This autumn, Oxford is paying tribute to the great Italian genius Leonardo da Vinci and his works as a painter, engineer, natural philosopher and inventor.
Throughout the city, museums are hosting exhibitions exploring the artistic and intellectual world of Leonardo and his friends and followers. This in-depth look at the quintessential Renaissance Man' takes visitors on a fascinating tour of the University of Oxford's rich collections, including Christ Church Picture Gallery, the Ashmolean Museum, Magdalen College Chapel, the Museum of the History of Science and the Botanic Gardens.
Ashmolean Museum: Imagining Leonardo Until November 5 This exhibition has at its core a group of Leonardo's drawings but also looks at how his achievement was visualised and interpreted by artists, collectors and scholars at different times. Leonardo's originals include a record drawing' of the Portrait of Isabella d'Este (c.1499).
This drawing is unusual because Leonardo chose to draw his patron in profile, unlike his other portraits in which he sought to stimulate emotional engagement between viewer and sitter. Also on display is Maiden with a Unicorn (right), probably produced early in Leonardo's artistic career, sometime during the late 1470s.
According to medieval folklore, the unicorn is a symbol of sacred and profane chastity. Leonardo's account of the mythical animal in his fables of animals indicates that the symbolic meaning of this drawing is to demonstrate the maiden's chastity.
Magdalen College Chapel: The Last Supper from Leonardo's circle Until November 5 Leonardo's innovative and highly expressive Last Supper (c.1495-98) painted high on the wall of the rectory of Santa Maria della Grazia, Milan, made a huge impact on other artists. This Last Supper, attributed to a close Milanese follower of Leonardo, Giampietrino (active c.1495-1549) is a remarkable and intriguing early version on canvas of Leonardo's composition. It is on loan from the Royal Academy and hangs in the ante-chapel in an appropriately late 15th-century setting.
Museum of the History of Science: Leonardo and the Mathematical Arts Until November 5 This exhibition uses Leonardo's interests and activities as a window into the world of mathematics in Renaissance Italy. Leonardo would have been taken for a mathematician', as the term was understood at the time.
This display shows what this meant in the period, and how Leonardo both worked within and moved beyond the accepted understanding of the mathematical arts.' Worthy of note is the beautiful Italian armillary sphere, a fundamental instrument of astronomy and mathematics in Leonardo's time.
Christ Church Picture Gallery: Leonardo and Milan: Drawings from the Guise Collection Until November 5 The collection at Christ Church Picture Gallery is founded on the major bequest of old master paintings and drawings from 18th century military figure, General John Guise. His collection includes an impressive group of drawings by Leonardo and by many of his close pupils and followers.
The display includes Bust of Grotesque Man in Profile (c.1503-05). This cartoon, which is almost life-size, is the largest of a series of drawings of grotesque heads produced by Leonardo between 1490 and 1505, and represents the culmination of his interest in exaggerated physiognomy.
Botanic Gardens: Leonardo's Plants Until September 30 We know Leonardo was a keen botanist, often making detailed sketches of flowers to include in his paintings. Unfortunately, little survives from his early studies of flowers copied from nature recorded in a list of works taken by Leonardo from Florence to Milan.
The Botanic Garden trail encourages visitors to look for the different plants that appear in Leonardo's sketches, including the Madonna Lily from The Annunciation.
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