“I was in my crib when a kite landed on me and opened my mouth with its tail. It hit me with it on my lips several times. This seems to be my destiny.” In light of this confession by Leonardo da Vinci, it is impossible not to see transcendence in his plans for a flying machine.
In this collection, I recall some of his works and the way he left his marks on engineering, architecture, sculpture, geometry, anatomy and the recovery of the classical perspective. Despite drawing by hand, I rounded up rulers, squares and compasses to confirm the theory of the Golden Ratio in my illustration of the Mona Lisa. Here and there, I hide measurements taken from the Last Supper, or I highlight the bronze horse commissioned by the city of Milan, I make references to the hollow dodecahedron or represent the Vitruvian Man.
I am always amazed by the extraordinary beauty of the painting and the pages full of hasty and incomplete sketches or of precise drawings. With Leonardo da Vinci, we stand before the science and masterful art of a man who, five centuries later, continues to amaze and cause our imagination to take flight. This work is a tribute.
Pedro Sousa Pereira
