Foolish and Fabulous

I made the stylized pastel drawing below for a creative sourcebook back in the very first days of CDs. I wrote a caption detailing the many disciplines that Leonardo excelled in and then pointed out that every painting he ever created, every drawing, every codex written by him, every scrap of anything that he ever created in his life could all be contained on one compact disc. Well, yuh. Who knew that DVDs were only days away that could hold details of every mistake I ever made in my life.

Leonardo's CD — © Haller-Buchanan

I've always had an affinity for Leonardo da Vinci. As ego-bundled as it may sound, we have a lot in common. He was born exactly 500 years almost to the day before I was. I'm a drawer, he was a drawer. I like science, he . . . well . . . he invented science. I have a beard. He had a beard. I invented the internet, he invented stuff too. I don't speak Italian, he didn't speak English. All kinds of amazing stuff like that.

So, it was only natural that when I was invited to create a persona for a children's outreach program, I could put whatever acting skills I still retained to use, performing as Leonardo in the modern day and age. The conceit being that Leonardo never really died, but is immortal. He faked his death in the arms of the King of France, so that he could slip away and live in obscurity, traveling the world. The reason he never died is that he never lost his curiosity for even a second of his life, and that kept his cells regenerating so that he even grew younger the more excited he got about things.

Many people are known for the vast breadth of their interests, but Leonardo's interests were so broad and varied that the range can scarcely be described. Of course he lived at a fortunate time when the rest of the world was pretty ignorant, so even when Leonardo was wrong about something, he was still more brilliantly wrong than anyone else.

One of his primary skills was the power of keen observation, a trait shared with Sherlock Holmes — only Leonardo wasn't fictional. Well, that is until I put on his persona to interact with elementary school kids, talking up art and science. He was a global thinker and not a fragmented specialist, so his interests jumped from subject to subject and back again, not out of boredom but out of unrestrained curiosity. Ooh, ooh, I've got that in common with him too. As well, many times he didn't finish projects, because he was always leaping on to the next. Hey, me too!

Everyone knows that he designed airplanes and helicopters and short-wave radio and belt loops. But look what else:

"Education in Leonardo's time, as now, focused largely on words and numbers in various forms—reading, writing, counting and memorizing texts. But Leonardo's interests were not verbal. He was trained and worked as an artist. In so many ways his was the opposite of the usual verbal education orientation. Avoiding the Schoolmen philosophers of his time, he had a clear propensity to learn from direct experience and observation rather than from books and lectures." (I'll source this quote sometime, it's a note I made a long time ago)

So any number of times I played this guy in a man-child sort of way, a little goofy, a little distracted. I wasn't sure what accent to give him. I didn't want to stereotype the Italian-American accent, but ultimately did the Hollywood stereotype thing of giving British accents to Romans.

It was fun, the kids had fun and we all learned some cool things.

My favorite activity was to place a really large drawing of an intricate cityscape in the classroom and then invite the kids to explore all the little nooks and crannies in the art and imagine what kind of people or animals or mythological beasts might be down those stairs, in that garden, or through that tunnel—and what kind of stuff might be going on. I would tell a couple of stories to get them going and then have them invent bits and pieces of action that we could turn into a class story. The stories were foolish and fabulous and my love of performance art was rekindled, improvisational that it was.

Leonardo's Dream — copyright © 2008 Haller-Buchanan — All Rights Reserved

Painting is Poetry

I love brush calligraphy on watercolor paper. This is only an ad for Fabriano paper, and who knows if Leonardo said anything of this sort (he must've, right? Why make it up?). But it's pretty to look at, and relevant to some of the images I like to post around here.

Advertisement for Fabriano paper — ca 2004

Leonardo Would Be Envious

The figure studies of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon are amazingly controlled and precise and yet, to my aesthetic, don't seem fussy. Prud'hon's studies are as rich as other's full-blown paintings. Leonardo himself would be envious.

Below, in detail, you can see the model's hair in lovely disarray, each stroke of chalk on the body lovingly and authoritatively placed, each eyelash delicately delineated.

Leonardo's Dream

So, one day I got to thinking that Leonardo, being 'only human', must have obsessed enough with the dream of flight, that he actually would have dreamed about it. I did a preliminary drawing with the intent of painting it, but as with most of my personal work, it had to be set aside for paying commissions. Below is just one small section of that really large panorama drawing that includes a number of surrealistic details outside of this zoomed frame.

I have a dream of one day painting this, but it'll probably have to be a triptych, because the actual layout is so wide.

© 2008 Thomas Buchanan — Leonardo's Dream

Leonardo Was So Weird

A cool illustration of Leonardo by Joost Swarte, from a January 2005 New Yorker article that helped put Leonardo into perspective while reviewing several contemporary books about him.

One New York Afternoon in 1953

Charles Addams — The New Yorker — October 10, 1953

Wings to the Human Spirit

Here I'm posting the very My Book House story that I read as a boy, about Leonardo, and the inspiration it stirred in me is still evident today. Without giving anything away (assuming and hoping you will read this story), this is what it says at the end:

There was always something exciting in the workshop of Leonardo. (They) not only learned to paint there, but they learned to think and inquire and investigate the universe.

Without consciously adhering to that, our studios have somewhat followed suit—brimming with project overflows; sketches and paintings pinned and mounted everywhere; mannequins with ever-changing costumes; studio props; camera equipment of varying sizes; of course books everywhere; but above all—the aura of problem-solving and research into the mysteries of the universe. We certainly don't share Leonardo's genius, but we do share his curiosity and passion for knowledge.

Many of our projects entail interpretive graphics, meaning that we need to study and understand the subjects that we endeavor to explain visually. Over the years we have developed interpretive exhibits and murals about Egyptian, Chinese, Aztec and other assorted cultures; prehistoric animals and dinosaurs; current ecosystems; historical persons and events; space exploration and modern technologies; various branches of science; children's interests and issues; and currently just finished an up-to-date graphic portrayal of the origins and evolution of our planet earth. We are illustrating two books, as we speak; developing content graphics for two visitor centers in magnificent areas of the country; and creating portraits of very interesting people.

All of these projects require so much research and spill their contents through our brains and into hundreds of sketches and finished art pieces that fill our studios and our lives. Our daughter is majoring in theatrical stagecraft, which brings another magical dimension to our mix.

In addition, my personal interests push deep into the esoteric regions of science and philosophy, involving the mysteries of Time, Space, Dimensionality and the Human Condition. I don't have the conceit to think I could contribute substantially to the subjects, but curious, I am so curious.

Leonardo has always been close to my heart, and it started with this very story:

Donn P. Crane made so many drawings of so many subjects.

Prodotto D'Italia

Leonardo DaVinci has been a hero to me since I was a boy. The item below is the best commercial use of his art that I can recall. It's not a book or magazine, it's the side of a cardboard shipping box that I keep some special stuff in. And the wine was pretty good too.