WBUR reports on the rumor that MFA is negotiating to acquire Leonardo’s self-portrait discovered last year in Basilicata, Italy (although it was never confirmed officially that it’s a Leonardo). The painting was discovered during a research into the history archives of the Tempeleers, Ordre Souverain et Militaire du Temple de Jérusalem. I guess something good came out of the Da Vinci Code after all (Times).
MFA is undergoing a massive renovation and it would be a fitting cherry on top of the new museum structure.
Although the portrait might beat all time records in an auction, it really makes sense that a painting of this significance finds a home in an established, properly curated collection. (photo via 2baci)
The Seven Liberal Arts are the Trivium (you start by learning these):
And the Quadrivium (your “graduate disciplines”)
- geometry
- arithmetic
- music
- astronomy
During the Renaissance Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giorgio Vasari argued for the inclusion of architecture, painting and sculpture. Let me guess who are the muses in the Sandro Botticelli’s fresco (the one with the glasses sitting on top is the shadchan, she doesn’t count).
Sandro Botticelli, A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts c. 1484. Fresco transferred to canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Starting from the upper left:
- Grammar with the parchment,
- Astronomy with the crab,
- Rhetoric is trying to say something.
The three we see from the back, starting from the lower left:
- Music with the tambourine,
- Either Arithmetic or Logic (no signs of the “trade”),
- Geometry with the angle,
- The muse standing next to the young man is also either Arithmetic or Logic. I say he probably picked the Logic. The young man needs to go back to school for picking the “logic”…
Sandro Botticelli is published with permission from the Web Gallery of Art
Palazzo Vecchio
Art historian Maurizio Seracini got permission from the city of Florence to prove his theory that the most significant masterpiece by Leonardo Battle of Anghiari is intact behind frescos by Giorgio Vasari in Palazzo Vecchio. Numerous sketches (below) are scattered around the world museums, although no one knows where the final work is. Telegraph – Italian palace fresco may hide Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece.
Leonardo, The Battle of Anghiari, 1503-05, Black chalk, pen and ink, watercolour on paper, Musée du Louvre, Paris
“The Battle of Anghiari (Wikipedia) was fought on June 29, 1440, between Milan and the Italian League led by Republic of Florence in the course of the Wars in Lombardy. The League’s army concentrated on Anghiari, a small centre of Tuscany, and comprised: 4,000 Papal troops, under Cardinal Lodovico Trevisan; a Florentine contingent of around the same size, and a company of 300 men-at-arms (knights) from Venice, led by Micheletto Attendolo. Other men joined for the occasion from the Anghiari itself. The numerically superior Milanese force was led by the famous condottiero Niccolò Piccinino in the name of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti and reached the area on the night of June 28. Some 2,000 men from the nearby town of Sansepolcro joined the Milanese. Confident in his superior manpower, and on the element of surprise Piccinino ordered an attack in the afternoon of the following day. However the dust lifted by the Milanese on the Sansepolcro-Anghiari road was noticed by Micheletto and the League’s forces were made ready for battle.”
In 1503 Florence deposed the Medici mafia and proclaimed a Republic. They commissioned The Battle of Anghiari to Leonardo. 57 years later in 1560 the Medici family returned to power and allegedly asked Giorgio Vasari to cover the most significant art commission of the Republic.
Telegraphs reports that “Prof Seracini thinks he [Giorgio Vasari] left a clue to what was beneath by depicting a military banner which bears the words “Cerca Trova” – seek and you will find.” ►►►read more
A new film Agora directed by Alejandro Amenabar (trailer) about Hypatia of Alexandria to be released later this year. ΥΠΑΤΙΑ (c. 370 – 415) was a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. She was schooled in Italy and Athens and like her philosopher father taught in Alexandria. She was murdered by a mob of the Christian monks. Some say she was brought to the Christianised Caesareum church and flayed alive. The upcoming film is not the first public appearance of Hypatia. In 1510 Rafael depicted Hypatia of Alexandria amongst the philosophers in The School of Athens fresco in Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici in Vatican. It’s believed that the original sketch (above) resembled Raphael’s mistress Margherita (the mystery surrounding the fresco). There is a story that a bishop objected to the depiction of Hypatia. Raphael responded by moving Hypatia to the background and accentuating the androgynous features resembling the Pope’s nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere. ►►►read more
Thomas Stothard, Diagrams of book-shelves in the Royal Academy of Arts Library: Bays X & Y, 1814-18?
Seth Godin asks is marketing an art or a science? He naturally concludes it’s both and suggests that: “We need hats. The hat of the scientist and the hat of the artist. You can only wear one hat at a time, which is why I didn’t suggest that we need gloves. Figure out what sort of marketing you’re going to do today and go do that.”
Renaissance is known as the high time for art. Yet the art was based on the discoveries and the science of the perspective drawing. Philosophers still argue, what was first the idea of a “point of view” of the artistic illustrations. But no one represents the blurred lines between sciences and arts as much as the high priest of the Renaissance Leonardo. Fast-forward to quantum physics, the high achievement of the modern science, also a profound art, the products of intense abstractions and imagination.
I had a conversation with a friend about our disciplined Eastern European concept of art, while in the west art is a “state of mind”. Perhaps we need to revisit the labels instead of trying to classify our multidimensional creativity. Even Doug Bowman who left Google because they were crunching design, still would agree that in the end it’s all about methodology not about the demarcation between arts are sciences.
Image license courtesy Royal Academy of Arts
