Leonardo Da Vinci Conference

Leonardo Draws Blackberry Twig – Some Notes on Da Vinci's Gaze Prof. Ariel Hirschfeld, Department of Hebrew Literature, Hebrew University

Abstract

The lecture examines the uniqueness of Leonardo da Vinci's gaze as documented in his nature drawings, and particularly in his studies of plant life. Leonardo's gaze marks a departure from previous plant sketches in traditional herbaria, as well as from depictions of plant life in saint and allegory paintings up until Leonardo's time. The unique quality of da Vinci's gaze lies in a novel synthesis between an attentive, meticulous observation of nature, and an explicit activation of the observer's presence and of his singular personality at a singular moment in time.