Leonardo da Vinci's studies of physiognomy, the divinely beautiful and the grotesquely ugly, are some of the most idiosyncratic and fascinating works ever produced by this archetypal genius. This book looks in detail at eighty examples of Leonardo's drawings from the unrivaled collection preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, and is the first work on the subject aimed at a general audience.
In his introductory essay, Martin Clayton explores the roots of Leonardo's life-long urge to create such drawings. Individual entries look in detail at each of the selected works, placing them in the context of contemporary attitudes to beauty, notions of perfect proportion, popular images of the comically ugly, and accepted modes of artistic creation and social behavior. Among the drawings are studies for Leonardo's masterpieces such as the Last Supper and Leda and the Swan, portraits of Leonardo's associates, dissections of skulls, and designs for masks. The pursuit of beauty and its opposite was one of the central themes of Leonardo's life, and this is the first book to explore the subject fully. 105 illustrations, 80 in color.
