Mona Lisa, Musée du Louvre, Paris, April 2019.
Susan Broomhall
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the world’s most visited artwork. Its appeal rests partly on several mysteries.
Old man (possible self-portrait) and water studies, c 1508-9.
Wikimedia Commons
Leonardo’s obsession with water flowed through his technical work, his art and his scientific ideas.
Leonardo da Vinci, Study of Two Warriors Heads for the Battle of Anghiari, c. 1504-5. Black chalk or charcoal, some traces of red chalk on paper. Google Art Project.
Wikimedia Commons.
Leonardo’s professional life reveals his genius for creating technologies of destruction.
Leonardo da Vinci, Landscape drawing for Santa Maria della Neve on 5th August 1473.
Wikimedia commons
His exquisite drawings suggest a particular depth of feeling for the natural world and he was attuned to the emotions of animals. Yet it seems that preservation of nature was not on Leonardo’s mind.