ONLINE SEMINAR
January 21 | The Art and Science of Leonardo da Vinci
This seminar is now FULL. If you would like to be put on a waiting list, please email us.
Leonardo discovered the world through his outer eye and his inner eye, through observation and imagination. His Notebooks, written in cryptic mirror script, cover topics as diverse as geometry, botany, optics, anatomy, astronomy, perspective and music. He was an inventor, engineer and scientist. But Leonardo also explored the world through his artistic imagination. He drew incessantly: prancing horses, grimacing old men, serene Madonnas, and spiraling storms. Leonardo combined naturalism with an ideal of beauty, creating paintings like the Last Supper and Mona Lisa that are icons of Western art.
This seminar will explore the two aspects of Leonardo’s genius: art and science. Is there an underlying pattern, a unifying principle to his unique combination of observation and creativity? For example, how do the anatomy drawings Leonardo made to become a more skillful artist lead to his medical discoveries? Conversely, how do his studies of light and atmosphere lead to the revolutionary use of sfumato and chiaroscuro in his paintings?
Leonardo was a true Renaissance man. Today, when the arts, humanities and sciences have become increasingly specialized, his investigations into the world remain an inspiration. Join us at Classical Pursuits online as we see the world through the brilliant eyes of Leonardo da Vinci.
Each 2-hour meeting will consist of 30 minutes lecture and 90 minutes discussion. Advance preparation each week will be about 25 pages of reading and 15 images to look at carefully.
When: Four weekly sessions on Thursdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, starting January 21, 2021
Duration: 2 hours per session
Cost: C$275 plus 13% HST (approx. US$211 plus 13% HST)
Group Size: 12-participant limit
How: We will be using Zoom; you will receive instructions on how to join upon registration. For your privacy, all our Zoom seminars are password-protected and are never recorded.
All seminar payments are nonrefundable. Please note that seminars bought on sale do not count toward Frequent Reader totals.
Description
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LEADER
Sean Forester is an artist and lecturer from the San Francisco Bay Area. He studied classical painting at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy, where he was director of art history, humanities, and composition. Sean has a B.A. from The Great Books Program at St. John’s College, Santa Fe, and an M.A. from Cambridge University. He is a longtime seminar leader at Toronto Pursuits and has led Classical Pursuits trips to Paris, Florence and Russia.
BOOKS
Leonardo da Vinci: The 100 Milestones, by Martin Kemp
(Sterling, 2019)
ISBN-13: 978-1454930426
Please be sure to obtain this edition.
Sean will also send registered participants a PDF of additional readings. More information will be provided to registrants in their welcome materials.
We encourage you to support local bookstores or other independent sellers. In the US, try Bookshop.org. In Canada, try McNally Robinson or Indigo.
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“Do you not see that the eye embraces the beauty of the whole world? It has measured the distances and sizes of the stars and discovered the elements and their location … it has given birth to architecture and to the divine art of painting.” – Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo discovered the world through his outer eye and his inner eye, through observation and imagination. His Notebooks, written in cryptic mirror script, cover topics as diverse as geometry, botany, optics, anatomy, astronomy, perspective and music. He was an inventor, engineer and scientist. But Leonardo also explored the world through his artistic imagination. He drew incessantly: prancing horses, grimacing old men, serene Madonnas, and spiraling storms. Leonardo combined naturalism with an ideal of beauty, creating paintings like the Last Supper and Mona Lisa that are icons of Western art.
This seminar will explore the two aspects of Leonardo’s genius: art and science. Is there an underlying pattern, a unifying principle to his unique combination of observation and creativity? For example, how do the anatomy drawings Leonardo made to become a more skillful artist lead to his medical discoveries? Conversely, how do his studies of light and atmosphere lead to the revolutionary use of sfumato and chiaroscuro in his paintings?
Leonardo was a true Renaissance man. Today, when the arts, humanities and sciences have become increasingly specialized, his investigations into the world remain an inspiration. Join us at Classical Pursuits online as we see the world through the brilliant eyes of Leonardo da Vinci.
All online seminar payments are nonrefundable.
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Additional information
| Choose registration type | Standard registration, Toronto Pursuits 2020 credit |
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