"He who despises painting loves neither knowledge not nature."
Leonardo Da Vinci : Origins of a Genius
(David Alan Brown
)
This beautiful book is the first full-length study of Leonardo's beginnings as an artist. It discusses his years in Verrocchio's workshop and his subsequent work on his own, the development of his technique, and the relationship of his early paintings to each other and to their sources.
Leonardo Da Vinci: The Complete Paintings
(Pietro C. Marani, Leonardo)
This magisterial work-the most exquisite and luxuriously produced art monograph of the season-will immediately be recognized as the seminal volume on the paintings of the great Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci. Not only does the quality of the reproductions far surpass those in previous books, but every one of Leonardo's magnificent paintings is included, along with preparatory drawings and studies for his most famous works, and a text by one of the world's leading experts on Leonardo.
Such beloved masterpieces as the Mona Lisa, The Madonna of the Rocks, and The Annunciation are all freshly photographed and showcased in greater detail than ever before. The newly restored Last Supper, lavishly reproduced as a full-color double gatefold, is seen here in all its richness of detail and tone. Scholar Pietro Marani explores Leonardo's fertile and original intellect and his astounding capacity for imbuing the human figure with emotion and sublime beauty and grace. Here, then, is a glorious art book that will be a gift to treasure for a lifetime.
The Writings and Drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci : Order and Chaos in Early Modern Thought
(Robert Zwijnenberg)
This study is an effort to understand why writing and drawing were so important to Leonardo da Vinci, who, over the course of his lifetime, filled about 15,000 pages with texts and images. Focusing on the fragmentary and chaotic character of his notes, Robert Zwijnenberg also examines the influence of important cultural developments during the Italian Renaissance, as well as the work of fellow intellectuals such as Cusanus, Alberti, Taccola, and Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Zwijnenberg's study sheds new light on linear perspective and anatomy, the artist's most favored fields of study.
