The Leonardo enigma ARTS

BRYAN ROBERTSON

The Royal Collection of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at Windsor Castle consists of about two thirds of all his surviving studies; the ex- hibition at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, contains the greater part of this fabu- lous collection, and is perhaps one of the un- repeatable events of a lifetime. Certainly there has been no comparable disclosure in London before the present occasion.

It is an extraordinary phenomenon in ways other than the mesmeric but slightly daunting spectacle afforded by one hundred and sixty- three drawings by Leonardo gathered under one roof. The galleries are crowded each day by all kinds of people with suitably intent and

respectful expressions on their faces. Skimped and almost predatory attention is paid to the drawings against pressure from neighbouring, sometimes jostling visitors which forces one- to keep smartly on the move. Prolonged con- templation, apywhere, is hard to achieve. By their nature, drawings are not exhibition pieces in the usual sense; they demand intimate scrutiny and the thought which travels outward from that act of leisurely observation.

The catalogue is consulted incessantly: clearly everyone wants to know for certain that the horse study in front of them really is a horse study, or that the folds of drapery in isolation are indeed exactly what they appear to be. Perhaps they belong to a central personage in a famous painting? But how many people know the authentic handful of surviving Leo- nardo paintings? There is always the communal thrill of being in the presence of loot on a grand scale; except that even copious numbers of drawings, unlike paintings or rock crystal chandeliers, are modest in their impact and do not exhale the toxic breath of immense wealth or opulence. If anything, they suggest—and notably with Leonardo—the clinical charts of some legendary laboratory, given up to fantasy as well as concretely useful research. A certain austerity hovers in the air of any show of drawings.

This frequent recourse to the catalogue, con- sulted as often and as avidly as a racing card, accentuates a vaguely thwarted atmosphere of expectancy in the crowd. For such a reverent congregation, the catalogue should provide some oracular, revelatory information, but it doesn't, of course; it merely contains a brief and concise, swiftly flowing essay by Kenneth Clark which sets Leonardo in a historical con- text, refers to the different kinds of drawing and their evolution, and ends with an apt reference to the concept of the drawings as a complete record of a lifetime's work: they were once gathered together in one huge volume. The existence of the fragmented collection at Wind- sor is explained. There are also readily compre- hensible notes for each drawing. The essay, to- gether with the notes, is exemplary: packed with revelant facts, the reverse of superficial in tone—but what is surely required is some clari- fication of Leonardo's peculiar identity as an artist and the particular qualities possessed by the drawings. Clark's acute imaginative in- sights are needed here.

In a word, Leonardo's drawings, like his paintings, are extremely easy to look at and immensely difficult to see. I believe that most people experience the same mixed but slightly deadening, deflationary retinal and emotional rea,ctiov as I do when confronted—rarely enough—by these great explorations of organic

and inorganic form. The persona that fills all Leonardo's work is elusive and not immediately sympathetic: mortality and the rigors of death touch all but the liveliest of his sketches. A few

extra paragraphs by Clark on the kind of imagination and artistic probity possessed by Leonardo would have have added a crucial dimension to the catalogue.: and nobody could have done this better, though,. of course, his study of Leonardo exists separately now is paperback form. • For most casual frequenters of exhibitions, I suppose, these drawings will be impressive for

their instantly recognisable mastery of tech- nique and absolute authority in translating ob- servation of life into the most concentrated and telling graphic images. The pleasures of recog- nition have in them an oddly consoling element of confirmation. The irritation felt by professed art lovers when confronted by complex works of art, especially in abstract form, is more than anything panic at the unfamiliar, with the attendant, swift suspicion that what faces them is therefore without authenticity and so constitutes an illegitimate, conceivably fraud's& lent attack on their own incontrovertible ex- perience.

But with Leonardo. so exact in, his render- ing of heads and bodies, animals and plants, draperies and rocks, something else happens.

It is a paradox but true, I am certain, that in the very moment of. pleasurable recognition of

the object depicted, just as admiration mounts

at the almost superhuman achievement in terms of a plastic transformation into a new reality on

paper, a chord of sympathetic response is broken, some faint chill intervenes to alienate any warmer identification with what Leonardo has made. For with self-evident genius of this order there should be an additional sense, inherent in the graphic triumph, of a sensibility which could support and even at times unleash the passion, above all the total view of life, that we find, for example, in Shakespeare. But

Leonardo remains locked in a cold vacuum which does not even refer back imaginatively, and more relevantly, to the earthly or celestial visions of his fellow-countryman Dante.

We expect something cosmic and universal from Leonardo and find instead precise accounts of localities, natural phenoms_na, indi-

vidual objects and people. Bottlis Prim- avera or Piero's Baptism of Christ are examples

of a spiritual grace that Leonardo could neither

invoke nor project.• At the Queen's Gallery, the large group of deluge drawings come nearer

to, cosmic truth. They are also, in each case, complete as statements: the page is filled from edge to edge with swirling or staccato move- ment free from the static coldness of the dis- sected fragment which prevails elsewhere. Otherwise, Leonardo remained trapped inside

an almost deadly objectivity in his wide-ranging speculations: flight was his only release. Does Leonardo have a place in popular affection? Do we understand him? I wonder.