Fondazione Gottfried Matthaes
 

Leonardo da Vinci in Milan

Two great permanent exhibitions at the Art and Science Museum

Leonardo Da Vinci  Citizen of Milan

Leonardo Da Vinci's Treatise on Painting

 Museo d'Arte e Scienza
(18 rooms and over 2,000 items on display)

_{GOTTFRIED MATTHAES FOUNDATION  -AT THE SERVICE OF ART}  

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Milano, Via Quintino Sella 4 - Piazza Castello

The culture of our time has resigned itself to the dominion of images and emotions and cultural tourism produces museum “consumers” accustomed to learning by seeing and experiencing.
With the commendable aim of acquainting visitors of every age  with the extraordinary genius of Leonardo da Vinci, a number of museums in France, Italy, Spain and Argentina as well, probably, as other nations, are mounting didactic exhibitions focusing on life-sized models of war machines, flying machines and plans for cities of the future, constructed on the basis of the Master’s sketches, sometimes creating authentic cultural amusement parks.

But apart from these models, a museum-goer wishing to learn more about Leonardo is interested in information about the man and his artistic activity. Here Milan offers an opportunity, unique in the world, with two permanent exhibitions at the Museo d’Arte e Scienza, situated close by the Sforzesco Castle.

The first exhibition, comprising three rooms, describes Leonardo’s twenty-year-long intensive activity in this city. The second exhibition is dedicated to his most significant work: the “Treatise on Painting”, explained and illustrated for the first time since the thousands of single sheets written by his hand, were collected into a book, the most famous book on art of all time.

Great painters such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo were unique and there is therefore no point in trying to compare them in order to establish which was the greatest. All gifted painters endeavour to attain a perfect pictorial representation of their ideas, but are limited by the heaviness of their manual skills and by the materials used. Leonardo da Vinci, and he alone, surpassed all other painters from this point of view. Throughout his life he jotted down his ideas and his advices, how to be a good painter, in notes and drawings on sheets of paper, subsequently collected in the “Treatise of Painting”.

His teaching is unambiguous and clear: the painter must observe nature and its phenomena using scientific methods and considerations, and copy nature, because its beauty is incomparable, infinite and exquisite. This has also been the teaching of all artists from the dawn of human culture to the 19th century, except that this precept had never been set down so clearly.

 Considering the current concepts of art, today a book on a subject like the “Treatise” would be unthinkable, for which reason Leonardo will always be the painter and theorist of classical art par excellence. His thoughts applied to modern art are illustrated in room 12 of this exhibition (). It is significant that he considered the works of nature superior to those of man, whilst contemporary art places great value on the artist’s creativity and works. 

Leonardo jotted down his ideas on hundreds of pieces of paper which were condensed after his death into the "Treatise on Painting", the most famous book on art ever written, presented and illustrated in this exhibition with the help of interactive stations.

THE MONA LISA’S MYSTERIOUS SMILE.
In 1950, for the fifth centenary of Leonardo’s birth, the Louvre Museum, owner of 7 of his 15 paintings, organized a study of his singular painting technique. The Milanese museum, by re-examining other materials and this one, came to some interesting conclusions.

A clear demonstration of the lack of outlines is given by this enlarged photograph of the Mona Lisa’s lips. The lips with the famous smile do not exist, they are only nuances of colour

(All the X-ray photographs: Louvre Museum)

Recent copy by F. Pari

Leonardo’s Mona Lisa

Art. 406 *
What is the first intentional aim of the painter

The first intention... is to make a flat surface display a body as if modelled and separated from the plane, and he who most surpasses others in this skill deserves most praise...

Art. 43
Of the second principle of the science of painting

The second principle of the science of painting is the shadow of bodies, by which they can be represented…        

Art. 322
Of the attitudes of men

The attitudes and all the members are to be disposed in such a manner that by them the intentions of the mind may be easily discovered.

Art. 6

...the painter… penetrates within these bodies,  considering what comprises their distinctive essences...

Art. 36

Painting shows trasparent objects…

…also the mists… also the rains, behind which can be discerned the cloudy mountains and valleys… and also innumerable other effects…

Art. 9
How the painter is lord of every kind of  person and of all things

The painter is master of all the things that can befall the mind of man, and therefore if he wishes to see beauties that would enrapture him, he is master of their production...

Hieronimus Bosch

Art. 9

…and if he wishes to see monstrous things which might terrify,  or which would be buffoonish and laughable or truly pitiable, he is their lord and god...       

Art. 9
How the painter is lord of every kind of person and of all things 

...whatever there is in the universe through... presence or imagination, he has it first in his mind, and then in his hands...,  which can generate a proportional harmony in the time equivalent to a single glance, just as real things.

Art. 254
On colours

...The air between the eye and the object seen will change the colour of that object into its own, so will the azure of the air change the distant mountains into blue masses...

Art. 500
Of statuary

To execute a figure in marble, you must first make a model of it in clay … when it is finished and dried place it in a square case … have some peg-like sticks pass through holes made in the sides and all around the case. Push them in till every stick touches different parts of the model…

Art. 63
A way of enhancing and arousing the mind to various inventions

...there is no harm... in pausing to look into stains... or clouds... where you will find extraordinary inventions... But first you must gain a knowledge of how to make well all the parts of those things you wish to represent...

 An abridged and illustrated edition of the “Treatise on Painting” entitled "Appreciating art through the eyes of Leonardo"

This 158-page book, with its 160 magnificent colour plates, was published by the Art and Science Museum also as a guidebook to its exhibition dedicated to the Treatise on Painting.

The integral version of the Treatise, the importance of which should make it a bestseller, is little understood and consulted because of its scant readability and extremely repetitive nature.

This abridged edition presents a selection of the most significant articles and important concepts for the evaluation of works of art, set out in a few clear lines in the Master’s own words and illustrated with his drawings, his paintings and other suitable art objects serving to explain his precepts.
(Very favourable judgement from eminent Leonardo scholars)