Oh dear. I told myself that if I ever attend any conference, I should blogged about it latest by in a week time.
It’s almost two months. Ok ok, I’ll be better. I promise!
Anyway, I was excited that they were showing it in Malaysia. As you know me, I enjoy going for exhibitions as my learning comes to live. Many times I read and learn, but nothing beats looking at the exhibitions and sometimes you get very enlightened.
Though I’ve have been to Da Vinci exhibition in Singapore three years ago (and saw it again in Malaysia a month later), I was excited that it was back in Malaysia. I really hope the next time Da Vinci Anatomy exhibits can come to Malaysia the next time.
I also had an interesting chat with the project director CM Lee about having people to see more of this things, and asking him about the difference between this exhibition and the one that they show in Singapore a few years back. Apparently this exhibition is showing exhibits that are recreated Nikkolai Teknoart SNC (Firenze) Artisans of Florence Pty Ltd for the original museum of Florence.
This exhibition was showing more of the machines that Leonardo Da Vinci conceptualised, but of course there were some art pieces too. Here are the few of things that I saw:
Truth to be told, I took this picture because I really love the dummy man. I also like how they put the apparatus on his head to show the thing that Leonardo Da Vinci conceptualised.
Another dummy man on ski. I can’t remember whether it was skiing on water or land. Need to read up again.
One of the fighter ships. The blade in front was really sharp. I wonder what if Titanic had the sharp blade at the front. Maybe less chance of sinking.
Adoration of the Magi. Also taken from the bible, where the Magi look at the stars and they followed the Star to see the king.
Ah, talking about stars, I’ve just read an interesting book about astrology and astronomy in Hebrew context. Now if I can understand it, digest it, and question myself about it. Hopefully after doing that, I will understand this whole painting better.
Annunciation. I was reading Wikipedia to find out more and realised that there are many versions of annuniciation as it is a significant event in the Christian history as that was the time Angel Gabriel came to Virgin Mary to tell her that she was going to conceived the Saviour of the World.
This is Leonardo’s version of it.
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne. Maybe I need to read up a bit of Catholicism to know who is St. Anne. The two women and the baby looks chubby. My colleague brought a point when he saw me cropping this set of photos. He said his teacher asked him why people in the Renaissance era are depicted as chubbier people. His teacher then replied that only the rich people can afford painting thus they look more well fed.
If that is really the reason for this, then is St Anne, virgin and child are considered rich or it is just an art style like Romanticism where everyone looks fat.
I won’t comment on it more, but recently I’ve read a book about Botticelli and it explained a bit of history about certain paintings.
Potrait of Ginevra de’ Benci. I notice that he like to paint some of his portraits with scenery at the back, such as Mona Lisa. This portrait has more of a sad look. I wonder what was she thinking when Leonardo painted her.
St John the Baptist. Leonardo Da Vinci have a tendency to draw young man to look really gay. Not only that, that Mona Lisa smile and that finger pointing to the sky just made the whole imagery even more effiminate. I blame the society today for labelling how man looks. because that affects how I view this painting. Hey, maybe at those times men can look like that and are not gays.
Cryptext. In Dan Brown’s book Da Vinci code, he mentioned that Leonardo Da Vinci was from a secret sect and came up with the cryptext. The museum had to clarify that this thing did not exist during that time and cryptext is really from the imagination of Dan Brown.
Polyhedron. Squares intertwined. I found this geometrically beautiful.
So that’s my thoughts about this year exhibition. I know my post is not conclusive this round, but there are so much to read up and understand more, especially when it comes to the inventions and the scientific parts. Maybe I should have done more research before going there.