Leonardo at the Louvre

Tuesday morning I took Bear to the LOUVRE to see the LEONARDO DA VINCI exhibit celebrating the 500th year anniversary of his death (1452-1519). An astonishing exhibition of 200 works including 11 of his total 15 paintings (some took 10 years to complete). This is primarily a drawing show so do your homework. If you're a former art student or art history major, no problem. You'll have seen these drawings repeatedly in old master drawing books.  

Seeing them 'in the flesh' is a wonderful shock. Otherwise YOUTUBE has a wealth of Da Vinci videos for pre-immersion. The first room you enter consists of Large bronze by Verrochio of “Christ and St Thomas” surrounded by charcoal value drawings on canvas, DRAPERY studies by Da Vinci of sculptor ANDREA DEL VERROCHIO when he served his apprenticeship in Florence as his assistant in 1468.

 Traditionally art school began with a year of endless black and white charcoal studies of plaster casts. How I hated doing CAST STUDIES. I hated the powdery charcoal all over my hands and everything else. Instead I did line drawings and always regretted missing out on this important basic process before working with color. To see so many Da Vinci early VALUE STUDIES in one place is thrilling but for the non-art student may be boring.Still its the groundwork for all his future masterpieces.

There are many small sketches. I was glad I brought a magnifying glass.

Leonardo did THUMBNAILS (called timbre in French and some are postage stamp-sized).

He worked from Greek casts for Leda and the swan.

Large monochromatic  'reflectograms' show you the original underdrawings beneath the completed oil painting, Saint Anne,theVirgin and infant Jesus playingwith a lamb.

This study of an outstretched arm is sublime.Everything is sublime here.

So many enigmatic smiles you don't miss the left-out Mona Lisa.

Pages of the Codex Atlanticus from Milan’s Ambrosian Library show him exploring geometry, optics and his fascination with flight. In Milan by chance I fell into the Leonardo3 museum containing 130 working models of machines he designed near Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Easy to grab a gelato after. No gelato at the Louvre sadly. I came home and fell into bed to recuperate. 

The crowds didn't seem too bad but I booked for 9:30am, the first time slot (PRE-BOOKING is mandatory).

Arrive at the Passage Richelieu entrance (not the pyramid) at least a 1/2 hour early. I brought along Bear and a magnifying glass and sketched the Passage while waiting. Leonardo da Vinci is on until February 24 at the LOUVRE. I hope you get to see it.Enjoy ParisBreakfast with your cuppa ☕️ and keep Bear in Paris with a letter subscription from my Etsy shop. Bear 🐻 is still snoozing zzzz