Integrated Digital Media Capstone - research -

Jan 17

Inspiration for my latest project is l’uomo universale made by Leonardo da Vinci. I want to refurbish the idea and create a female version.

Uomo universale (Italian: universal human, also often in Latin homo universalis) is an expression that means a person (male or female) who develops all his faculties and skills, so for example a well-developed athletic body, but also a keen mind and skills in many areas, especially in the arts.

It is an ideal that developed especially in the Renaissance, inspired by Leon Battista Alberti's statement "a person can do anything if he wants to". This was part of the human image of the Renaissance humanists who, with their educational program, wanted to develop all the possibilities that man has to a high level. Alberti himself was a talented architect, artist, scholar and writer. Aristotle is considered the first uomo universale. Most often, however, Leonardo da Vinci is mentioned as the embodiment of the ideal of the uomo universale. In essence, the Renaissance humanists harked back to the Ancient Greek ideal of formation and education, "paideia" (παιδεία), in which students received broad education in subjects such as rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, music, philosophy, geography, natural history, gymnastics and physics. Here too the ideal was pursued of a development that was as complete as possible, which did justice to the true human nature. Nowadays it is difficult to be proficient in all sciences because nowadays there are a lot more sciences and they have significantly more content.

I saw this art work in Paris, The Louvre museum just before the lockdown. I was so fascinated by it.

“The Leonardo da Vinci exhibition is held under the high patronage of French President Emmanuel Macron

The year 2019 marks the 500-year anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci in France, of particular importance for the Louvre, which holds the largest collection in the world of da Vinci’s paintings, as well as 22 drawings.

The museum is seizing the opportunity in this year of commemorations to gather as many of the artist’s paintings as possible around the five core works in its collections: The Virgin of the Rocks, La Belle Ferronnière, the Mona Lisa (which will remain in the gallery where it is normally displayed), the Saint John the Baptist, and the Saint Anne. The objective is to place them alongside a wide array of drawings as well as a small but significant series of paintings and sculptures from the master’s circle.

This unprecedented retrospective of da Vinci’s painting career will illustrate how he placed utmost importance on painting, and how his investigation of the world, which he referred to as “the science of painting,” was the instrument of his art, seeking nothing less than to bring life to his paintings.

The exhibition is the culmination of more than ten years of work, notably including new scientific examinations of the Louvre’s paintings, and the conservation treatment of three of them, allowing for better understanding of da Vinci’s artistic practice and pictorial technique. Clarification of his biography has also emerged through the exhaustive reexamination of archival documents. The exhibition will paint the portrait of a man and an artist of extraordinary freedom.” - The Louvre museum

https://www.louvre.fr/en/expositions/leonardo-da-vinci