500 years ago Leonardo Da Vinci used art as a means of examining the human body. A prolific artist who achieved fame within his lifetime, Da Vinci produced thousands of acutely observed scientific sketches; of bodies, bones and muscles stripped of skin. Yet he never achieved his aim of producing a grand treatise on what he had discovered.
Now, all these years later, we can see ten of his best sketches, unveiled as part of a new exhibition at Bristol Museum. They are minute, ink and chalk on rough paper, two-tone and sometimes unfinished. A couple are designs for statues, others preparation for bigger paintings and one an example of his scientific sketches, which have resonated across so many generations. They burst from the page and throb with life, but why have they brought him fame which has lasted half a century? What is special about these small scraps of drawings, which represent only a tiny selection of his huge catalogue?
Perhaps it is the delicacy of his work, which captures so clearly the life and energy of whatever he is depicting. Da Vinci uses tiny lines to indicate shading, they arch and weave across the page and create an image full of depth and vigour. The lightness of his hand seems at odds with the grim reality of his subject matter. We know Da Vinci requisitioned dead bodies for his drawings, and it feels like he has attempted to breathe life into them once again.
The age of the pictures means that they begin to decompose in contact with the light, thus the exhibition offers a unique opportunity to see what is decaying, and what one day will simply fade away. Da Vinci is a true master of his craft, he sought the truth of the object, and went to any means to find it. It is this accuracy of observation, this skill in bringing what was before him to the page, that has made him one of the most renowned names in art today.
