Graduation Year
2017
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Art Conservation
Reader 1
George Gorse
Reader 2
Mary MacNaughton
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2017 Rachael S Herrera
Abstract
Leonardo da Vinci's art and science have a dynamic relationship that can be used to better understand the role of the individual and the human body within his art. Leonardo believed that movements of the body were expressions of the soul. He also thought that the body was as a microcosm of the physical world. The theories, based in ancient tradition, would be challenged by his work with the human anatomy. By studying his notebooks it becomes evident that Leonardo held nature to be the highest creator of the world but as he worked to understand the human body and through extension the physical world, his ideas about nature and the divine became more incomprehensible. Leonardo's art reflects this turn of perspective as he becomes unable to define the physical world through the human body.
Recommended Citation
Herrera, Rachael, "Body, Blood, and Flood: The Ripple of Kinesics through Nature in Leonardo da Vinci's Art" (2017). Scripps Senior Theses. 1019.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1019
