Leonardo (da Vinci)

Martin Kemp

Irma A. Richter

Leonardo da Vinci,

This selection offers a cross-section from the 6,000 surviving sheets that constitute Leonardo's notebooks, including his thoughts on landscape, optics, anatomy, architecture, sculpture, and painting. Fully updated, this new edition includes some 70 line drawings and a Preface by Leonardo expert Martin Kemp.

Notebooks

Martin Gayford

Jane Munro

The Art and Technology of Depiction

Hockney's Eye

Approaching the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death, the world-renowned da Vinci expert recounts his fifty year journey with the work of the world's most famous artist. We learn of his encounters with the vast population that surrounds Leonardo: great and lesser academics, collectors and curators, devious dealers and unctuous auctioneers, major scholars and authors and pseudohistorians and fantasists; but also how he has grappled with swelling legions of 'Leonardo loonies', walked on the eggshells of vested interests in academia and museums, and fended off fusillades of non-Leonardos, sometimes more than one a week. Kemp leads us through his thinking on the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, retells his part in the identification of the stolen Buccleuch Madonna and explains his involvement with and his theories on the two major Leonardo discoveries of the last 100 years, one of which plummeted into controversy (La Bella Principessa), while the other underwent a rapid ascent into widespread acceptance (Salvator Mundi).

fifty years of sanity and insanity in the art world and beyond

Living with Leonardo

experience, experiment, and design

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo

A masterly account of the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and his vision of the world, generously illustrated throughout, presenting a fully integrated picture of Leonardo's art, science, and thought. Widely recognized as a classic, this fully updated new edition includes a new introduction setting Leonardo's life and work in its wider historical context. - ;This masterly account of Leonardo da Vinci and his vision of the world is now widely recognized as the classic treatment of Leonardo's art, science, and thought, giving an unparalleled insight into the broadening and deepening of Leonardo's intellect and vision throughout his artistic career. Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo, takes us on a journey through the whole span of the great man's career, giving a fully integrated picture of his artistic, scientific, and technological achievements. Leonardo's early training in Florence provided a crucial foundation in the 'science of art', particularly perspective and anatomy. His period in the service of the Sforzas of Milan enlarged his outlook to embrace a wide range of natural sciences and mathematics, as he searched for scientific rules governing both man and the universe. It was these rules which provided the basis for his imaginative reconstruction of nature in great works such as the Last Supper, the Mona Lisa, and St John, which reveal his increasingly complex vision of man in the context of nature. And towards the end of his life, Leonardo became fascinated with the mathematics underlying the 'design of nature', behind which lay the ultimate force of the 'prime mover', as manifested with supreme power in his Deluge drawings. Covering all areas of Leonardo's achievement, generously illustrated, and now including a new introductory chapter setting Leonardo's work in its historical context, this fully updated new edition provides an unparalleled insight into the marvellous works of this central figure in western art. - ;Masterful... his analysis of Leonardo holds great value... because it refuses to separate out the artist's diverse skills and achievements. - Art Quarterly

The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man

Leonardo da Vinci : The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man

This work, one of the most lucidly written art history books in recent memory, addresses a topic of inherent complexity and great recent interest. Kemp (Univ. of St. Andrews), who has written on Leonardo, discusses perspective and optic theories as they related to the central problem of European painting for half a millennium, the verisimilar depiction of nature. The first part of the book discusses perspective theory and practice and the use of devices that led toward photography. In the second part, Kemp explores optic theories derived from Aristotle and from Newton and their theoretical and practical impacts on painting. The only minor cavil is the unclear order of the select bibliography; otherwise, this is a superb and thoughtful book, with a level of writing to which few can aspire. Highly recommended for general as well as special collections.-- Jack Perry Brown, Ryerson & Burnham Libs . , Art Inst. of Chicago.

Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat

The Science of Art

Explores the origins and evolution of eleven visual iconic images still found in today's culture, including Jesus, the Coke bottle, and Einstein's famous equation, e equals mc squared.

How Image Becomes Icon

Christ to Coke

Positions works of art in illustration groups to create a visual environment and historical context to enhance understanding and appreciation.

The Oxford History of Western Art

Marina Wallace

The bestselling 30-Second... series takes a revolutionary approach to learning about those subjects you feel you should really understand. Each title selects a popular topic and dissects it into the 50 most significant ideas at its heart. Every idea, no matter how complex, is explained in 300 words and one picture, all digestible in 30 seconds. 30-Second Leonardo da Vinci uses this unique approach to grapple with the truly diverse thoughts of the ultimate Renaissance Man. Artist, anatomist, sculptor, inventor, architect, cartographer, mathematician, musician, botanist, geologist the word polymath does not quite do Leonardo justice. The painter of the Mona Lisa and conceptualizer of the helicopter seems like a Renaissance superhero. Here, the worlds leading Leonardo scholars present an instant and expert guide to the breadth and brilliance of his greatest innovations.

His 50 Greatest Ideas and Inventions, Each Explained in Half a Minute

30 Second Leonardo Da Vinci

A journey through the history of art from religious painting to postmodernism by one of the world's greatest art historians

Art in History, 600 BC - 2000 AD

Emeritus Professor of the History of Art Martin Kemp

"Illustrated and with essays by Martin Kemp, Spectacular Bodies reveals a new way of seeing ourselves."--BOOK JACKET.

The Art and Science of the Human Body from Leonardo to Now

Spectacular Bodies

“Sheds fascinating light . . . [a] compact highlight reel of the most important images of the thousands the artist produced.” —The New York Times Leonardo da Vinci was born in the small Tuscan town of Vinci in April 1452. Over the centuries, he has become one of the most famous people in the history of visual culture. This lavishly illustrated volume by Martin Kemp—one of the world’s leading authorities on da Vinci—offers a fresh way of looking at the master’s work in art, science, engineering, architecture, anatomy, and more. Kemp focuses on 100 key, broadly chronological milestones that cover an extraordinary range of topics across Leonardo’s many fields of discipline: painting, where he brought new levels of formal and emotional grandeur to his works, including The Last Supper and Portrait of Lisa del Giocondo (the “Mona Lisa”) anatomical studies, which are extraordinary for their sense of form and function (Studies of the Optics of the Human Eye and Ventricles of the Brain) engineering marvels, noted for their range and extraordinary visual quality (Gearing for a Clockwork Mechanism and Wheels without Axles and Designs for a Flying Machine) his progressive engagement with a range of sciences—anatomy, optics, dynamics, statics, geology, and mathematics

The 100 Milestones

Joanne Bernstein

Art & Sex from Antiquity to Now

Seduced

Living with Leonardo is a set of highly focused memoirs, a personal journey interwoven with historical research that encapsulates the authors relationship with Leonardo da Vinci over more than half a century. We learn of his encounters with the vast population that surrounds Leonardo: great and lesser academics, collectors and curators, devious dealers and unctuous auctioneers, major scholars and authors and pseudohistorians and fantasists; but also how he has grappled with swelling legions of Leonardo loonies, walked on the eggshells of vested interests in academia and museums, and fended off fusillades of non-Leonardos, sometimes more than one a week. Kemp leads us through his thinking on the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, retells his part in the identification of the stolen Buccleuch Madonna and explains his involvement with and his theories on the two major Leonardo discoveries of the last 100 years, one of which plummeted into controversy (La Bella Principessa), while the other underwent a rapid ascent into widespread acceptance (Salvator Mundi). We learn firsthand of the thorny questions that surround attribution, the scientific analyses that support the experts interpretations, and the continuing importance of connoisseurship. Throughout, from the most scholarly interpretations to the popularity of Dan Browns Da Vinci Code, we are reminded of Leonardos rare genius and wonder at how an artist from 500 years ago continues to make such compelling posthumous demands on all those who engage with him. Note: best viewed on a colour device

Fifty Years of Sanity and Insanity in the Art World and Beyond

British Academy Wolfson Research Professor Department of the History of Art Martin Kemp

Considers the business of picture-making in the Renaissance. In particular, the text discusses the role of the artist and the functions of works of art in relation to their various kinds of audience.

Art and Evidence in the Italian Renaissance

Behind the Picture

Gary M. Radke

Pietro C. Marani

Andrea Bernardoni

Darin J. Stine

Tommaso Mozzati

Philippe Sènèchal

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is renowned as a painter, designer, draftsman, architect, engineer, scientist, and theorist. His work as a sculptor is not commonly acknowledged, and many have argued that Leonardo believed that sculpture was an inferior art form (“of lesser genius than painting”). Challenging and overturning these assumptions, Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture looks at the sculptural projects that the artist undertook, as well as the late Renaissance sculptures that were indebted to him. Leonardo consistently drew inspiration from ancient sculpture, admired the work of such contemporary sculptural innovators as Donatello, and even trained under Andrea del Verrocchio, the preeminent bronze sculptor of late 15th-century Florence. Furthermore, Leonardo spent many years of his life working on two larger-than-life-sized horse sculptures—Sforza and Trivulzio—monuments to Francesco Sforza, the Duke of Milan, and to Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, his sucessor. Although neither was completed, the authors argue that these equestrian monuments show how Leonardo was intensely engaged with the design dilemmas of representing a horse rearing on its hind legs. Another highlight of the book is a group of new images of the John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharisee, a recently restored large-scale work in the Florentine Baptistery that clearly demonstrates Leonardo’s collaboration with Giovanni Rustici.

Leonardo Da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture

Emma Percy

Stunning tribute to this 16th century masterpiece, one of the most effective and integrated ensembles of painting and sculpture in any chapel in Britain.

The Chapel of Trinity College, Oxford

El libro constituye un estudio completo de las leyes de la óptica aplicadas al conocimiento teórico de la Historia del Arte occidental, en la epoca moderna y contemporánea. Las leyes perspectivas y su conocimiento y desarrollo histórico en la obra de los grandes pintores occidentales.

Martin Kemp

About

Books

Join the club