Fritjof Capra Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    There are quite a few portraits of Leonardo as an older man, most of them idealizing him as a venerable sage. 8 The most authentic is that which is considered the artist’s only existing self-portrait, a captivating, highly detailed drawing in red chalk that he made when he was about sixty, although he appears older than his age (see Fig. P-1 on p. xxii). The drawing is housed in the Biblioteca Reale in Turin and is known as the Turin self-portrait. Unfortunately, it has been severely affected by centuries of exposure to air and light. The paper is now covered with “fox marks” (rusty-brown spots caused by excessive moisture and subsequent accumulation of iron salts), and the drawing is rarely exhibited in public.
    In spite of its poor condition, the Turin self-portrait, which has been reproduced in countless posters and books, exerts a powerful effect on the viewer. This is even more true if one is fortunate enough to spend some time with the original, viewing it from different angles and distances, revealing the portrait’s complex and subtle expressions. Leonardo drew this portrait at a time of personal uncertainty and discontent. He was well aware that the greater part of his life was behind him; his eyes had weakened and his health was failing. He was living in Rome at the time, where he was revered. But already he was beginning to become out of fashion as an artist, eclipsed by younger rivals like Raphael and Michelangelo, who were in their prime and were the favorites of the papal court.
    In Leonardo’s self-portrait, this unhappy time is reflected in a line of disillusionment, or perhaps contempt, around the mouth. Yet, under the bushy brows and majestic forehead, his eyes—the “windows of the soul”—have preserved the quiet intensity of his gaze as well as a deep serenity. The resulting expression, to me, is that of a powerful, critical intellect, tempered by wisdom and compassion.
    Over the years, the Turin self-portrait has become not only the iconic image of Leonardo, but the model for the archetypal portrait of the old sage in the centuries after him. “This great furrowed mountain of a face,” wrote art historian Kenneth Clark, “with its noble brow, cavernous eyes, and undulating foothills of beard is like the faces of all the great men of the nineteenth century as the camera has preserved them for us—Darwin, Tolstoy, Walt Whitman.” 9
    A quality that is not visible in Leonardo’s self-portrait but was always mentioned by his contemporaries was his kind and gentle nature, in the words of the duchess Isabella d’Este, “this air of sweetness and gentleness that is so characteristic of him.” “Leonardo’s disposition was so lovable that he commanded everyone’s affection,” Vasari writes. “He was so generous that he sheltered and fed all his friends, rich or poor.” He was also eloquent and charming in conversation. In fact, Vasari claimed he was so persuasive that he could “bend other people to his own will.”
    Leonardo combined this gentle and charming disposition with great physical strength. In his younger years he was apparently quite an athlete, “most skillful in lifting weights,” as the Anonimo Gaddiano tells us, and an excellent horseman. According to Vasari, “he was physically so strong that he could withstand any violence; with his right hand he would bend the iron ring of a doorbell or a horseshoe as if they were lead.” Vasari may have exaggerated Leonardo’s strength (and we know that Leonardo was left-handed), but his athletic prowess seems to have been well known.
    During his years in Milan, he entertained the court with fables, songs, and charming conversation. “He sang beautifully to his own accompaniment on the
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to the delight of the entire court,” we are told by Paolo Giovio. But Leonardo also pursued his scientific research with intense concentration and needed to escape frequently to spend long periods of time alone. “The painter or