María Cruz

CORE ESSAY Week 5-6

Katalin Makkai

3. Leonardoʼs drawings often represent nature as a continuos process. How, in light

of this, can we understand the relationship between art and nature in Leonardoʼs
theory and practice? Your answer should address one drawing by Leonardo and
one or more passages from the notebooks.

Leonardo does not only convey nature as a continuos process in his drawings, but he

does also describe it as such in his theory. This characteristic matters to art in a radical

way -for it in all its forms represents nature- and this theoretical frame he provides serves

him to state that painting is the highest of all arts: he singles it out and calls it “the

grandchild of nature”.

“The air is full of an infinite number of images of the things which are distributed

through it, and all of these are represented in all, all in one and all in each.

Accordingly, if two mirrors be placed so as to exactly face each other, the first

will be reflected in the second and the second in the first. Now the first being

reflected in the second carries to it its own images together with all the images

reflected in it, among these being the image of the second mirror; and so it

continues from image to image on to infinity, in such a way that each mirror has

an infinite number of mirrors within it, each smaller than the last, and one inside

another.” (The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, section IV, pgph. 8)

What Leonardo means by these words is stated in the first sentence: every being is

composed -is formed- of every other being.The description of the mirrors and the visual

effect they generate brings to mind a complex game of china boxes, where each case

holds itself while holding the other; however it turns more complicated, since in this game

every instance generates new information that will be reproduced and re-framed by the
next, and so going on until infinity. From my point of view, this rhetorical image is a key

point to interpret Leonardoʼs view of nature. By means of a visual resource -not a minor

thing- the painter is speaking of the transcendental. Every being is composed of every

other being till the point that it ceases to be just an individual, it transcends its

independent, sole being to transmit something else. Something that is bigger and is part of

all that is living: movement. Motion is what characterizes all that lives, it is the faculty by

which a body, by its own powers, abandons a stage in order to reach another. Depending

on the development of the living thing, the movement will be more or less relevant, more or

less deep, more or less significant. In this trail of thought, the highest level of movement

would be the movements of the soul, only possible for human beings, and which Leonardo

portrays in his works.

This movement that is often seen in his drawings, at the same time, conveys another

meaning: eternity. When looking at the drawings of water Leonardo made, we can clearly

see that in order to convey the movement of water he uses a spiral, a geometrical shape

that has no beginning nor end. It is almost as though the movement of the water could go

on forever. It is interesting to see how, once the painter has found a shape in which to

invest this concept, he masters it and applies it to living beings. He sees certain shapes in

nature that he then duplicates when representing a human figure, for instance. One

example of this is the drawing Leonardo made of the story of Leda and the swan. Both

bodies are built with circles juxtaposing each other, conveying a constant movement that

grows and grows, changes into something smaller, is re-shaped, but seems to have no

limit. The same curves that shape Ledaʼs body give form to the swan and to the plants

they are stepping in. Going back to the opening quote, we can see in this example of his

drawings, how Leonardo makes this constant reflection of one thing into the other

possible. In this particular drawing, there is also narration. For the story says that Zeus

took the form of a swan and fertilized Leda, and from this union she bore four children. The
cause and the consequence, the beginning and the end, everything is depicted in this

drawing. We can see the fetuses coming out of eggs on the bottom left, and these are

drawn with the same curves that shape everything else. The story is ending and beginning

all the time, thus reinforcing this infinity that the strokes convey.

There is yet another way in which this transcendental aspect of beings is depicted in

Leonardo. When looking at “Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist” we

can see how, by working on the lights and shadows, the figures are not really separate;

rather, seem to emerge one from the other. It is almost as though St. Anne is fading away

to give way to Mary, from whose lap the baby emerges, and so on. There is no clear

distinction of the bodies here. From my point of view, this drawing represents very well the

above-expressed idea: each being ceases to be just and individual in itself and becomes a

means to communicate something higher, transcendental. It is as though Leonardo was

looking for that which is essentially human and trying to capture it in his depiction of

people. This characteristic also speaks of eternity, because it is addressing a common

element to all humans.

The question of how this characteristic of nature makes us understand the

relationship of art and nature is yet to be addressed. If nature is understood as an eternal

movement, how does this affect art, that is to represent it? And then, what does art mean

to us?

“If you despise painting, which is the sole imitator of all the visible works of

nature, you certainly will be despising a subtle invention which brings

philosophy and subtle speculation to bear on the nature of all forms [...]. Truly,

painting is a science, the true-born child of nature, for painting is born of nature,

but to be more correct we should call it the grandchild of nature [...].” (The

Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, section IV, pgph. 195.)

 In this quote, Leonardo is stating how relevant philosophy and speculation are to the

shapes of nature: indeed, when thinking about the forms his drawing should have, the

painter is reflecting on the nature of the bodies he wants to represent, and tries to grasp

their innermost essence. Furthermore, the kinship that Leonardo defines means that

painting comes from nature, in two senses. Firstly, because it was created by human

beings, sons of nature; secondly, because it feeds on nature constantly for whatever wants

to be represented. In this consuming-based relationship, there is a point in which we can

see how natureʼs continuous movement is taken up by painting.

At this point, I would like to make a brief observation. It is worth considering that

Leonardo does not speak of “the arts” -in general- but only of painting as the grandchild of

nature. This clearly specific statement will serve him later on to argue for the superiority of

painting as regards the other artistic expressions -like sculpture or music.

Painting -and only painting- becomes under the eye of Leonardo, eternal. Its

meaning and beauty transcends all time and epoch, it is there forever, waiting to be

appreciated by the eye of the beholder. The things depicted are meant to last forever. It

even transcends nature, its first source of creation.

“How many paintings have preserved the image of divine beauty of which time

or sudden death have destroyed Natureʼs original; so that the work of the

painter has survived in nobler form than that of Nature, his mistress.” (The

Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, section IV, pgph. 198.)

In this quote we can clearly see how Leonardo speaks of painting as superior to

nature. It starts there, but then it transcends it. This is possible because there is an ability

of the painter of taking the forms of nature, seeing the movements present in it and
abstracting these, to reuse them, to re-frame them in a different context; in other words, to

invest them with new, more elaborate meanings. Because it is a fact that water moves, but

to anybodyʼs eyes, there is nothing more than a simple displacement of certain amount of

water from one place to another. It is the eye of the painter that sees in this particular

movement a certain shape, and later on this shape conveys a particular, higher meaning

(like eternity).

Leonardo states the superiority of painting because he thinks of this art as more than

just mimicking nature. For, not only does it master the natural faculties that convey a

movement of the beings, but also goes further and finds new meanings. The “divine

proportions” that the king speaks about (section IV, pgph. 205.) refer to finding the right

shape, arranging the shadows in order to bring up the light, and in the end capture the

innermost movement of the beings.