Grottesco, Leonardo, credits Wikipedia©
Fremmy©
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Structure of the body in fine arts
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Leonardo Da Vinci
He was, wrote Sigmund Freud, “like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep.”
Da Vinci’s interests ranged far beyond fine art. He studied nature, mechanics, anatomy, physics, architecture, weaponry and more, often creating accurate, workable designs for machines like the bicycle, helicopter, submarine and military tank that would not come to fruition for centuries. Since Leonardo da Vinci was a perfectionist, he manages to complete only a few paintings during his career. In contrast, there are many drawings and sketches from Leonardo’s notebook that exist today. These sketches and studies of human anatomy are proof that the artist was a “Renaissance man” – not only was he interested in the arts, but he was also studied anatomy and physiognomy (among other scientific things). In truth, Leonardo felt that the scientific study of anatomy and nature was related to art. Leonardo held the “conviction that the artist must understand the deepest causes of motion and emotion if he is to create figures that can function adequately as imitations of nature.”
I do find really fascinating as in the 16th Century someone so clever would have undertaken so accurate studies over the human body and moreover he would have made some detailed sketches as today’s science could recognise them as valuable proof of scientific development.
Drawings such as The Foetus and Lining of the Uterus (c. 1511-1513, shown above)are important today because they established a first asset for scientific illustration, particularly with Leonardo’s use of cutaway views.
However, the thing I find fascinating about Leonardo’s notebook is actually not the sketches themselves, but the combination of his sketches and writing. Da Vinci usually made backwards annotations in his notebook. Leonardo’s writing allows for an interesting interplay between the words and the text. Since the Western eye moves from left to right, then the eye will move back across the notebook page (from right to left) when proceeding from the image to Leonardo’s handwriting and it all becomes an interesting interpretation of Da Vinci’s artworks and drawings.
Fernando Vicente
This Spanish illustrator and painter transforms the geographic contours of countries into human and animal forms. He turns, scrutinizes the maps, and discovers strong mental images he wants to express. Thanks to him, we can appreciate these beautiful living creatures, often representative of the country they are superposing.
I wanted to choose two maps from all his paintings although they are all fascinating, so I decided to put forward some of the artworks from his representation of Atlas, the Greek titan condemned to carry the weight of the entire world on his shoulders which is depicted through his own acrylic on paper entitled “Atlas, Prometeo” (below).
In the second acrylic on paper, Vicente wants to depict a skull transforming the map of Europe and Africa as simple as a particular feature of the human skeleton.
The final result is fascinating and I think that is a real expression of a talented artist which could combine anatomy and geography giving depth and shape to his human figures with attention to details and having the right tonal value onto the artwork.
I do appreciate and admire the light marks and the depth of the contours as giving a three-dimensional form to the whole work and keeping the reality of proportions without affecting the map scale as I believe it is amazing and hard job.
I find the idea of painting over maps animals and human figures quite innovative and not usual as majority of modern painters would have based their works most likely on canvas, board and panels rather than paper depicting maps although we can still find some similar rare examples throughout the past centuries.
https://myocablog.wordpress.com/2018/04/21/737/
https://antichecuriosita.co.uk/il-destrutturalismo-punti-salienti/
