The first tour we bought while in London was the Queen's Gallery. Here they have notes and drawings from Leonardo da Vinci on display. The works in this gallery are exclusively taken from a single book of Leonardo DaVinci - but what a treasure trove of artwork.Christine and I were excited to see this exhibit, having visited both the museum dedicated to him in Vinci, Italy and seeing more of his works on display at the Louvre. However, we didn't expect the children to get as much out of the tour as they did. The museum provided an audio guide for each of us and the kids received a special family version that even Adam at 5 years old could enjoy.
With numbers on each important work to key the audio guide, the kids absorbed lesson after lesson. Of course, it helped that DaVinci did so many amazing things and created such detailed and interesting drawings. The image of Andrew looking intently at this picture, could have been any of our kids. The audio guide is really quite an engaging way to introduce kids to art and artists. But even these only last for 45 minutes to an hour - fortunately, all the rooms were well equipped with pencils and drawing pads for the kids to copy artwork or to create their own masterpieces.
The kids were happy to be able to sit and draw!
The part of the exhibit that Christine and I found most fascinating was how his sketches exhibited his wide range of work. Sometimes he was purely the artist, sketching art for the love of drawing and exploring the human figure. Other times he was a cartographer, making maps of cities, mountains, and lakes as if from in an airplane. Even other explorations and drawings showed his military insights.
He explored anatomy in ways that no scientist had before. He provided detailed illustrations of the flow of blood through organs, drew muscles and their attachments, and bones and skeletons - working from cadavers and bodies at a medical school.
He also studied plants, botany, and herbology - capturing minute details for review and exploration later. His range of work was unmatched for his and most other times.
The final part of the exhibit which I thought was extraordinary was the exploration of DaVinci's work using infra-red light. This allowed students and historians to literally see backwards in time to discover how he developed his drawings in chalk before he drew the ink which we see on the paper. And even in some cases, these techniques allow us to see what has faded completely over time. I love that technology allows to to continue to discover more and more about the great masters of the past in ways like this.
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If you get the opportunity to see this exhibit, it is certainly worthwhile.
10/1/2019 Addendum - While in Edinburgh, we tried to see the Da Vinci painting they have at the National Gallery, only to find that it had been loaned to a museum in Paris the week before we arrived.
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