Sublime

The shield, perhaps Leonardo’s first recorded piece of art, displayed his lifelong talent for combining fantasy with observation. In the notes for his proposed treatise on painting, he would later write, “If you wish to make an imaginary animal invented by you appear natural, let us say a dragon, take for the head that of a mastiff or hound, for th

Leonardo was not always a giant. He made mistakes. He went off on tangents, literally, pursuing math problems that became time-sucking diversions. Notoriously, he left many of his paintings unfinished, most notably the Adoration of the Magi, Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, and the Battle of Anghiari. As a result, there exist now at most fifteen pai

Thus did Leonardo pioneer a new form of anatomical drawing, perhaps better described in his case as anatomical art, that is still in use today.

We have met Giacomo Andrea before. He was the host of the dinner that Leonardo went to with Salai two days after the ten-year-old scamp had become his assistant, at which Salai “supped for two and did mischief for four,” including breaking three cruets and spilling the wine.20 That dinner happened on July 24, 1490, just four weeks after Leonardo an

Leonardo’s record of unreliability was not simply because he decided to give up on certain paintings. He wanted to perfect them, so he kept hold of many of them for years, making refinements. Even some of his commissions that were completed, or almost so—Ginevra de’ Benci and the Mona Lisa, for example—were never delivered to clients. Leonardo clun

In painting her, Leonardo created a psychological portrait, one that renders hidden emotions. That would become one of his most important artistic innovations. It set him on a trajectory that would culminate three decades later in the greatest psychological portrait in history, the Mona Lisa. The tiny hint of a smile that is visible on the right si