LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE MERMAID - THE TWO DAY INVITATIONAL COUNTRY CRAFT FAIR

When I travel, which is more often that I would like, I take something with me to work on. Sometimes it is drawings to work on or a study but most times I take a piece with me to work on. On my last trip to China I took two pieces  with me that were barely started. One piece was the one that I have come to call The Mermaid. I consider her to be the sister or at least a close cousin to The Siren. The other piece that I took with me was just a piece of wood at the time. I will leave that one for later. The reason that I took these two pieces with me is that I wanted to keep my momentum going on finishing pieces that I am preparing for the two day invitational Country Craft Fair and Old-Fashioned Market Mercantile. 


The interesting thing about the development of The Mermaid was that it became intertwined with the book that I was reading on Leonardo Da Vinci. I have written about Leonardo before when I published a post about the trip that I made with my wife, my son and his girlfriend to the Buffalo Science Museum to view the exhibit call Leonardo Da Vinci : Machines in Motion. the book on Leonardo that I was reading in China was called LEONARDO, by Martin Kemp. Martin Kemp is one of the greatest authorities on Leonardo Da Vinci  I was interested to read his insightful point of view on Leonardo's work.

I was not disappointed. Martin wrote about aspects of Leonardo's life that are usually not covered. He spent entire chapters discussing aspects of Leonardo's life and art that I have never read about before. At any rate, I will cover this book more fully in another post. It deserves a post of its own.

the point is that my imagination became so infused with art of Leonardo that I could see nothing else in my mind except the beautiful Madonnas that he painted. When I looked at the piece of wood that was going to become The Mermaid I saw the faces and the elegant poses of these Madonnas. As I developed the three studies I would eventually work from it became evident that I was using the painting of Lucrezia Crevelli, "La Belle Ferroniere", as my model.

Here are the studies that I did for The Mermaid.

At this point, The Mermaid was roughly carved. Only the major shapes were done. There was no detail.

Pretty neat wallpaper, isn't it?

I thought that the wallpaper in my hotel room went well with The Mermaid so I took a few pictures of her posing with the boats. It looks like she might capsize a few of them!

Here, she is almost finished. I still need to apply her final coat and them mount her onto base that I shaped to make her look like she is rising out of a wave. I will show that in another post.

I think The Mermaid will be an interesting piece at the Country Craft and Fair, that is unless someone snaps her up first!

LEONARDO DA VINCI - MACHINES IN MOTION - UPDATE

I had a a wonderful visit today at the Buffalo Museum of Science. The Museum is hosting and exhibit of 30 machines that were created based on illustrations from the Codices of Leonardo da Vinci. I went to the exhibit with my wife, my son and his girl friend. We had a great time. Many of the exhibits were also interactive so we could turn a crank or work a lever or gear to put the machine in motion. For me, it was an opportunity of a lifetime to actually see some of the machines that Leonardo has imagined over 400 hundred years ago.

All of the machines were created by a team of scientists, engineers and craftsman from the very city where Leonardo has imagined most of these machines: Florence, Italy. The exhibit has been displayed across Europe and is now on display at the Buffalo Museum of Science until August 28th. I would urge anyone who has an interest in science, technology, Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian Renaissance or simply to marvel and wonder at the sheer genius of imagination to see this exhibit. It is not just for children, it is for the child like wonder in us all.

This is Leonardo's idea of a self powered glider.

Leonardo designed this machine to lift heavy columns into place. Read the description below.

This is Leonardo's Worm Gear, centuries before anyone else thought of it.

This is one of Leonardo's war machines, the precursor to the machine gun.

Leonardo's design for a tank.

Maybe it was the violence and destruction that Leonardo witnessed as the result of the weapons that he created during his service for Cesar Borgia that caused him to keep all of his ideas secret until his death an beyond. Accord ing to Paul Strathern in his book,The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior: Leonardo, Machiavelli and Borgia - a fateful collusion, this is the reason that we never discovered most of Leonardo's ideas until hundreds of years later. This was an insightful book about a short period of time when Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli were in the service of Cesar Borgia. If it had been otherwise, western civilization might look much different today...then again, maybe not.



There is so much to see at this exhibit. I only showed a few of the machines. There is not enough room here to even begin to describe the degree of craftsmanship that is demonstrated in this exhibit. Go see it before August 28th! Go see for yourself.

 I just found out that the Ontario Science Center is hosting the Da Vinci exhibit from October 13th to March 18th, 2012.If you did not get a chance to see the exhibit in Buffalo here is your chance to see in Toronto at the Ontario Science Center.

If you truly interested in Leonardo da Vinci as an artist, engineer and scientist then you will want to read some of the excellent books that have been published about him. I can recommend two books that I have read recently.

 1) Leonardo by Martin Kemp. This is a book written by an art historian who has lived with the ghost of Leonardo da Vinci looming large in his life. Kemp has an understanding of Leonardo that offers the rest of us rare insights into one of the greatest geniuses in history. This is a portrait of an extraordinary man cast in a light never seen before.

2) Leonardo's Legacy by Stefan Klein is another excellent book. Unlike Martin Kemp who is an expert in Leonardo da Vinci, Stefan Klein is a science writer. He wrote a best seller called The Science of Happiness. Klein looks at Leonardo da Vinci as a scientist and explains how his visual approach to  viewing and interpreting the world lead to many of his revolutionary and futuristic ideas. Many of the machines that are on exhibit in the Machines in Motion exhibit are discussed in this book. If you have seen the exhibit then this book is an excellent companion and helps explain the significance of the machines that are on exhibit.