The da Vinci Legacy. Jean-Pierre Isbouts
last home before his death, is located some 140 miles from Paris, in what is now the center of Amboise. It can be reached by car in three hours or less, depending on the condition of the local roadways and the much-feared Périphérique ring road around Paris. Many experienced visitors elect to take the train from Saint-Lazare train station, for a journey of just two hours. From the Amboise railway station, a fifteen-minute walk brings them to the grounds of the chateau, and into a different time and place. Painstakingly restored to a condition that resembles the period of Leonardo’s stay, the chateau is a wonderful place to visit, even if much of its furniture and decoration is not original. Here, for example, is Leonardo’s studio, with life-size reproductions of the Saint Anne and the John the Baptist, as well as a bronze copy of the huge horse he once modeled in clay for the Sforza equestrian monument. Here too is a kitchen, a lovely dining hall, and the large bedroom in which Leonardo conceivably breathed his last, even though the canopy bed itself dates from a later era.
But the most evocative aspect of the chateau is unquestionably its lavish outdoor gardens. Gently sloping down to the river below, bordered by a copse of trees, they have been lovingly maintained. The visitor cannot fail to imagine Leonardo walking along their many narrow paths, immersed in thought, his faithful assistant Francesco Melzi by his side.
What was going through Leonardo’s mind as he strolled through these elegant grounds? Far removed from the heart of the Italian art scene, did he reflect on how his name might be remembered? Did he worry whether his reputation might endure, and whether the many revolutionary changes that he brought to Italian art would be passed on? And if so, would posterity give him credit for these breakthrough innovations? “The fame of the rich man dies,” he once wrote, “but the fame of the treasure remains.” Would that be true for the small group of paintings that he bequeathed to humankind? Leonardo was aware that during his lifetime, his reputation had been increasingly tainted by the verdict of non finito. This was the conviction of many, that the artist, brilliant as he was, in practice was unable to translate his ideas into a tangible collection of paintings and sculptures. That idea was inculcated in the 16th-century mind by Leonardo’s first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, who wrote:
In truth his mind, being so surpassingly great, was often brought to a stand because it was too adventuresome, and the cause of his leaving so many things imperfect was his search for excellence after excellence, and perfection after perfection.8
Another factor that threatened Leonardo’s legacy was that by the time Leonardo had departed from Italy and settled in Amboise, both Milan and Florence were being eclipsed by the explosion of artistic activity in Rome. In other words, the two cities in which he had created his greatest triumphs were now considered passé. In contrast to the effervescent artistic scene surrounding Leo X, Florentine and Milanese artists were simply no longer believed to be up to date.
Some authors believe that this was part of the reason why Leonardo scrupulously documented his observations in his notebooks: so that future generations could learn from his knowledge, even if his art was no longer considered au courant. But it is more likely that Leonardo pinned his hopes on the many pupils and apprentices he cultivated in his studios, each of them adopting his transformative approach to the depiction of three-dimensional reality in paint.
In fact, the scarcity of Leonardo’s work, and his reputation as an elusive genius but also an uncompromising perfectionist, had always carried the whiff of a certain mystique. In theory, that mystique could serve as a powerful enabler for his followers to perpetuate his legacy.
Leonardo da Vinci, Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1481. The work was left unfinished.
The Renaissance Studio
That idea is not so far-fetched when we consider that the concept of a “studio,” with assistants, pupils, and collaborators, was a unique product of the early 15th century. It was prompted by a sharp increase in the demand for bespoke paintings as a result of the vast wealth that was pouring into Tuscany in the wake of the Black Death of the 14th century. This plague had all but wiped out the fiercest competitors of the Florentine cloth trade, such as Pisa and Siena. When the markets recovered, the mercantile class of Florence gained a near monopoly in the international trade of dyed wool, and as a result enjoyed tremendous prosperity. As we know, sudden ostentatious wealth always seeks an outlet.
And so the traditional role of the medieval painter, as a producer of religious imagery for the Church, was transformed into that of an all-around impresario of objects for the residences of the well-to-do: devotional paintings, to be sure, but also secular portraits; painted furniture (such as marriage chests, known as “cassone”); coats of arms; tapestries; even staged entertainments. Leonardo’s master Verrocchio was often called upon to build all sorts of intricate stage sets and machinery for Medici pageants or masques, as well as costumes, tapestries, and temporary structures such as Roman-style triumphal arches.
This varied output required a staff of skilled assistants, well beyond the normal requirements of a traditional medieval studio. To be accepted as a pupil in a Florentine studio, aspiring artists studied the full range of creative endeavor, including how to draw, to prep wet plaster or wooden panels, to stretch canvas, to sculpt, and to grind and mix pigments in order to create paint (since ready-made paint tubes of the type we use today did not appear until the late 19th century). As the apprentice advanced in skill and experience, he was allowed to transfer a preparatory drawing or cartoon to a plaster or wood surface, or to paint elements of lesser importance, such as details of the background. To acquire such assistants, artists usually accepted promising young pupils at an early age, and trained them through various stages of apprenticeship until they were thoroughly indoctrinated in the style and technique of the master.
This was certainly true of Leonardo, who had been apprenticed to the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio in 1466, at the age of fourteen. It was a mark of Leonardo’s exceptional talent that in 1472 Verrocchio allowed him to paint one of the two angels in Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ, commissioned by the monks of the San Salvi monastery. Vasari writes that when Verrocchio saw the angel and realized the superiority of this angel to the one painted by himself, “he never touched colors” again.
That’s an interesting comment, because Verrocchio’s rather formulaic style was grounded in the use of tempera, a fast-drying, water-based paint that must be applied quickly and allows relatively few subtle gradations. Leonardo, however, never thought in terms of lines (disegno), but in three-dimensional tones and shapes (colore)—forms that are suggested, rather than defined, through the use of delicate shading and hues. Tempera paint could never achieve such subtle effects. But Leonardo had learned a new technique, that of oils, first developed in Northern Europe. X-ray tests of the Baptism of Christ show that while Verrocchio still painted his figures in contours of white lead, Leonardo used thin, superimposed layers of colored oils to bring his angel to life.9
A modern reconstruction of Leonardo da Vinci’s studio in the Santa Maria Novella in Florence, ca. 1504
It is extremely doubtful that Verrocchio “never touched colors again,” as Vasari writes. Verrocchio continued to accept commissions for paintings, for the simple reason that it was a major source of revenue for his bottega. Running a large studio was a risky venture, even in the heady days of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Florence, and Verrocchio was not a man to take risks. In 1457, he wrote on his tax statement that he was losing his shirt trying to keep his shop operating—the Italian expression is non guadagniamo le chalze, “can’t keep our hose on.”10 It is more likely that Verrocchio delegated much of his painting work to Leonardo, so that he could focus on his principal art form, sculpture.
Andrea