Living with Leonardo: Fifty Years of Sanity and Insanity in the Art World

Kemp, emeritus professor of the history of art at Oxford University, serves up a stimulating collection of observations regarding da Vinci and his major works that is both deeply personal and speaks to the enduring interest in the artist’s legacy. The bulk of the book homes in on specific paintings that are the linchpins of da Vinci’s career. A pair of chapters on The Last Supper deal with controversial restorations of the crumbling masterpiece and address the difficulties that modern professionals face approaching such tasks with “a period eye.” Kemp notes how da Vinci “poured his visual knowledge and human understanding” into the Mona Lisa and discusses how da Vinci strove to surpass the achievements of Renaissance poetry by visualizing ideal beauty. Kemp, who has studied da Vinci’s work for over half a century, writes with authority and makes esoteric minutiae accessible to the layman, especially in chapters concerned with modern scientific tools including X-rays, infrared reflectography, and microscopy used to establish the attribution and authenticity of paintings. He also demystifies the process by which exhibitions are mounted and writes with bemused tolerance of the “secretology” fad of finding hidden meanings in art inspired by Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. His book is an instructive appreciation of the Renaissance master suited for readers with a general interest in the artist’s works as well as those well-versed in the scholarship on this subject. 80 illus. (May)