High Renaissance Art & Mannerism, Individual Artists, Italian Art

Leonardo

Name: Leonardo
Author: Frank Z?llner
ISBN: 9780760782033

by Frank Z?llner

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Overview

Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) not only revolutionized art but also anticipated, in his wide-ranging studies, the scientific discoveries of later epochs. The present book pays tribute to the variety and scope of Leonardo's interests and at the same time offers a fresh assessment of the artistic achievement of the Renaissance genius. On the basis of letters, contracts, contemporary poetry and diary entries, Leonardo's artistic oeuvre, and in particular his painting, is interpreted in an entirely new light.

The main text, which traces the full length of Leonardo's career, is followed by a catalogue raisonné of 34 works, which discusses all major aspects of Leonardo's surviving and lost paintings. Based upon the latest research, this catalogue is thereby the first to analyse the condition, technique, design process, provenance, attribution and sources of Leonardo's paintings in such depth.

The numerous enlargements of small details convey the impression that we are holding in our hands the magnificent originals housed in the great collections of the world and usually accessible to only a few specialists.

Frank Zöllner born in 1956, gained his doctorate in artistic and architectural theory in Hamburg in 1987 and qualified as a university lecturer in Marburg in 1996 with a thesis on Leonardo da Vinci. He was a post-graduate scholar at the Warburg Institute in London and assistant at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome. He has written numerous publications on Renaissance art and artistic theory (Leonardo, Botticelli, Michelangelo) and on Paul Klee. Since 1996 he has been Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Art History at Leipzig University. He has already written a monograph on Leonardo da Vinci for TASCHEN, published in 1998.