Art History in Action

ART HISTORY IN ACTION INTRODUCTION who registers a mighty 19 million hits on Google. At the time of writing, Leonardo himself is nudging 10 million hits, while his proxy, the Mona Lisa, reaches a notable 28.5 million.* Such a huge popular appetite is ART HISTORY IN ACTION more than remarkable for an artist-engineer from half a millennium ago who is renowned for not finishing anything – except, of course, both the world’s most famous painting and what is probably the second most famous, the Last Supper. He was also responsible for the world’s best- known drawing: the naked man with four arms and legs, spread-eagled This book is an account of my personal relationship with Leonardo inside a circle and a square (based on the prescription of the ancient da Vinci, covering half a century in the Leonardo business. It is not an Roman architect Vitruvius). autobiography, and even in terms of my academic career, it is very selec- Leonardo inspires studious devotion and untrammelled fantasy tive; it might best be characterized as a set of highly focused memoirs. in equal measure. Some of this attention is because he is famous for I do not know of anything quite comparable. In 2008 Carlo Pedretti, being famous, but it ultimately feeds upon the unique depth, range and who knows more about Leonardo than anyone ever has or probably ever imaginative reach of his work across the arts, sciences and technologies. will, published a book of over 700 pages entitled Leonardo & io (Leonardo Along the way, his life and works have also become repositories for wild and I). This contains an extraordinary treasury of research interlaced theories to a degree that is not matched by any other figure. Would The with insights into Carlo’s personal engagement with Leonardo’s writ- Michelangelo Code have sold anything like as well? The Leonardo business ings, drawings, paintings and documentation. Carlo, however, does not is unlike any other, and it is easy for aficionados to become obsessed. aspire to present the broader picture of people, institutions, events and Having been in this business for about fify years, I have seen it skulduggery that follows here. all. I have dealt with great and lesser academics, collectors and curators. Leonardo is without rival in the history of art – and beyond. He I have grappled with inflated art-world egos, with devious dealers and is one of the best known of all pre-20th-century personalities. In a unctuous auctioneers. Major scholars and authors, pseudo-historians 2013 study measuring historical reputation by means of quantitative and fantasists have crossed my path. I have corresponded with obsessives analysis, Leonardo was ranked first among pre-20th-century artists (with and been verbally beaten up in private and in public. I have grappled Michelangelo second) and twenty-ninth in the ‘overall top thirty’, a list with swelling legions of ‘Leonardo loonies’. I have walked on eggshells headed by Jesus and Napoleon. Adolf Hitler came seventh. around vested interests in academia and museums. Fusillades of non- All the bookable tickets for ‘Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Leonardos have been pressed on me, sometimes more than one a week. Court of Milan’, held at the National Gallery in London during the I have been intimately involved with the two major Leonardo discoveries winter of 2011–12, sold out well in advance, with many resurfacing online of the last hundred years, one of which plummeted into rancour and at astronomically inflated prices. This type of response to an art show was unprecedented, as was Leonardo’s appearance on ticket agency * Somewhat disconcertingly for a Leonardo scholar, the actor Leonardo DiCaprio websites among the ‘hottest artists’ – the rest of whom were not paint- scores over 23 million hits and Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, a scarcely ers or sculptors but performers such as Bruce Springsteen, ‘the Boss’, credible 345 million. 8 9 INTRODUCTION ART HISTORY IN ACTION controversy while the other underwent an apparently irresistible ascent delight over the years, and it has been a pleasure to hear from Leonardo into fame and worth. Ingenious forgeries have tested my ability to tell the ‘fans’ who have been kind enough to contact me. real from the spurious. The multi-million-pound market for Leonardos Many stories involving Leonardo, while picturesque and revealing has involved me directly or indirectly in prominent and expensive court in themselves, also demonstrate a wider historical truth: the knowl- cases. The police have come calling when a Leonardo Madonna was stolen edge we possess and the opinions we form are significantly shaped by from a castle in Scotland. I have mounted major Leonardo exhibitions, our specific circumstances. To put it more simply, how we encounter with all the attendant horse-trading, and appeared on numerous radio something colours what it looks like. There is some affinity with the and television programmes. Publishers and editors have made demands notion, in modern physics, of the intrusion of the observer and the that have served me well – for the most part. I have served on the boards means of observation into the systems under observation. In my teach- of national collections, and witnessed diverse aspects of the art world ing I have on a number of occasions conducted seminars under the in action. And, along the way, I have researched. rubric of ‘Art History in Action’, in which we have discussed the range None of this was even vaguely anticipated when I first became of circumstances that give rise to art-historical knowledge. Awareness involved with Leonardo in the late 1960s via his anatomical drawings. On of these circumstances is informative in its own right, and presents a number of occasions I have felt that I have finished with him, think- some insights into what might lie in store for students hoping to enter ing that I have said all I want to and that it is time to move on. This was some aspect of the art world. certainly the case in 1981 with the publication of my first monograph, Beneath the surface of that world, masked by a layer of objective Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man. There is a analysis and professional language, the insider is aware of a messy danger of being typecast. In retrospect I welcome the fact that he has and sometimes turbulent tangle of wishful thinking, prejudice, vested never finished with me. He continues to make compelling posthumous interests, national characteristics, and rigged arguments. Tottering demands on those who engage with him. piles of hypotheses can be constructed to prop up cherished theories. It would be easy to become irritated by some of the nonsense that An emphasis on connoisseurship can prevent sufficient attention being Leonardo attracts like a magnet, but it is a privilege to have engaged paid to ‘difficult’ scientific evidence. Claims to have ‘an eye’ can too with a character from five hundred years ago who still lives in the minds easily shif into denigration of other modes of analysis. The business of people today. It is worth remembering that many of those who have of attribution is in an unfortunate state. In extreme cases, curators of developed untenable Leonardo theories have invested a large amount exhibitions might fix catalogue entries in the service of loans; museum of time and emotional commitment in their researches. I have endeav- directors and boards might bend their own rules. oured to respond in an understanding manner, although I fear I may There is a strong temptation for those writing or broadcasting have been overly abrupt on occasion. Leonardo’s enduring presence has about Leonardo to confect new theories simply in order to attract atten- ensured high levels of public interest in the research I have pursued and tion. The media are drawn to his supposed heresies and allegiances to with the various media through which I have communicated. I have also arcane sects. Journalists play to the public taste for experts to be humili- enjoyed enriching contact with a wide range of international friends and ated, particularly by forgers; TV companies use the criterion of ‘balance’ colleagues who have been integral to the quest to elucidate the wonders to justify focusing on outlandish ideas that might help sell programmes. of his work. Teaching Leonardo to eager students has been a sustaining It has been claimed that Leonardo himself posed for the Mona Lisa in 10 11 INTRODUCTION drag, or more recently, that his pupil Salaì did the cross-dressing. Maybe PROLOGUE the masterpiece is not by Leonardo at all; I have been told that it is actually a Tahitian princess by Titian. The famed ‘self-portrait’ drawing in Turin is nothing of the sort, but nothing will shif it in the public A SKETCH OF LEONARDO imagination – and so on. New absurdities arise every month to join the old ones. It would be easy to slip into self-justificatory mode, standing serenely above the mayhem and making Olympian judgments. But I am clearly part of the complex network of interests and biases, and cannot claim to have some unique access to infallible truths. I have done my Over the years, I have tried to construct a picture of Leonardo that best to become aware of where my own viewpoints might be skewed. embraces his full range of activities and shows how they relate to his The organization of what follows is broadly thematic rather than core beliefs. Since the chapters that follow cover his major achieve- chronological. The Prologue contains a compact overview of Leonardo’s ments in a very incomplete manner, I hope it will help to offer a short career, to provide a context for the works of art on which I concentrate.

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