Leonardo Da Vinci’s anatomical drawings with Michael Farthing and Stephen Farthing RA
Thursday 24 January 2019 6 - 8pm
The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
£10, £6. Includes a reception and book-signing after the talk in the Collections Gallery.
The Renaissance Nude
Terms and conditions
Marvel at the attention to detail and invention in Leonardo’s anatomical drawings, as brothers Stephen Farthing RA and scientist Michael Farthing debate his genius in relation to their own practices.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) created some of the most beautiful and important drawings in the history of Western art. His rigorous and clear-sighted anatomical studies, now in the Royal Collection, were ground-breaking investigations into the workings of the human body that in some cases were unsurpassed in their accuracy until the twentieth century.
From their perspectives as a scientist and artist, brothers Michael and Stephen Farthing RA discuss these uniquely brilliant drawings with the distinguished art historian Desmond Shawe-Taylor, uncovering both the manner of their creation and their importance to medicine and art. Stephen looks at them from the artist’s point of view, redrawing the occasional detail in light of contemporary scientific knowledge, whereas Michael provides a physician’s perspective. During the writing of their new book, Leonardo da Vinci: Under the Skin, they have found that for Leonardo, drawing constituted a way of thinking that was as fundamental as language, enabling him not only to refine his understanding but to make imaginative leaps that were frequently but not always correct.
The discussion takes place in the Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, with a reception and book signing afterwards in the Collections Gallery.
About the speakers
Professor Stephen Farthing RA is an artist, a Professor of Drawing, a Research Fellow at Bath School of Art, Bath Spa University, and Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Professor Michael Farthing MD DSc(Med) FMedSci is an academic physician and Honorary Professor at UCL Medical School
Desmond Shawe-Taylor is Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures
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New for 2018, the lecture theatre builds on the RA’s heritage of rigorous and lively debate. This magnificent double-height space, with over 250 seats, allows us to share our artists and scholars with the world. Original clerestory windows provide a spectacular day-lit space, brought to life with a continuous programme of events including lectures, debates, film screenings and concerts.
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