sign in sign up
<<
Home , Codex Leicester, Codex Madrid (Leonardo), Lady with an Ermine, La Joconde nue, Virgin of the Rocks

U. ALLEMANDI & CO. PUBLISHING LTD. EST. 1983, VOL. XXIX NO. 318 reEXHIBITIONS // BOOKSvi // MEDIA ew. DECEMBER 2019 WWW.THEARTNEWSPAPER.COM

The year in review // Ethics protests go global, King Tut goes globe-trotting, and a gold toilet vanishes // PAGE 5

Exhibitions // Friends and rivals: Haring and Basquiat, New York originals, are reunited down under // PAGE 7

Books // The theatre of Baroque: Bernini and Caravaggio make a revealing double act in Vienna Leonardo 500 Carmen Bambach admires the blockbuster. // PAGE 16 Michael Landrus reviews a stack of anniversary books // p6 & p14 THE ART NEWSPAPER I review. Number 318, December 2019 15

A new way of thinking is addressed by Caroline Cocciardi, who explores the many potential variants of knots drawn by Leonardo and his associates

Joost M. Keizer Juliana Barone and Susana Leonardo : Codex Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi , Pascal Brioist, Leonardo’s Paradox: Word Avery Quash, eds I: Edition und Kommentar and the Collecting of Leonardo Paul Valéry, Edward MacCurdy, eds, and Image in the Making Leonardo in Britain: Collections Böhlau Verlag, 4 vols, 1,238pp, £250 (hb) in the Stuart Courts and Louise Servicen translation of Culture and Historical Reception Oxford University Press, 383pp, £35 (hb) Léonard de Vinci: Carnets Reaktion Books, 208pp, £25 (hb) Olschki Editore, 456pp, £65 (pb) Domenico Laurenza and Editions Gallimard, 1,656pp, £28.40 (pb) Martin Kemp, eds Vincent Delieuvin and Laure Fagnart Martin Clayton Leonardo da Vinci’s : Louis Frank, eds Caroline Cocciardi Léonard de Vinci à la cour de France Leonardo da Vinci: a Life in Drawing a New Edition: Volume I: The Codex Léonard de Vinci Leonardo’s Knots Presse /universitaires de Rennes, 275pp, £26 Trust, 256pp, £18 (hb) Oxford University Press, 88pp, £18 (hb) Editions Hazan, 454pp, £30 (hb) Knot, 130pp, £35 (hb) (hb) Francesca Borgo, Rodolfo Mafeis Pierluigi Panza Mathieu Deldicque, Vincent Leonardo Da Vinci—The Jan Sammer and Alessandro Nova, eds L’ultimo Leonardo: storia, Delieuvin and Guillaume Language Of Faces Leonardo da Vinci: the Untold Leonardo in Dialogue. The Artist intrighi e misteri del quadro Kazerouni, eds Michael Kwakkelstein Story of his Final Years Amid his Contemporaries più costoso del Mondo La Joconde nue and Michiel Plomp Jan Sammer, 320pp, £32 (pb) Marsilio Editore, 472pp, £33 (pb) UTET, 220pp, £17 (hb) In Fine, 215pp, £25 (hb) Thoth, 224pp, £29 (pb)

Constance Mofatt and Sara Alan Donnithorne Ben Lewis Piet Boncquet and Taglialagamba, eds Leonardo da Vinci: a Closer Look The Last Leonardo Greet Verschatse Leonardo da Vinci: Royal Collection Trust, 204pp, £50 (hb) William Collins, 416pp, £20 (hb) Het Laatste Avondmaal Nature and Architecture naar Leonardo da Vinci: Een (Leonardo Studies 2) Dietrich Lohrmann und Margaret Dalivalle, Martin wonderlijke geschiedenis Brill, 431pp, £130 (hb) Thomas Kreft, eds Kemp and Robert Simon Sterck & De Vreese, 160pp, £26 (pb)

Polish government’s (1489-90), the Louvre Mona Lisa (1503), the New York Madonna of the Yarnwinder, the London (around 1491/92- 99 and 1506-08), the Louvre Virgin and Child with St Anne and the Prado Mona Lisa (1503-19). These updates, and many unusual approaches, are in Alessandro Vezzosi’s Leonardo da Vinci: the Complete Paintings in Detail, where he ofers his assessments of painting details with rel- atively minimal footnotes. Scholars may not be in general agreement about some of his propositions, such as attributions of to Leonardo and the Battle of Anghiari (Tavola Doria) copy potentially to Leonardo’s workshop, or that Leonardo’s mother was a slave from the eastern Mediterranean, but Vezzosi’s book succeeds as a relatively concise and knowledgeable catalogue raisonné of an extensive body of work on Leonardo’s painting. For an assessment of the state of the research, look first to the most thorough catalogue raisonné to date: Carmen Bambach’s Leonardo da Vinci Rediscovered, which assesses all aspects of Leonardo’s work in three substantial volumes, along with a fourth volume of footnotes, an exhaustive bibliogra- phy and a substantial, detailed index. Whereas most Leonardo biographies are insufcient in scope and/or research for university courses that address Leon- Leonardo’s Star of Bethlehem (1506-08) is in the Louvre’s current show; the unfnished Adoration of the Magi (San Donato a Scopeto altarpiece, around 1481) is in the Ufzi’s collection ardo, Bambach’s work solves both tradi- tional problems, thereby providing the with brown-coloured text the significant Culture, examines the interplay of word are not Leonardo specialists and their of the drawings and their preparatory best available Leonardo biography. One additions by Vasari to the 1556 edition and image in Leonardo’s work. He sees essays address especially the work of marks. Donnithorne discusses this may, however, wish to read each volume of his Lives, apparently after the advice paradoxes as central: for example, a his contemporaries. Leonardo da Vinci: ground-breaking work in more detail in with the volume of footnotes at one side, of Melzi. painting can lead to a better under- Nature and Architecture, edited by Con- Leonardo da Vinci: a Closer Look. to see the updates to previous scholar- Among the new biographies, those standing of nature, or the meaning of stance Mofatt and Sara Taglialagamba, Another group of Leonardo’s best ship as well as the dialogue with other by Pascal Brioist (Les audaces de Léonard an image can depend on its association is the second volume of their Leonardo presentation drawings is in his Codex scholars in the footnotes about new de Vinci), François Quiviger (Leonardo with certain words. Though not neces- Studies series, with essays written mainly Madrid I, which appears to be a portion dates, attributions and interpretations, da Vinci: Self, Art and Nature) and Bernd sarily part of Leonardo’s vocabulary for by specialists on his approaches to of his Book on the Science of Mechanics, much of which should spark additional Roeck (Leonardo: Der Mann, der alles inventive processes, paradoxes are part natural properties and nature, and in which Luca Pacioli praised in 1496. Die- discussions for years to come. wissen wollte) ofer new ways of think- of his work. part two, architecture. As the seventh trich Lohrmann and Thomas Kreft have ing about Leonardo. Brioist develops a Important critical approaches to volume of the important Biblioteca Leon- produced an exceptional three-volume ost biographies are, however, historical trajectory of Leonardo’s heroic Leonardo’s biography include Laure Fag- ardiana, Studi e Documenti series, Leonardo translation and analysis of this volume easier to carry and read while and courageous way of quickly adapting nart’s Léonard de Vinci à la cour de France in Britain: Collections and Historical Recep- in Leonardo da Vinci: Mtravelling, numerous exam- to difficult projects and requirements and Jan Sammer’s Leonardo da Vinci: the tion, edited by Julia Barone and Susana I: Edition und Kommentar, and have ples of which were published this year. of self-promotion while working for Untold Story of his Final Years. A specialist Avery Quash, provides new research. It included a facsimile volume with blue Several new translations of Vasari’s mid- the most powerful people of the time. on Leonardo’s work for French patrons includes essays by 19 Leonardo special- numbers printed next to the drawing 16th-century biography of Leonardo Also addressing Leonardo’s rapid pro- and his reception in France, Fagnart ists, many of whom are also curators sections that are translated in volumes offer new interpretations in several fessional development as a courtier provides a thoroughly researched assess- of collections that have works by him. two and three. This is a ten-year project, European languages. For example, Louis and intellectual contributor, Quiviger ment of the legacy of Leonardo’s work in One of these —Martin Clayton—organ- in German, much of which the authors Frank’s and Stefania Tullio Cataldo’s focuses instead on Leonardo’s success- French and France, from Louis XII ised this year’s blockbuster exhibition will also make available online. translation and commentary, Giorgio ful methodology at court for developing to Louis XIV (around 1500-1695). Ten years at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Although not expected to go online, Vasari: Vie de Léonard de Vinci, helps a diverse range of projects in the visual ago, Sammer presented his research on Palace, and helped with several addi- another four-volume, ten-year project locate Vasari’s resources on Leonardo and technical arts, along with studies the discovery of a letter from Francis I tional exhibitions in the UK. Clayton’s on one of Leonardo’s notebooks—his as primarily focused on the theory and of nature. Roeck’s approach to “the on 14 March 1516 that invited Leonardo Leonardo da Vinci: a Life in Drawing dis- Codex Leicester—is currently in press, practice of painting, and that Leonar- man who wanted to know everything” to France. Additional archival research cusses 195 drawings, most of which were and should be available soon. The first do’s approaches to other disciplines addresses with substantial original since then has resulted in his biography lent to museums and galleries in batches volume of Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex were often in the service of this primary research Leonardo’s search for improve- of the final 15 years of Leonardo’s life, of 12 each during late 2018 and early Leicester: a New Edition by Domenico interest. More informative of Vasari than ments and innovation in his many pro- and thus a substantial contribution to 2019, after which they were returned to Laurenza and Martin Kemp is available of Leonardo, this approach was nonethe- jects. All three biographies are about the Leonardo scholarship. The Queen’s Gallery to exhibit together. and contains a facsimile of the Codex. less developed with the help of Franc- usefulness of Leonardo’s way of think- Conferences in 2015 and 2016 Not since 1952 had the best drawings of Soon to join are volumes with inter- esco Melzi, Leonardo’s former student, ing, for his professional work and, by resulted in three important volumes of the Royal Collection Trust—arguably the pretive essays (vol. 2), transcription and who allowed Vasari to see before the implication (and as partially indicated collected essays this year. Leonardo in finest group of presentation drawings translation (vol. 3), and paraphrase and 1556 edition of the Lives an important in the books), for ours. Dialogue: the Artist Amid his Contempo- of Leonardo’s oeuvre—been on display commentary (vol. 4). This work should selection of Leonardo’s drawings and As a critical approach that also raries is part of a series of meetings and in one place. Addressing the latest make more easily accessible the state of notes. The recent translation by Martin addresses Leonardo’s way of thinking, publications at the Kunsthistorisches research on Leonardo’s work, the cata- the research on the Codex Leicester. Kemp and Lucy Russell of The Life of Joost Keizer’s Leonardo’s Paradox: Word Institut in Florenz. It ofers an unusual logue also discusses the scientific scans

STAR OFSTAR BETHLEHEM: COLLECTION ROYAL / © HERTRUST MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II ADORATION 2019. OF THE MAGI: PHOTO: OPIFICIO DELLE PIETRE DURE E LABORATORI DI RESTAURO; ; COURTESY GALLERIA DEGLI Leonardo da Vinci by Giorgio Vasari shows and Image in the Making of Renaissance approach whereby most of the writers by Alan Donnithorne of the surfaces CONTINUED ON PAGE 16