Leonardo da Vinci: Leonardo’s Animals Part 2 (of 2)
Posted: Monday, September 04, 2006
by Melanie Light
Melanie Light
Leonardo is known to have kept horses, along with dogs, cats and other animals. Although numerous animal studies are found throughout Leonardo's drawings, his most frequent animal sketches are of horses. His renderings are extremely detailed and life-like. He infused his renditions of animals with nobility – a characteristic that stemmed from his deep love and respect for the animals he sketched and painted.
Leonardo made a great number of preparatory drawings for his Sforza Horse. His notebooks are filled with proportional studies of horses. There are detailed diagrams of the anatomy of horses, along with notes on how to cast it, and it would weigh 80 tons once complete! Leonardo made the clay model to scale, but the bronze horse was not to be. In 1499, the French army threatened an attack. The metal intended for the Sforza Horse would be needed to make canons. Leonardo left Milan before the French Army marched on the city. Seeing the massive clay horse, the French soldiers could not resist using it for target practice.Thereafter it was reduced to rubble. Leonardo became despondent and at the same time, vowed to one day see his horse completely built.
Much has been written throughout history about the "Horse that Never Was". Five hundred years after the destruction of the clay model, based on the notes and sketches of Leonardo, the 24-foot bronze horse was cast. In fact, two full-scale statues were completed. One stands in Michigan, while the other was given as a gift to the City of Milan. United Airline Pilot Charles Dent made it happen. Upon seeing the original sketches that had been rediscovered in Spain, he started the process of raising the necessary funds to build the full-scale, bronze horse. His plan was to give it as a gift to the Italians from the Americans. Being something of a sculptor himself, he built a clay model of the horse to Leonardo's specifications. And, although Charles Dent died in 1994, his dream lived on and over four-million dollars was raised. On September 10th, 1999, exactly 500 years after the French destroyed Leonardo's clay model, the bronze statue was unveiled in Milan. On October 7th, 1999, a second casting of the horse was unveiled in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This second horse is known as the American Horse.
Along with his sudies of mammals, Leonardo made hundreds of bird sketches. In the medieval publication Lives of Artists, Giorgio Vasari tells how Leonardo would go to the markets and buy caged birds, and then open their cages, giving them back their freedom.(1) Leonardo studied the motion of their wings in flight as well as their anatomy and physiology. He wrote down and illustrated his own theories on the flight of birds and was inspired to make several sketches of mechanical flying machines. He wrote a treatise called Codex on The Flight of Birds in which he made diagrams of a helical wing, beating wings, a parachute, and bat wings. Later he realized the problems with human-powered propulsion and began making notes and diagrams of gliders. He also designed a machine based on a helical screw that was 32 or 33 feet in diameter.(2) It was supposed to lift off and fly as the blade rotated, resembling a modern-day helicopter.
Leonardo’s passionate interest in studying animals was unique for his time. He studied and observed animals, and sketched and painted them with grace and realism. Other Renaissance artists like Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Raphael (1483-1520), who focused more on the humanity and divinity in art, did not include animals in their works to the extent as Leonardo did.(3) Without neglecting the Divine in Humanity, Leonardo above all other Renaissance artists, elevated all of nature and made it part of the Divine.
Sources: 1. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/vasari/vasari14.htm 2.http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/leonardo/studio/ 3.Kane, Douglas D. "Science in the Art of the Italian Renaissance II: Leonardo da Vinci's Representation of Animals in His Works" Ohio State University, 2002.
Copyright 2006 Melanie Light
Leonardo’s Animals Part 1 (of 2) can be found here: http://searchwarp.com/swa94463.htm.
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Melanie Light is an artist and art educator. She is the site owner of Pet Lovers Art at http://www.artzpet.com and Classic Pet Art at http://www.cafepress.com/petz . You will find more pet artwork, gifts, and information on these web sites.
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Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)Great article. Much more information than most articles. I just wish both Part 1 and Part 2 were displayed together.Thanks for the feedback, JoAnne. I submitted the two articles at the same time but they were not displayed together and I had no control over that. After reading both of your helpful comments, I edited the articles and inserted links connecting them. I should have checked back a day or two after I initially submitted the articles and provided the links but I didn't. Hopefully I will remember to do so in the future.
Excellent article.
Loved it!
Great article I know you can get DaVinci's notebooks for free at learning2draw. well done on article
Very interesting article. I never knew that Da Vinci kept animals in his studio or that he loved them so much. I've heard about his Sforza Horse and read about his freeing the birds, but I never realized the depth of his studies. His love for animals was truly remarkable.
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