Leonardo Da Vinci May Have Been the First Abstract Painter
At various points in my journey and evolution as a human and an artist I crossed paths with many historical personalities I learned to respect, and a precious few living person with whom I am in respect and love. Most frequently it is Leonardo Da Vinci who still speaks to me, because I own a copy of nis notebooks and have read and reread them over many decades and always find something new.
Lately it has totally turned me around to realize that Da Vinci was in fact very much fundamentally expert in many fields and also an Abstract Painter and Dtawer. How so, you might rightly ask? Nowhere do we see a wild chaotic jumble of colors, shapes, shades and figural gestures, so, no, sir, you are in error. No, I am correct, allow me to make my point.
At many portions of his notebooks, he writes as if he is talking to himself. He tells ‘the artist in training’, (himself when gets blocked or stuck in a project), “observe the whorls and flows in a piece of marble or the grain in wood to allow yourself to see in it a whole battle scene of men and horses, or animals in nature, or birds in flight, or lovers in embrace”. These he drew and scumbled in paints, chalks and pen, surely, as he often does everywhere else in his notebooks. These are abstract drawings and paintings by the hand of the Master. In other sections of his notebooks, he also advises the ‘artist in training’, “throw a wet natural sea sponge filled with colors at the wall, or at paper affixed to the wall, and within the paint remaining on the wall, alow your mind to see fishes alive in the ocean currents, dragons or sea monsters, other fantastical beings, angels monsters and the like”. Surely the colors from the sponge that he threw at the paper on the wall, fascinated him in their complete wildness of forms and shapes and hues, and surely he had collected these and laid them out when he was vexed.
Da Vinci also promoted a form of experimental drawing now termed ‘sfumato’ or smokey drawing. This technique can be applied to any drawing or painting medium, but he describes this ‘smoke drawing’ usually done in pencil or charcoal or chalk. Basically, says Da Vinci, cover a large area of paper with very loose pencil lines, generously and loosely spreading over each other, enough to cover the general shape of what you want to create – a figure or composition of figures or animals or architecture, machinery or landscapes. Cover the area so densely that you have a dense smokey shadowy layout. Then erase and add back more medium until you begin to explore through your imagination whatever your mind may visualize in the ‘smoke and shadows’ by lifting off or erasing that which does not belong to the images you have begun to ‘see in your imagination;, and add to the image you see in your mind’s eye on the paper ‘shadows’ that which fits the vision in your mind. He again tells us that in this way, an artist can see complete figures, animals, and even dragons or monsters or many things unexpected or invented frm within the deep unconscious imagination of the artist. This is an excellent description for teaching anyone to create an abstract painting or drawing. However, Da Vinci explained, explored and certainly kept and displayed these ‘abstract artworks’ all around his studio 400 years ago!
