assessment, visual art is more valuable than any poem, song, or theatrical art.  These types of art require time to pass for the audience to fully grasp the intent and beauty within.  Visual art, such as sculpture, paintings, and drawings, slams the viewer with everything all at once.  It takes very little time for communication to happen through the eye.  The horror of war illustrated in Picasso’s Guernica, or the viciousness of the old gods as portrayed by Goya in his Saturn Devouring His Son slam into us without any need for exposition.  Truth, beauty, and wisdom are transmitted without the need for sloppy words.  Perhaps it is this quality that touches us centuries later as we admire and explore Leonardo’s art.  I know that he touched my life in unimaginable ways.  I hope many people read Martin Kemp’s book and grow in their love and admiration for the great master.

(This wonderful book can be purchased from Oxford University Press here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/leonardo-9780199583355?cc=us&lang=en& )

The Great Ralph Steadman Shares His Love for Leonardo da Vinci

 

I, Leonardo - Ralph Steadman (1983)

(Readers of RXTT’s Book Journey may have noticed a lack of new reviews on the blog.  The end of 2023 was a brutal time for the RXTT household.  What should have been a time of joy, just after celebrating our wedding anniversary, became one of the lowest points of my life.  Soon after my dogs and I fought back against a vicious pit bull attack, an extremely traumatic event in and of itself, my employment situation became untenable, after five-plus years of exemplary work.

As you may imagine, these events brought me to a low place, and reading, absorbing and writing about books became somewhat of an afterthought.  Apart from the love and support of my wife, which is always treasured, what pulled me out of the melancholia was my novel, IN CRED.  I had completed the bulk of it in 2023, but the first part of 2024 was spent finalizing it and getting the book published.  It is available here.  The joy of creation is infectious, and by July my novel was in the hands of many readers.  At the same time, after months of looking, I secured a new position.  As a book lover, I always fantasized about working in a library.  The very idea of it fills me with bookish glee.  The fact that the library is an exceedingly beautiful one is just overkill.  As one of my gurus, Robert Anton Wilson once said, the journey to enlightenment must always pass through “castle perilous” first, meaning nothing worthwhile, whether in life, spirituality, or psychedelia, comes without experiencing the bottom edge of fear and despair.  If it wasn’t for the brutal slap-down life gave me in late 2023, I would not be where I am now, in late 2024.  I hope to renew my regular book review postings, and share with you some of the amazing books I now have access to.

Thanks for your continued support. – RXTT)

 

Sometimes serendipity brings one access to a previously desired item.  I have spent the past decades in deep admiration of one Ralph Steadman, an English gentleman whose artwork is crazed and transgressive, and whose collaborations with my favorite journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, blew my mind apart as a young man.  Steadman’s illustrations combine high draughtsmanship with visceral experimentation, often exposing the inner horrors normally disguised by people’s outward appearances.  When people ask me who my favorite visual artist is, my answer is Ralph Steadman.

After my initial exposure to Ralph Steadman’s art, I saw him as a kindred spirit and a personal muse.  I looked to find as many of his books as I could.  The one book I wanted but was never able to collect was his first one, I, Leonardo.  My new employment has afforded me the greatest of gifts, the ability to check out and absorb I, Leonardo, directly from the library shelves!

As a young man, Ralph Steadman was fascinated by Leonardo da Vinci, as I am and I am sure many other fellow artists are.  He is a fascinating individual, especially once you read about the world he lived in and the insane life he led.  Ralph Steadman’s first contact with Leonardo da Vinci was a fortuitous occasion, where he found a paperback copy of Leonardo’s notebooks, a near-perfect amalgam of art, science, and genius, loved and cherished by Steadman to this day.  In I, Leonardo, Steadman created a magical work, using his own unique art to portray the events of Leonardo’s life, while the text functions as if the artist himself relates his life story. It is a clever conceit, and one that works well.  I soon found myself lost in the ever-troubled world of Renaissance Italy.

As Leonardo ages and tells his story, his inventiveness and mechanical ingenuity come to the fore.  From an early age, he devised contraptions to aid in the manual labors of the home, to better understand the natural world around him, and sometimes to create frivolous fun in a world severely lacking in such.  He describes making extra money because he could easily achieve great likenesses with his drawing skills.  After a lengthy apprenticeship, he began to look for commissions, slowly building up his network of friends, patrons, and cohorts.

Many of Leonardo da Vinci’s commissions were never completed, or at least he never thought them good enough for his personal taste.  This was largely due to the volatile times in which he found himself.  Artists always lived and died by their patronage, and in the Italian states of the 15^th century, those in power rarely retained their position for long.  For example, Leonardo would move to Milan, find a patron, usually a Duke or Bishop of some sort, and be commissioned to create some sort of magnificent fresco, painting, or engineering design.  He would dive in, work hard, and often, just as he was to complete a work, would lose his patron to political upheaval, or a change in the religious leadership.  Due to the recurrence of such situations, Leonardo began to take his sweet time preparing and finishing work.  He was concerned with experimentation, with new techniques and materials, and due to this he could not work as fast as his contemporaries such as Michelangelo or Raphael.  Even a work he finished, such as the Last Supper masterpiece, was damaged by floods within a few months of completion.

Whether due to his constant experimentation with materials, or the varied whims of his patrons, Ralph Steadman surmises that Leonardo willfully slowed down his work so as to serve the art and not the master.  Speaking through Leonardo, Steadman describes how infatuated Leonardo became with the sitter for the world-famous Mona Lisa, or as Leonardo would call her, his Madonna Lisa, having her come for extra sessions, and noting that her specific beauty was best captured in the soft light of the waning day.  Leonardo never delivered this painting to the husband who commissioned it, instead choosing to keep it for himself. 

Much like Leonardo’s own notebooks, many of the large artworks in this book are accompanied by Ralph Steadman’s preliminary sketches.  This allows an artist like myself to see the process by which Ralph Steadman conjures up his visions.  Awesome.  This was a labor of love, and Steadman’s admiration of Leonardo da Vinci shines through in every page.  Not only is it a great primer on the life of one of the world’s foremost artists and engineers, but it is a great introduction to anyone looking to learn more about Steadman’s work.  The reverence he holds for Leonardo shows in the relatively restrained artwork, showing a greater feeling for form, perspective, and narrative than Steadman’s normal, and notoriously chaotic, images do.  As is the norm with Ralph Steadman, the portraits of aristocrats and powerful religious figures are scathing grotesqueries, showing the reader the true ugliness hidden beneath the trappings and finery of the supposed “elite.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  Much like Rudy Rucker’s As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel, I was captivated by the immersion into the artist’s world, times, and life.  The true originals, such as Leonardo da Vinci, or Ralph Steadman himself, use their skills and acumen to show us something new, something which no one before or since can capture in quite the same manner.  In doing so they transcend the limits of time, language, culture, etc.  The created work exists, and that is what matters.  We are all the luckier for it.  I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking an overview of Leonardo’s life, or an introduction to the amazing artwork of Ralph Steadman.

(Signed copies of I, Leonardo can be purchased here: https://www.ralphsteadman.com/collection/i-leonardo/ )