Page 275 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

impetus of the principal current, and the other
depends on the incident and reflected motions"
(Windsor 12579). Tne artificial design, in effect,
takes its cue from the natural pattern, elaborating
the inherent behavior of the physical world. The
parallels go beyond water and hair, extending to
such phenomena as deluges, plant growth, and
configurations of drapery. M.K.

173 t

Leonardo da Vinci
Florentine, 1452-1519
PRINCIPAL ORGANS AND VASCULAR AND
URINOGENITAL SYSTEMS OF A WOMAN

c. 1507—1508
pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk on
washed paper, main outlines pricked for transfer
47.8.X 33.3 (l8 /4Xl}V8)
3
inscribed with notes on anatomical and
physiological matters
references: Popham 194.6, 247; Clark and Pedretti
1968-1969, 12281; Keele and Pedretti 1979-1980,
i22r; London 1989, 52
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth n, Royal Library,
Windsor Castle

This extraordinarily large and complex demon-
stration (Windsor 12281) represents the climax of
Leonardo's attempt, in a phase of his anatomical
studies in 1507-1508, to create composite demon-
strations of what may be called the "irrigation" of
the human body, synthesized from his dissections
and readings. The left side of the sheet was drawn
first, and the major outlines were pricked for
transfer. The sheet was then folded vertically
along the center line, and the design was dupli-
cated on the right half. Further pricking was
undertaken, presumably for the transfer of the
whole scheme to another sheet. On the verso
some of the outlines have been traced in a grace-
less and inaccurate manner, probably by another
hand. Leonardo reminds himself in a note to
"make this demonstration also viewed from the
side, so that knowledge may be given of how
much one part is behind another, and then make to resolve the problem of definition. In spite of by Mundinus (Mondino de' Luzzi), probably in
a demonstration from behind/' We may doubt these problems, however, the final effect exudes a the version printed in Johannes Ketham's Fascicu-
whether the desired clarity could ever have been remarkable sense of heroic grandeur and provides lus medidnae (1494), but Leonardo is not afraid to
achieved, because he endeavors to make such vivid testimony to the awe with which Leonardo challenge his predecessor's ideas: "You, Mondino,
drawings carry more information than is really regarded the complex machinery of the human say that the spermatic vesicles or testicles [the
possible, using a bewildering variety of diagram- body. ovaries in women] do not cast out true semen, but
matic conventions. Some forms are shown in Several traditional notions, gleaned from his only a certain salivary humor, which nature has
three dimensions, others in schematic outline, reading of anatomical texts, are apparent in this ordained for the delectation of women in coitus, in
some in transparency, and a few in cross section. drawing, including the two-chambered heart and which case it would not be necessary that the ori-
Even the parallel hatching, designed to provide a the spherical uterus, with its inner "cells" and gins of the spermatic vesicles should arise in the
background for the organs, can ultimately do little tendinous "horns." His chief source is a textbook same way in women as in men." In contrast to

274 CIRCA 1492