Mexico City exhibition gives glimpse of Leonardo da Vinci as a mentor
Mexico City, Jun 16 (EFE).- An exhibition in Mexico City shows the collective work and legacy of Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci through 11 oil paintings and two drawings.
“All these works are important, there is not one that was really captivating in particular over the others. To choose one we would have to go to the aspect of historicity and which ones are more associated with Leonardo himself,” Nicola Barbatelli, the curator of the exhibition titled “Leonardo and His Followers” told EFE prior to the opening.
Works such as “Maddalena Discinta,” which was a direct collaboration between da Vinci and one of his students, drawing “The Battle of Anghiari” and the painting “Saint Catherine of Alexandria,” which he made with another student, reveal the thinking and legacy that the artist passed on to his apprentices and students.
Da Vinci’s vision on the themes of death, eroticism and struggle is present in the 13 works on display.
According to the curator, da Vinci collaborated with his students in an unusual way, sometimes sketching the design of the paintings and letting his students finish the work, so the approach to these works offers a different experience of his way of thinking.
Among the students who signed the collective works are Salaì, Bernardino Luini, Marco d’Oggiono and Giampetrino.
According to the Italian ambassador to Mexico, Luigi De Chiara, the exhibition is part of the activities marking the 500th year of da Vinci’s death that was commemorated in 2019.
The exhibition, which opens to public on Friday in the Torre del Reloj gallery in the Miguel Hidalgo mayor’s office in the west of Mexico City, will be shown until Nov. 25 and entrance will be free on Mondays.
Although da Vinci is best known as a painter, his ingenuity and imagination transcended the world of art and reached fields as diverse as science, civil and military engineering, anatomy and urban planning.
Recently, a man threw a piece of cake at the “La Gioconda,” better known as “Mona Lisa” and da Vinci’s most famous work, at the Louvre Museum in Paris in an attempt to raise awareness about climate change. However, the bullet-proof glass encasing the painting prevented any damage to it. EFE
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