Unesco travelling print exhibition: Leonardo Da Vinci

Published by the United Nations I N T R 0 D U C T I 0 N Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization 1 9 avenue Kléber, Paris-i6e Printed by Imprimerie Paul Dupont Copyright 1952 by Unesco, Paris This exhibition o f reproductions o f the drawings o f Leonardo da Vinci has been assembled for L E O N A R D O D A VINcI was bo r n 500 years ago ne a r the little town o f t ha t name circulation in cultural and educational institutions throughout the Member States o f Unesco. not ma n y miles from Florence. T h e event was to exercise the profoundest It forms part o f Unesco's programme o f encouraging a greater understanding o f art and it is particularly fortunate that it has been possible to inaugurate the exhibition during 1952 and thus influence o n the development o f a r t in Europe a n d indeed in the world. celebrate the five hundredth anniversary o f the great master's birth. I t is appropriate therefore t h a t a world-wide organization should ma r k such The prints have been chosen from the original collection made by Adolfo Venturi f o r the publi- a n anniversary a n d t h a t the country o f his birth, the country where h e ended cation on Leonardo da Vinci produced by the Commissione Vinciana and printed by la Libreria his days as well as various other countries have organized individual tributes dello Stato in Rome. to his genius on this anniversary. But this genius, recognized as universal, Unesco wishes to thank the members o f the Commissione Vinciana f o r their co-operation and demands the homage o f a celebration as nearly universal as the circumstances to express gratitude to Messrs. André Chastel, A. E. Popham, Pietro Toesca and Lionello Venturi o f the world today admit. for their assistance in the preparation o f the exhibition. Leonardo's universality makes it impossible for a ny single person to present a comprehensive picture o f his genius. I t is difficult enough to assess his achievement as a n artist—the most t ha t c a n b e attempted here—for in Leonardo the distinctive function o f eye a n d brain are more closely a n d more obviously interwoven t h a n i n a ny other great European artist. I t is impossible to think o f h im only as a painter, as the selection o f drawings catalogued below emphatically demonstrates. H e is the type par excellence o f the intel- lectual artist; one mi gh t almost say the reductio ad absurdum o f t ha t type, so far 41 away from his actual purpose, t h a t is the production o f paintings, did these very researches carry him: so often in fact did they defeat their avowed object. This distracting curiosity increased with the years, so t ha t towards the end his drawings almost ceased to fulfil their normal function, as a sort o f scaffolding b y the aid o f which paintings are produced, a n d became part o f the paraphernalia o f scientific research. Th e y did no t as a result become merely diagrammatic, for Leonardo was endowed with a n extraordinary feeling for the beauty o f line a n d texture. However factual his object in putting something o n p a p e r might be, unconsciously a n d inevitably some element o f beauty, some exquisite r hy t hm crept into his statement. A contemporary's reaction to his methods is reflected i n a story told of h i m b y Vasari: Up o n being commissioned b y the Pope to secure a work, it is said t ha t Leonardo began immediately to distil oils a n d herbs to make a varnish, whereupon Pope Leo exclaimed "Alas! h e will never do anything, for he begins b y thinking o f the end o f the work before the beginning". This must have been in abou t 1513, when Leonardo was 6o. Wh a t this projected painting was we are not informed, b u t we can assume t h a t it was never completed. CUA. 52. VI. 3A Some i o years earlier the artist h a d begun work on a composition o f Leda,