Leonardo’s World

Catalog description

This course uses Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings, drawings, and writings to explore the interrelation of art and nature in early modern Italy. Using Leonardo as a focus, the course is divided in two halves; the first half considers ways of seeing and picturing the natural world. The second considers the ways man changes the environment, including its practical and aesthetic uses. These themes are not easily divided, and in the early modern world their intersections had significant implications for intellectual thought, artistic practices, and manmade interventions in the landscape, be they fountains, fortifications, gardens or urban planning. Leonardo will be our interlocutor throughout the term, although the course is not intended to be a monographic study of the artist per se. Instead, we will examine Leonardo’s and his peers’ artworks as a way to investigate early modern conceptions of nature, its transformative potential, and the natural and built environment.