Page 276 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

long established opinion, Leonardo believed that The notes on the two sheets reveal Leonardo's opened container but also by the intimate inter-
men and women contributed "seed" in equal mea- typically wide range of concerns, including the weaving of the fingers of the placenta and the
sure to the creation of the fetus. role and proportional length of the umbilical cord, uterine wall. One of the most impressive features
One of the notes indicates his intention to make the interdigitations of the placenta and the uterine of this magnificent sheet of studies is the novel
a series of studies of human generation, starting wall, the impossibility that the fetus should be diagrammatic means Leonardo used to describe
with "the formation of the infant in the womb, able to breathe or speak in its watery envelope, the relationships between inner, outer, and inter-
saying which part is composed first," while the "great mystery" of the relationship between penetrating forms. It is not surprising that the
another contains speculations on the cyclical the souls of the mother and the fetus, the motion companion page contains one of his insistent
nature of life and death in the human body. The of an eccentrically weighted spherical object on challenges to writers to match the painter's
aim of such studies was to show the totality of the a slope, and binocular vision in relation to artistic detailed and harmonious account of the visible
microcosm (the "lesser world") through the com- representation. Leonardo adopts the traditional world, though on this sheet he reminds us that a
plex mapping of physiological functions, just as idea that the experiences of the mother will be depiction cannot "demonstrate such relief as the
Leonardo also aimed to map the "body of the earth/ mirrored in the child: "The same soul governs relief seen with both eyes." Insofar as the limita-
M.K. these two bodies, and the desires and fears and tion imposed by the representation of three-
sorrows are common to this creature as to all the dimensional forms on a two-dimensional surface
other animal parts, and from this it arises that can be transcended, Leonardo has succeeded in
something desired by the mother is often found doing so through a complex system of shading.
imprinted on the limbs of the infant." The inte- No drawing from any area of his activity better
grated nature of the mother and the fetus before shows the power of the type of curved hatching he
*74 birth is emphasized in the drawing not only adopted increasingly after 1500. M.K.
Leonardo da Vinci by the snug compactness of the fetus within its
Florentine, 1452-1519
THE FETUS IN THE WOMB WITH
STUDIES OF DYNAMICS AND OPTICS

c. 1512
pen and ink with wash over traces of red and
black chalk on paper
30.5 x 22 (12 x 8 /s)
5
inscribed with notes on embryology, dynamics,
and optics
references: Popham 1946, 248; Clark and Pedretti
1968-1969, 19012; Keele and Pedretti 1979-1980,
i98r; London 1989, 26
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth n, Royal Library,
Windsor Castle

The anatomical investigations undertaken by Leo-
nardo in the last decade of his life were directed in
particular toward understanding the central mys-
teries of life. Major focuses of his interest were
the functioning of the heart, which he studied in
a series of drawings undertaken around 1513 (see
Windsor 19073-19074^ dated January 9, 1513),
and the life of the fetus in the womb. This sheet
(Windsor 19012^ is datable to circa 1512 on
grounds of style and content. Further studies of
the same fetus appear on Windsor 19101, though
there Leonardo has reversed the crossing of the
feet. He recorded that "the child was less than
half a braccio long [about 25.5 cm, or 10 in],
and nearly four months old" (Windsor i9ioiv),
though the fetus actually appears to be somewhat
more developed. The compellingly direct drawing
of the infant in the breech position indicates that
Leonardo had gained access to a human fetus of
about twelve weeks, but the powerfully rendered
womb, with its multiple or cotyledonous placenta,
is based upon animal material, probably from
a cow, which has been rearranged in what was
then thought to be the spherical form of the
human uterus.

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 2 75