by Martin Kemp
If we doubt whether even Leonardo could have achieved all this, his drawings for the heads of key combatants show that he could achieve facial expressions that are the equal of his written accounts. A study in black and red chalk in Budapest (opposite, top right) depicts the central warrior, identifiable as Niccolò Piccinino, and a snarling Florentine. The face of the Milanese captain is deeply etched with screaming fury.
Studies for the Battle of Anghiari, c. 1503.
Studies of the Heads of Warriors, c. 1504.
In any event, Leonardo’s ambitions were not to be realized. The Florentine authorities were under irresistible pressure from the French to surrender Leonardo’s services to their regime in Milan. In May 1506, the artist left for what was meant to be a three-month leave of absence. During 1507 and 1508, a tug-of-war between the Florentines and the French resulted in Leonardo’s shuttling between the two cities before moving more permanently to Milan. The leader of the Florentine Republic complained that Leonardo had “taken a goodly sum of money and provided a small beginning of the great work which he should have made.”
60. Study of Heads of Horses, Lion, and Man
c. 1506, Windsor, Royal Library, 12326r
This spirited page is associated with the Battle of Anghiari. Leonardo’s horses were to fight with each other as aggressively as the soldiers. He was looking at how a horse can withdraw its muzzle and nostrils to bare its incisors and gums. There is no question that the drawings are based on observations of actual horses.
However, as is typical of Leonardo, the series of studies goes beyond what is strictly needed for the task in hand. Having concentrated on the way that horses bite aggressively, the artist then has a roaring head of a lion and a shrieking man float into view, as a graphic meditation on the universality of expression in man and animals. The dynamically twisting horse in the top left is typical of studies of horses in motion that were triggered by the Battle but were not obvious candidates for inclusion in the painting. Leonardo’s mind wanders in a thrilling manner, but not always in a way that is conducive to the practical completion of paintings.
The traditional science of physiognomy was known to Leonardo (see pages 13 and 71). He owned the Book of Physiognomy by Michael Scot, the thirteenth-century Scottish philosopher, which was printed in 1477. Alongside the analysis of human faces, Scot classified the physiognomic characters of animals. Whereas traditional physiognomy dealt with the static facial “signs” of the face—the fixed features that seemed to signal the subject’s character, in which Leonardo was certainly interested—his study of the subject focused at least as much, if not more, on the commonality of facial expressions in man and animals across their full range. There had been nothing comparable in either art or science.
The drawings are brilliant examples of Leonardo’s penwork after 1500. The varied motions and pressures of his pen have a graphic power that perfectly complements the expressive energy of his subjects. His earlier mode of hatching to create shadow had been to build up rows of parallel lines of varied density. In the rearing horse the rapid ink lines curve descriptively around the forms, as if sculpting their plastic form with a claw chisel.
61. Sequential Images of a Man Striking a Blow and Optical Diagram
c. 1506, Windsor, Royal Library, 19149v
Leonardo’s planned Treatise on Painting was to contain extensive discussions of the human body in all kinds of motion: “at rest, moving, running, standing upright, leaning, seated, stooping, kneeling, recumbent, hanging, carrying and being carried, pushing, pulling, striking, being struck, weighted down, and lifting.” They were all to be illustrated with small, rapid sketches.
The motions all fell into one of three categories: “motion of place, and motion by simple action, and the third is by [both] action and motion of place.” The last is compound motion, such as “dancing, fencing, playing, sowing, plowing, and rowing.” But Leonardo thought further about rowing, because the “motion of place” is that of the boat. Every motion occurs across what he calls a “continuous quantity” in that it occurs indivisibly across space, not in separate steps of space and time.
He explained that “the movements of man during the course of a single event are infinitely varied in themselves. In the case of a man delivering a blow to some object . . . such a blow occurs in two directions. . . . Either he is raising the thing that is to descend to create the blow, or he is making the descending motions.” Each motion is continuous across space. He added that “one and the same action will show itself as infinitely varied because it may be seen from an infinite number of locations.”
Leonardo’s sequential images of the hammering man, above which he wrote the title On Painting, exhibit a cinematographic quality. In 2006, they were animated for an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It transpired that Leonardo had infallibly identified the key stages needed for the animation, to which were added intermediate stages to achieve smooth motion.
The other studies, on what is a large sheet folded into four (only the bottom left portion is shown here), deal with images projected through a hole into a darkened chamber (a camera obscura or pinhole camera), the interaction of colored lights, and the path of light rays in the eye, which can be dated to c. 1507.
62. Studies of Horses in Motion, St. George and the Dragon, and a Cat (?)
c. 1516, Windsor, Royal Library, 12331
This sheet of fourteen studies is related in a general sense to the Battle of Anghiari (see pages 108–11). We can see two horses fighting savagely and two rearing in a manner that recalls Leonardo’s plans for the mural. However, the drawings do not serve a preparatory function, and they probably date from well after the Battle. The sheet as a whole has assumed a life of its own, as testimony to Leonardo’s unbridled inventiveness.
It seems likely that the first drawing on the page was the central image of St. George on a rearing horse in deadly combat with a leonine dragon thrashing its spiraling tail. It is astonishing how Leonardo can compress so much spatial energy into a sketch under 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) tall. The speed of his pen and the alacrity with which he applies the brown wash to shade the forms has never been surpassed.
The subsequent order of the studies is difficult to determine, but it is clear that the artist switched back and forth between the Anghiari-style horses and the St. Georges. Whatever Leonardo’s intention when he first laid pen to paper, the note at the top makes it clear that the drawings serve as an illustration of the torsions of animals in motion: “The serpent-like movement is the principal action in animal and it is double, the first occurring along its length and the second across its width.”
Looking at the five St. Georges, it is easy to see how Leonardo’s frantic inventiveness was a conspicuous factor in his completing so few works. He devises one compelling image of the dramatic action. But he can see more . . . and more. How is he to choose? The central drawing is the most lucid and traditional, while the one squeezed in next to it is truly original, with a massive dragon, and a terrified horse. Even if one of the drawings had been chosen, he would likely have continued manipulating the composition in his cartoon and on the panel during the course of painting.
“Looking at the five St. Georges, it is easy to see how Leonardo’s frantic inventiveness was a conspicuous factor in his completing so few works.”
63. Studies of Cats and Other Animals
c. 1516, Windsor, Royal Library, 12363
Like the sheet of horses and St. Georges, this page of twenty-three lively little sketches is related to the plan Leonardo conceived of writing “a separate treatise describing the motions of animals with four feet, among which is man, who in his infancy similarly crawls on all fours.” Leonardo was exceptional in recognizing the commonality of movement between humans and quadrupeds. The treatise would not just be descriptive but would be founded on the anatomy of the various creatures. At the bottom of this page, he praises “this animal species, of which the lion is the prince, because of its
spinal column, which is flexible.”
The two studies to the right of the center of the page were probably the first to appear. (As a left-hander, Leonardo tended to begin writing or drawing on pages to the right of center.) They are beautiful and utterly convincing drawings, from life, of a comfortably domesticated cat, as are those at the right edge of the page and the bottom-right corner.
Thereafter, Leonardo’s imagination comes into play. In five of the sketches, a pair of cats is ferociously wrestling. Their actions seem part remembered and part invented. The latter is obviously true of the fuzzy creature that arches its back and tail in the upper left. A rat or mouse puts in an unexpected appearance. A curly-tailed dragon suddenly arrives at an angle to all the other creatures, a refugee from the St. Georges.
It is not always easy to tell when observation and fantasy are involved. The aggressive felines beside the sleeping cats appear to be lionesses, crawling forward with their chests close to the ground. Lions were kept in cages behind the government palace in Florence, and the drawings may well be based on observation. Others of the crawling creatures are not definitively either cats or lionesses.
In any event, there is a strong sense that Leonardo was having fun.
64. Scheme for a Circular Fortification
c. 1504, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Codice atlantico, 132r
On June 30, 1504, the Florentine authorities interrupted Leonardo’s work on the Battle of Anghiari (see pages 108–11) so that he could travel to the coastal town of Piombino to advise its ruler, Jacopo IV Appiani, on how its fortifications might be improved. The port of Piombino provided vital access to the sea at a time when Florence was at war with Pisa. On November 1, Leonardo noted that he made “a demonstration” for the “lord in Piombino.” Among other things, he recommended the removal of the crests of some hills to improve the defenders’ lines of fire, estimating the costs involved.
His work at Piombino triggered some radical rethinking about new kinds of fortifications that would best resist attack by increasingly effective cannon, bombards, and mortars. His most novel idea was for a squat, circular fortress with concentric rings of walls. To better deflect incoming projectiles, everything is curved: the bastions, the faces of the massive masonry rings, the embrasures of the windows, and the sidewalls of the gun ports. The idea is that shots hitting the curved contours would be deflected: “every blow diminishes by half” rather than striking flat walls with maximum force.
The page illustrated here is one of a series in which Leonardo presented the circular plan with the rings in a three-dimensional section to demonstrate the routes of internal circulation for the commander and the three “captains,” and the narrow gun ports through which the defenders could fire in relative safety. He explained that “no enemy can see the person who defends this wall.” He advised that a well should be made at the center of the fortification so that the “moats can be filled whenever the commander so determines.” He noted that a single stationary guard, changed every three hours, could be positioned so as to view the circular castle within and without. He was totally rethinking the logistics of defense.
65. Four Mortars Firing over a Castellated Wall
c. 1505, Windsor, Royal Library, 12275
This astonishing image, drawn mainly in very fine pen with delicate brown washes, transforms a savage bombardment into a formalized demonstration of the dynamics of projectiles. A related drawing also contains a Battle of Anghiari horse, confirming the work’s date as c. 1505.
Four mortars are positioned in pits outside a castellated wall of a notably old-fashioned kind. The entrance, flanked by bastions that support cannons, has been blocked by a sloping wall of masonry. Behind the wall is a courtyard with lower and blunter fortifications punctuated by arched gun ports through which cannon are pointed. The mortars rain an improbable and devastating cascade of missiles into the courtyard. It is difficult to reconcile the demonstration with any practical setup. No mortars could fire such volleys of missiles. How would the attackers install the mortars so close to enemy walls? Or does the setup show a way of destroying an enemy army when it has already captured the fortress? Either way, it assumes the guise of a military fantasy.
The trajectory of the missiles has been described with meticulous mathematical care. The most powerful projectiles follow a semicircular path, while the intermediate ones pursue paths that are of varied steepness. Each curve is symmetrical around its highest point. It is unclear how this orderly effect could be achieved from the mouths of standard mortars. Unless a better explanation becomes available, we can only assume that this is the kind of “demonstration” that is designed to tickle a patron’s militaristic fancy rather than a practical design.
Tracking the path of projectiles as drawn lines is part convention and part observation. Leonardo observed that “a stone thrown through the air leaves in the eye that sees it an impression of the movement, and drops of water do the same as they descend from the clouds.” He would not have used the phenomenon of the persistence of vision in his paintings, but could do so in his drawings when it suited his purposes.
66. Scheme for an Arno Canal
c. 1503–5, Windsor, Royal Library, 192279
In 1503, Leonardo devised a scheme to divert the Arno past the maritime city of Pisa, which had been freed from Florentine rule. Work was put in hand, but by October 1504 it was clear that the Arno was not going to be diverted, and the project was abandoned as a fiasco.
As part of his engagement with the Arno, Leonardo turned his attention to a civil project to bypass the unnavigable reaches of the Arno west of Florence, where it runs through rocky and mountainous terrain. He devised a great arching canal that would pass northwestward through Prato and Pistoia before turning in a southerly direction into a navigable section of the Arno near Pisa.
Here we can see Florence near the right margin and two dark circles that indicate Prato and Pistoia. The coast runs close to the left margin. No map had ever been drawn with such expressive life. The “body of the earth” is “vivified” by its “veins of water.” Although the penwork and the colored washes look very free, there is scale along the bottom left, and the main features are pricked through for transfer.
As Leonardo considered the topography of the Arno valley, he observed features that were to revolutionize his understanding of the history of the earth. He noted that where rivers cut through mountains, stratified deposits could be seen, including successive layers of shells. Since there was more than one layer, the biblical deluge could not have been responsible.
He concluded that “in ancient times” the Arno was “dammed up . . . in such a way that before entering the sea . . . the river formed two lakes. The first was where the city of Florence now flourishes along with Prato and Pistoia.” The second lake was in the upper Arno, north of Arezzo. In the Codex Leicester Leonardo extended this vision to embrace the whole of the known world, speculating that as the Straits of Gibraltar widened, the Mediterranean would become an extension of the Nile!
67. Portrait of Lisa del Giocondo (the “Mona Lisa”)
c. 1503–15, Paris, Louvre
68. Portrait of Lisa del Giocondo
2010, digitally restored by Pascal Cotte
The routine origins of this portrait stand in the sharpest contrast to its status as the world’s most famous visual image.
From the marginal note added by Agostino Vespucci in October 1503 to his copy of Cicero’s Letters to Friends, we learn that Leonardo had embarked upon a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. Vespucci was an acquaintance of Leonardo’s. Lisa came from the Gherardini family, Tuscan landed gentry, whose prosperity had declined. Her husband, Francesco del Giocondo, was a rich silk merchant who extended his activities into trading and moneylending. By 1503, Lisa was twenty-four years old and had given birth to five children. Francesco was acquainted with Ser Piero da Vinci, the artist’s father, who had acted in a legal capacity for the silk merchant.
Because of its early impact on
Florentine painters, we can identify the picture in the Louvre with that recorded by Agostino. The portrait was almost certainly not finished when Leonardo left Florence in 1507. It was seen in Leonardo’s hands in France in 1517 when it was described by a local chronicler as “a certain Florentine woman portrayed from life at the behest of the late Magnificent Giuliano de’ Medici.” This reference has been used to argue that Lisa is not the sitter. However, it is likely that Giuliano (1479–1516), Leonardo’s patron in Rome from 1513 to 1516, admired the unfinished image as a masterly painting and encouraged Leonardo to complete it. In any event, it appears as “la Ioconda” on the 1525 list of paintings in the hands of Salaì in Milan six years after his master’s death. By 1550, it was in the collection of Francis I at Fontainebleau.
The portrait evolved into a “universal picture” in which Leonardo invested his highest intellectual, imaginative, and technical skills. We can see from technical examinations—particularly from changes in the sitter’s costume—that it evolved from a portrait of a bourgeois Florentine wife to an image of a more philosophical kind. There are two main dimensions to this evolution: poetic and scientific.
