"Two new and serious studies attempt the work of making Leonardo earthbound again. “Leonardo” (Oxford; $26), by the Oxford art-history professor Martin Kemp, is a summary of a life’s research; “Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind” (Viking; $32.95), by the biographer and historian Charles Nicholl, is a popular account, dense with social history and rational, high-hearted speculation. The simultaneous appearance of the books doubtless created two anxious publishers, but they complement each other almost perfectly: Kemp’s is Leonardo seen from the inside out, Nicholl’s from the outside in. Kemp explains Leonardo’s principles of design and his theory of the world from an intense knowledge of his mind and drawings; Nicholl shows where his ideas came from and who paid to subsidize them, through a broad rendering of his life and times."
|
- bill 1-14-2005 9:13 pm