Man of mystery | 12 April 2018

‘If you look at walls soiled with a variety of stains or at stones with variegated patterns,’ Leonardo da Vinci advised fellow painters, ‘you will therein be able to see a resemblance to various landscapes graced with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, great valleys and hills in many combinations.’ By an irony of history, Leonardo (1452–1519) has come to resemble that stained wall: a Rorschach blot in which viewers discern phantoms of their own imagination.

This is, of course, to some extent the fate of all celebrities, and Leonardo was the first true artist celeb — the forerunner of a long line descending through his younger contemporaries Michelangelo and Raphael down to Picasso, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst.

The same is true of his works: they too have attained superstar status. Last year, the recently rediscovered and attributed panel of the ‘Salvator Mundi’ was auctioned at Christie’s in New York. The bidding rose from under $100 million to $450 million, making it by a huge margin the most expensive work of art ever sold. And this picture — damaged, heavily restored and unattractively weird to begin with — is not even a very good Leonardo. It has, however, those extra ingredients — enigma, mystery, the sense that there is more to discover — which always boost fame.

Professor Martin Kemp has spent half a century immersed in the mysteries of Leonardo. He has organised exhibitions of his works, written a shelf of books about him, and presided over the construction of a human-powered flying machine and parachute according to the Florentine master’s sketches (both successfully tested by brave volunteers).

In Living with Leonardo, he has come up with an unusual combination. It is partly a series of essays on Leonardo-esque themes, which sounds conventional enough, but also a memoir of his own adventures with the artist — sometimes exciting, sometimes bruising.