Leonardo da Vinci

reigns in the Louvre with a great exhibition devoted to claiming the genius of Anchiano on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. In addition to the excellent and comprehensive catalog, the curators of this exhibition have made possible an unprecedented novelty in the aforementioned museum, a second book in comic format, in which the official catalog seal of the exhibition has also been printed.

The "great temple of art" had never before so clearly endorsed the value of a comic, recognizing that the reflections reflected in vignettes by Stéphane Levallois perfectly express the central thesis that vertebrates the exhibition that, literally citing the commissioners, it consists in «understanding better his artistic practice and his pictorial technique, and how he put painting above all, making it the fundamental tool of his research of the world, what he called" the science of painting "».

Drawings that come to life in the cartoons

The path taken by Levallois to imbibe so deeply in Da Vinci's work has not been simple. For two years he has come to the Louvre regularly, working hand in hand with Vicent Delieuvin, curator of heritage in the museum, and one of the curators of the Da Vinci sample. In their meetings, St0éphane Levallois closely contemplates the funds of this artist who houses the French collection and dialogues with the renowned Italian painting specialist of the 16th century, on each technical aspect of the painter's work. The result, a large-format comic book, in which Leonardo's drawings and pictures seem to come to life through the cartoons, and along his nearly 80 pages.

Levallois becomes an apprentice more than those who populated the workshops of the masters of the Renaissance. He studied Leonardo's technique, and made his pages for the comic in an equally artisanal way, renouncing the modern image treatment programs that would have allowed him to integrate literal quotes from Da Vinci's works, through a scanning and retouching process.

He chooses a much more difficult and brave way, the one that leads him to emulate Da Vinci. Thus, for example, if the painting "The Virgin, the Child Jesus and Santa Ana" was painted in oil and on panel, Levallois does the same, getting a mimesis with the original in each of the works he recreates, of a fidelity and overwhelming quality.

But the value of «Leonard2Vinci» does not lie in its technical virtuosity. What really makes this bande dessinée exceptional is the high degree of creativity of the work. Stéphane Levallois has a luminous idea in the initial stages of the project. If the "genius" lies in that quality that the creator prints to his work, making it as modern today as at the time it was painted; then, nothing prevents Leonardo's graphics from being projected into the future, and is optimal for designing, based on his drawings and paintings, a story that, even ahead of our own time, a science fiction story.

Thus, he creates an authentic "Space Opera" in which humanity finds itself in an intergalactic war, and in order to win it, decides to clone Leonardo da Vinci. The creativity of genius together with futuristic technology, allows to create a new arsenal with which to deal with the extraterrestrial fleet; and beyond the amusement of the reader the winks to the true story of Leonardo (such as the letters that the Da Vinci sends to Ludovico el Moro, running as a military engineer); The value of the proposal is that Levallois demonstrates the correctness of his intuition, offering us a master lesson in each of the pages he draws. From this point of view, his "Leonard2Vinci" is possibly one of the most beautiful tributes ever made around the idea of ​​"timeless genius" that envelops the figure of Leonardo.

Cartoon and catalog

Approaching the figure of Da Vinci commissioned by the Louvre museum is not an easy challenge; but Levallois overcomes it with note; Since, not only does he look 500 years ago in search of bridges with the present, but he manages to open new paths for the art of the future (such as films, Sci-fi novels, videogames or other retro-Renaissance aesthetic comics -futuristic).

As if that were not enough, «Leonard2Vinci» is also a hybrid object of great conceptual interest, since it simultaneously fulfills the functions of cartoon and exhibition catalog, demonstrating once again that the Louvre museum is at the forefront when it comes to putting In value, the ninth art, which has all the lights, has become an essential tool of creation and reflection for the museum of the 21st century.

The public can see first hand the work and the author of the comic, because it will come to the Telefónica space on January 15. . (tagsToTranslate) davinci (t) comic (t) louvre