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Shrub_Out
08-21-2006, 10:49 PM
Normally, I'm more of a French Revolution type of gal than Italian Renaissance, but I can't help enjoying these hunts for lost masterpieces, regardless of the era.

For 500 years, Leonardo da Vinci's most important fresco was believed lost. Martin Gayford reports on exciting rumours of its discovery

Deep in the bowels of the British Museum is a tiny drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.
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It depicts a miniature but terrible world - a place of desperate struggle in which armed cavalry flail and hack at one another, and horses sink teeth into each other's necks.

From a distance, the twisting, thrashing groups resemble some violent natural phenomenon: wreckage in a whirlpool, say, or the vortex of a typhoon.

Peering through a lens at this 500-year-old fragment of paper - which will be included in a forthcoming exhibition of Leonardo's drawings at the V & A next month - I am looking into the artist's mind.

This is one of the few remaining clues to the appearance of what should have been his greatest painting. Continued ([Only registered and activated users can see links])

Koyaanisqatsi
08-23-2006, 08:19 PM
Good topic, SO!

When I found out about this piece and bought a print of it. Can you guess who sketched it?

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Time's up. Picasso. :)

Shrub_Out
08-23-2006, 08:30 PM
Quick piece of trivia:

Picasso was one of the few artists in Western art history to save all of his preliminary sketches.

Zemo
08-23-2006, 08:51 PM
I spent alot of time in my life reading about Leonardo.
I think he spent more time in his life studying nature and practicing sketches then he actually did creating the masterpieces. He used to get bored with a project and would wander off frustrating his clientele.
But he had enormous talent and intelligence and wouldn't have been the same genius we know now had he been a legitimate member of his father's family and gone into the family business.

Cabby
08-27-2006, 01:40 AM
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Mains aux fleurs
2-14-58
Picasso