Leonardo

Leonardo? He's the one with the two ninja swords, right? Five hundred years! Whoah... I had no idea he was meant to be that old, but chelonians are famous for their longevity, it's true. What's that, the 500th anniversary of his death, you say? What, so not a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, then? Oh, that Leonardo...

Sorry. The subject of the Man from Vinci always seems to make me frisky (see my "Last Supper" post, Bun Fight). I think it's because of the blighted nature of his career. It's as if one of those "win some, lose some" divine curses had been laid on him. "Thou shalt be a totally awesome genius, but thine every artistic effort shall break, fade, slide off the wall like jelly at a children's party, or remain forever unfinished; war and stuff shall drive thee restlessly from place to place like a plastic bag in the wind; oh, and put not thy trust in princes, they never pay their bills". Was ever such a mighty reputation built on such a slender material legacy? So many half-finished projects, so many ideas, but so little to show for it. It makes Vermeer look like bloody Picasso.

But, boy, could he play guitar draw [1]. Earlier in the year we went to the showings of two of the twelve different touring selections of Leonardo drawings from the Royal Collection – one at Bristol City Museum, the other at Southampton City Art Gallery – and they are incredible: smaller than you expect, and yet far crisper than they ever appear in reproduction, even when squinted at in a dimly-lit gallery. Luckily, I keep an illuminated magnifier in a pocket (not as a connoisseur of Renaissance manuscripts, but as a substitute for reading glasses when scanning ingredient lists in the supermarket or interpreting menus by candlelight) so was able to give them the detailed scrutiny they deserve. Wow. Look at that. Really quite amazing.

Not a Leonardo...
(one of my "sketchbook" collages)

As a left-hander, though, I couldn't help but admire the creative chutzpah of his backwards writing. He wouldn't have got away with that at my school. As a persecuted minority, we lefties have been far too complaisant, compared with certain others, I think. I mean, members of the LGBTC++ community have my sympathy, but I don't suppose they have a daily problem with pens, scissors, tin-openers, pencil-sharpeners, doors, or pretty much anything else you care to name in this right-normative world. My own handwriting, after years of persecution by various leftie-intolerant teachers, is not so much back-to-front as inside-out, illegible even to me. But I can draw, too, if not to Leonardo standard.

So can David Hockney. I was in Hatchard's bookshop recently [2], and fell upon a beautiful new edition of his Six Fairy Tales From The Brothers Grimm, published by the Royal Academy. Those etchings had a major impact on me when I first saw them reproduced in a Sunday colour supplement in 1970, aged 16. I'd never seen anything like them before, and in a very direct way they gave permission to draw "badly" but expressively, using a mix of thin, exploratory lines, bold but awkward shapes, blank areas, and blocks of semi-mechanical shading and cross-hatching; something which freed me, and I'm sure many others, from the prison of "good drawing". For years after I became a devotee of the Rotring technical drawing pen, with its swappable nibs of different widths, each producing an even, fine line of indian ink.

Eventually, a few years ago, I managed to get hold of a copy of the original Six Fairy Tales edition (Petersburg Press, 1970) which turned out to be tiny – 3 inches by 4.5 inches, practically a miniature book – and does no justice at all to Hockney's etched illustrations, which are far larger. This new edition is bigger and more substantial, so I will be revisiting those illustrations intensively and fully expect to be "influenced" all over again. 1970? Seems like just yesterday.

Peter Maxwell Davies & Harrison Birtwistle

David Hockney, pen & ink on paper, 1970

(National Portrait Gallery)

Under the Influence, Somewhere in Greece

pen & ink on paper, 1973

(in a drawer somewhere)

1. Allusion to Ziggy Stardust aside, apparently Leonardo's initial talent was as a musician, playing the lira da braccio, a large, bowed instrument, like a violin with five strings and a pair of drone strings. No doubt there is a Leonardo drawing somewhere, showing a lira plugged into an amplifier.
2. Hatchard's is among the very best independent bookshops I know. It's on Piccadilly, pretty much opposite the Royal Academy, and well worth a visit if you're ever in London. Don't get it confused with the Waterstone's just down the road...