Written into history as the artist behind masterpieces like the ‘Mona Lisa,’ Da Vinci: The Genius brings to life the full accomplishments of the quintessential Renaissance man. The exhibition also highlights Leonardo da Vinci’s work as an inventor, scientist, anatomist, engineer, architect, sculptor and philosopher.
Since its debut in 2005, over five million people across 57 cities and six continents have visited Da Vinci: The Genius. The exhibit is the centerpiece of Melbourne based Grande Exhibitions, who created last summer’s Xintiandi hit Van Gogh Alive, and whose China tour is now at Dongfang Wende Plaza until October 8.
At the exhibit’s China tour opening in Shanghai, Grande Exhibitions CEO Tim Atkins gushes at the range of da Vinci’s creative curiosity.
“If you look at his anatomical drawings, his flight machines and his artwork, da Vinci had a fascination in so many different areas of life,” he raves.
“It would be amazing to sit down with him and try to understand what he was on about.”
Spanning two floors, Da Vinci: The Genius is separated into 17 themed areas. The first thing that visitors see is a life-sized replica of a balestra gigante. According to da Vinci’s specifications, the giant crossbow could open its arms approximately 24 meters long and 40 meters wide.
It’s one of 75 life-sized inventions brought to life from the aerial screw to the double flute. Previously consigned to da Vinci’s personal notebooks, the recreations were handcrafted by Italian artisans working at the Grande Exhibitions-owned Museo Leonardo da Vinci in Rome.
Chosen for their ability to read old Florentine dialects, the artisans have developed methods to interpret da Vinci’s penchant for encrypting his ideas through methods like shorthand and mirror reading.
Over 6,000 pages of codices were scoured from da Vinci’s notebook, and then created with materials and techniques from 15th century Italy. These pieces interpret da Vinci’s designs for modern inventions like the car, bicycle, parachute, SCUBA, submarine and military tank.
“The helicopter was an early 20th century invention, but da Vinci was thinking about the type of machines that would be capable of flight 400 years before that,” Atkins says. “It highlights his style of thought and shows that someone a long time ago was thinking of these modern inventions.”
While the biggest criticism of Van Gogh Alive was its dependence on its high-tech multimedia presentation, Da Vinci: The Genius is a wondrously tactile experience.
Visitors can tinker with some of the pieces and can fully experience others like da Vinci’s Infinity Mirrors room. Of course, da Vinci’s vital work as an artist isn’t ignored. Reproductions of famed works like ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ are displayed, as are animated presentations of masterpieces like ‘The Last Supper.’
However, the artistic highlight is the ‘Secrets of The Mona Lisa.’ They detail the findings of scientific engineer and examiner of fine art, Pascal Cotte, who was given unprecedented access to the famed piece.
While the original remains too fragile to move from the Louvre, Cotte was able to take it off the wall and conduct scientific analysis of it through self-invented multispectral cameras.
With the Louvre museum and leading ‘Mona Lisa’ experts, he has verified his findings. For Da Vinci: The Genius’s opening in Shanghai, he unveiled his latest discoveries.
With government officials, Zhang Weijun (the son of Zhang Leping, the cartoonist behind Sanmao, the Vagrant) and the BBC on hand, Cotte revealed the real identity of the Mona Lisa.
Rather than a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, or the alleged mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici, da Vinci’s patron in Rome, the ‘Mona Lisa’ is actually composed of four portraits layered on top of each other.
Cotte explains that the initial draft was of an unknown subject. In its second incarnation as a 'Portrait of Pearls,' it depicted a goddess or beatific woman. The third was a portrait of Gherardini, before morphing to its final version – with a veil added around the head and a body to mask the previous version’s Florentine dress and hairstyle among the changes.
“We see in Pascal’s finding that da Vinci did things for a period, left them and then came back to them,” Atkins notes. “It’s almost like he had a grasshopper mind. He was jumping from here to there across all these different disciplines.”
Until Oct 8, 10.30am-9.30pm, RMB68-158. Dongfang Wende Plaza, see event listing.
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