David Bull Had Two Weeks to Learn Than by DA N IEL GLICK
ON A WHITE FORMICA TABLE IN \'o/hillg (till br either of how much Leonardo's under the National Gallery of Art's con /O'i.'l'ri or/ruted standing of anatomy, optics, light, servation department rested not IlIIles;)" ;t IS flTSt !morew. depth and proportion had one, but two, of the rarest art - Leonardo da \ inci evolved. "Ginevra" appears al- treasures in the Western world: most naive, her eyes lacking portraits by Leonardo da Vinci. Like etherized depth, her full face almost too round, too simply patients on an operating table, two women portrayed. But in rendering the "Lady's" eyes, painted 500 years ago and 15 years apart lay her sideways glance, her delicate face and hand, side by side for the first time-the National Gal Leonardo seems almost to have started with her lery's own exquisite "Ginevra de' Benci" next to skeleton, adding t1esh and clothes only after he the incomparable "Portrait of a Lady With an understood how she was put together, body and Ermine (Cecilia Gallerani)," lent by the Czarto soul. Looking up from the microscope, Bull ryski Museum in Krakow, Poland, for the exhibit grinned like a schoolboy. "You know, I've been "Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration." dying to do this." David Bull, the Gallery's chairman of painting In his 34-year conservation career, the Brit conservation, motioned to his workbench and ish-born Bull has cleaned, restored and exam beamed. "There are the girls," he said, and then ined paintings by Bellini, Titian, Raphael, Rem quickly set to work with his stereomicroscope.
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