Leonardo da Vinci, taken as an exemplary son of the Renaissance, stuck, perhaps like no other man, in the vertigo that separates science from art, and vice versa.
In fact, it is in the XNUMXth century that, through the dive perpetrated by anatomy into the human body, the ground of modern science is opened, while at the same time the foundations of the world understood as image are being prepared.
In the formulation of such an image, art stands out, and specifically painting, as the one that delimits and frames, the one that economically best places the human on stage, thus offering him a mirror of great efficiency.
I do not believe that it is possible, today, to talk about Leonardo da Vinci, and consequently about the past, as it actually was, but rather how we access them from now on. In addition to this, the inquiry into the past is enhanced by the vedor's courts, as stated by João Barrento: prospective elements.
Despite such inability to (re)construction, I believe that going into the past as a miner goes into the earth, that is, using a specific illuminating quality, makes it plausible to bring, here and now, the updating of a possible promise by time, and admirably embedded in it, like a sort of ordeal that only in the future becomes clear: that's what I'll try to do here.
Leonardo was everything, as we are used to thinking: an artist, where painting looms large; “scientist”, for the intense curiosity he reserved for everything in the world; inventor, of magnificent machines and devices, most of them only transposable to reality centuries later.
Despite his tireless vortex of creation and inquiry, what I would like to show you is that Leonardo da Vinci syncretized in painting what would later be gradually dispersed scientifically, as well as, along with André Vesálio, and despite the time lag, he would release the data, through anatomy, of the submersion rules in the human body.
And we come to the knot: it is anatomical practice that allows both Leonardo and Vesalius to grasp a measure of the body; the consequences arising therefrom differ and point to the future as thin and sharp blades.
Leonardo da Vinci dissected corpses in order to preserve the body in the painting; André Vesálio dissected cadavers in order to anchor the body in medicine; the two gestures would generate disparate movements.
Despite the disparity, a particularity links them with a profound meaning: it is the apprehension of the body, it is its intensive knowledge, it is the abysmal dive into the body, and knowledge coming from them, which sustains the power of both art and medicine and through this later science.
Note: doesn't the creation of “Man” belong to the Renaissance? And isn't this “Man” then put on the scene? Well then: it is for art and medicine. So it's not worth hesitating: whoever knows the body from the inside, whoever this body enters through the eyes, since it's the look that will "x-ray" and translate into language, is the one who will have the power to intercede between the earth and sky. "Who" sees the viscera is also "who" will then observe the stars, that is, who "has a body", because he appropriated and planned it with his own hands.
It is convenient, now and yet, to distinguish different levels of the body based on Leonardo da Vinci and André Vesálio: human, pictorial, scientific.
The first is mortal, the second is luminous, the third is operative.
Deadly because woven with time; luminous because da Vinci endowed him with skin; operative because Vesalius opened it and decomposed it into parts that prefigure modern specifications.
The luminous idealization of the bodies painted by Leonardo can only be the preservation of human integrity, and nothing else; the organic dispersion provided by André's systematization can only be the corporeal and visual basis of knowledge itself, and nothing else. The two movements, although they don't complement each other, are necessary!
Author: Cláudia Ferreira was born in Coimbra.
She graduated in History/Art History variant at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra, attended Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art at FLUCL, in Lisbon, where she would later complete her Masters in Women's Studies – Women in Society and Culture, specifically, at FCSH at Universidade Nova.
At the moment, he is finishing his doctoral thesis in Contemporary Studies at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of the XNUMXth Century, in Coimbra.
Her research interests combine art with the feminine/masculine issue, linked from a philosophical point of view.
She was a teacher in primary and secondary education, as well as at a senior university; she was a film producer; she was a proofreader; and currently performs the functions of cultural consultant at the Municipality of Condeixa-a-Nova.
Science in the Regional Press – Ciência Viva
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