#001161
Leonardo da Vinci
Daniel Arasse
A weighty, humane one-volume Leonardo from one of the sharpest readers of the Italian Renaissance. Daniel Arasse — a French art historian who directed studies at the École des hautes études and headed the French Institute in Florence — reads Leonardo's painting and his scientific notebooks as a single enterprise, arguing that his curiosity about anatomy, water, machines, and light fed directly into the pictures. Fully illustrated and prize-winning in France, it reached English readers in the 1998 Konecky edition. Arasse balances deep erudition with a genuine feel for Leonardo's strangeness, and the book has aged into a respected account — heftier than a coffee-table monograph, more alive than a catalogue raisonné. For a different route into the same restless mind, compare Walter Isaacson's popular biography or Kenneth Clark's classic.
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The author
Daniel Arasse (1944-2003) was a French art historian and one of the sharpest interpreters of the Italian Renaissance, directing studies at the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales and heading the French Institute in Florence. He wrote widely on Mannerism, Vermeer, and the close reading of images.
The book
This study reads Leonardo's painting and his scientific notebooks as a single enterprise, arguing that his curiosity about anatomy, water, machines, and light fed directly into the pictures. Fully illustrated, it won the Prix Andre Malraux in France; the Konecky & Konecky edition of 1998 brought it to English readers.
How it reads
Arasse balances erudition with a genuine feel for Leonardo's oddness, and the book has aged into a respected one-volume account - weightier than a coffee-table monograph, more humane than a catalogue raisonne.
For more context
Compare Walter Isaacson's popular 2017 biography, or Kenneth Clark's classic study, for other routes into the same restless mind.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Daniel Arasse
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Art
- Location
- Colorado