Dr Joseph Vancell: 10 Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci

10 Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci

Posted: Monday, 20 April 2009 by Joseph Vancell in

It will surely be one of my greatest regrets. My 12-year old son was on holiday with me in the UK and we planned to visit an exhibition of ten drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci on his last day with me in Manchester. It was Friday 10^th April - Good Friday. When we arrived at the Manchester Art Gallery we learnt that the Gallery was closed. My son was very disappointed.

I visited the exhibition some days later. I felt very disappointed for my son who was unlucky to miss seeing the Royal Collection's finest drawings by the Renaissance universal genius. The Royal Collection contains the world's most important group of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, and these ten drawings are among the greatest treasures of the collection.

This exhibition celebrates the 60th birthday of HRH The Prince of Wales and contains some exquisite studies. Many of these delicate drawings have never been on permanent display due to their fragile nature and, indeed, a dim light illuminates these small drawings in a hall of the Art Gallery.

I was particularly fascinated by a study of drapery (c.1515-17). This is a study for the drapery over the seated Madonna's right thigh in Leonardo's own painting of the Madonna and Child with St Anne and a lamb, now in the the Louvre. The technique is very elaborate. An outline in charcoal was worked up in closely hatched black chalk, which was gone over with a damp brush to make the modelling (or sfumato) even smoother. Touches of brown wash provide a little colour and give greater depth to the shadows. Finally the light on the satiny surface was rendered with a veil of white heightening, delicately applied with a fine brush.

Robert Clark, in The Guardian, Saturday 14 February 2009, referring to this exhibition and the work of Paul Morrison exhibited in the same gallery, wrote

Ten of the greatest ever drawings: incisive, sensitive, a shorthand form of perceptual enquiry, these works by Leonardo Da Vinci show that creative intuitions and living presences can be perfectly embodied with basic means. Red and black chalk, pen and ink, watercolour washes and painstaking finesse metalpoint are wielded with frightening self-assurance. In company like this, Paul Morrison deserves credit for daring to infiltrate the adjacent galleries with his wall-based reflections on drawing's changing historical vocabulary.

If you’re in Manchester do not miss this exhibition. The exhibition is open until 4^th May 2009.