Leonardo da Vinci: A Closer Look by Alan Donnithorne (review)

To mark the 500th anniversary of the lifetime of Leonardo da Vinci, the Royal Collection Trust under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth II has published a lavish edition of the drawings of Leonardo, one that investigates the various materials and methods employed in the extraordinary collection of Leonardo drawings housed in the Print Room at Windsor Castle. Revealed through an array of scientific technologies that include visible infrared transmittography, ultraviolet and multispectral imaging, optical microscopy, X-ray fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy and synchrotron-generated XRF microanalysis, drawings were scrupulously examined to expose paper composition, ink compounds and hidden media, implement imprintation, preliminary sketches, erased marks, inscriptions, watermarks, luminescence and other features of artworks obscured for over 500 years.

Authored by Alan Donnithorne, Conservator of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum and Chief Restorer of Drawings at the Royal Library, the study was undertaken by one uniquely positioned to examine the renowned collection of nearly 600 drawings held at Windsor Castle. Based in part on prior research projects carried out with the British Museum's Department of Scientific Research, this text offers the first in-depth study focused exclusively on Leonardo's drawing materials and working methods "seen through a microscope." As a complement to esteemed studies by Kenneth Clark originating in 1935, followed by Carlo Pedretti's focused catalogs of Leonardo's nature studies, anatomical drawings and horses in the Royal Library, Donnithorne's investigation provides invaluable primary evidence for Leonardo scholarship in areas of conservation, art history, fine art and collection. It also expands significantly upon the acclaimed Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman catalog issued to accompany an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of New York in 2003 through penetrating scientific scrutiny that points up the import of every facet of Leonardo's artistic process.

Sections of the text provide in-depth examinations of the lines and brushstrokes, papers, styli, metal points, inks, chalks/charcoal and brushes used in the production of the drawings. Analytics common to conservators reveal the artist's manner of working, the pressure and direction of his hand, differences of touch and the way the drawing tool was moved across the paper. These factors serve to identify such features as the sharpness of outlines, the softness of blended shadows, the thin transparency of washes and accretions of ink. Placing primary emphasis on disegno, the act of drawing as the artist's means toward the realization of ideas, the author inspects the many kinds of marks described by Leonardo as outlines and lines that curve to one side or another, broad or fine, blended without strokes in parts to achieve the highest degree of brightness and shadow.

In the papers chosen by the artist, Donnithorne emphasizes the importance of support in the appearance of the drawings, the character of the marks left on the surface intimately dependent on the paper's integral composition and the way the artist's drawing tools interact with it. He considers a variety of papers favored by Leonardo, from the finest white to the coarsest brown, along with the subjects and treatments the artist reserves for each. This chapter includes an account of the origins of papermaking in the west from its foundations in thirteenth-century Italy and a detailed description of artisanal papermaking in the early Renaissance. Among Leonardo's studies Donnithorne notes qualities of color, brilliance, texture and luster impacted by the paper together with fabrication details such as fibers, laid lines, deckle and watermarks made evident through transmitted light. An especially evocative drawing of an old man with flowing beard, for example, one of the last by Leonardo, is full of fibers that include straw and rope, knots and shive, accented by an imperfection in the paper, a lump above the eye in the drawing's upper center.

Chapters on stylus and metal point examine drawing instruments in brass, the lead and silver styli referred to as silverpoint and grounds of powdered bone applied as coatings for metal...