Leonardo Da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty

The largest gathering of Leonard's works for exhibition in the United States in more than a decade, with drawings lent by the Uffizi Museum in Florence and the Biblioteca Reale in Turin. The exhibition focuses on Leonardo's idea of Beauty and offers the unique opportunity to compare his drawings with nine drawings by Michelangelo Buonarroti which are lent by the Casa Buonarroti in Florence. The descriptions of the individual works are enriched by the illustrated essays by three leading Renaissance scholars, David Alan Brown, Curator of Italian Renaissance Paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, Professor Paul Joannides of the University of Cambridge, and John T. Spike, Assistant Director and Chief Curator of the Muscarelle Museum of Art, curator of the exhibition. Among the highlights illustrated in full color in this book are the exquisite Study for the Angel of the "Virgin of the Rocks", considered by Sir Kenneth Clark, "one of the most beautiful drawings in the world," as well as Leonardo's iconic An Old Man and a Youth in Facing Profile, which encapsulates his fascination with the dialogue between the beautiful and ugly.