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National Gallery Page #7
Quite a gruesome story.
But quite moving, as well.
The other guy escapes.
No mention of woodcutters.
Totally irrelevant.
Why do you think he put them in?
And they take up so much space.
The woodcutters and what they're involved
with, in other words, the wood,
take up most of the painting.
Why did he do that? Yeah?
Maybe because it gives the painting
a little more character?
Definitely gives the painting
more character. It totally does.
Think about this. A tragic event,
perhaps made more tragic
who don't recognize what's going on.
Who don't see it as a tragedy.
I'm trying to think of an example. I wonder
if you might know an example, I don't know.
But there's something... It happens a lot
in plays by Shakespeare, for example.
There are people who don't know
what's happening,
and they go, "What's happening
over there?"
There's a lovely painting,
which is not actually in this gallery,
but it's a painting of the fall of Icarus.
Icarus was the one who made the 'wings...
Do you know it?
He made wings of wax,
flew too close to the sun.
Fantastic painting,
where almost all of the painting
is people not noticing what's going on,
people ploughing the fields
and doing lots of other things,
while in the background,
he plunks into the ocean and dies.
There's a famous poem about that
by Auden, which is a really good poem
about how people don't really notice
these things happening.
I think these woodcutters are partly there
to make it even more tragic,
because they just keep going
on and on and on.
It's amazing, isn't it,
how it adds a sense of narrative
as soon as there's an object,
and this is what this pole...
I'm seeing all sorts of paintings
in the gallery where there's sort of...
Suddenly, there might be some sort
of story... woven into this pose.
We can't help ourselves but add narrative
when we're dealing with the human body.
And if you want to include
any elements from the room,
thinking about vertical lines behind,
or horizontal lines,
finding lines of connection.
So try and constantly look
at the relationship
between the head and the shoulder girdle,
between the shoulder girdle
and the pelvis.
Be brave and add that vertical line
to contrast the curves of the body.
Now that we're slowing down,
and really looking,
so start to move more quickly
around the body,
making marks in sort
of continuous movement
as you... as you work around it
with your eyes.
Leave a leg, move back to a shoulder.
Go up to the top of the head.
Move very freely around, so you get
a sense of how this pose is working.
This hand should be big.
- Cos it's going to hide that forearm.
- It should be... Yes.
Yeah, cos it's... the gap between it...
The gap between the son of nipple
and first knuckle of the hand,
- if you can sort of draw that gap...
- Mm.
- Then you'll be seeing... As you move...
- That's that line there, right?
- Ah.
- That's that line.
- That's the line of the crease in her elbow.
- Yeah.
But I'm thinking about the actual bit of air
between breast and... and fist.
- Mm. Yeah. That space is... that gap.
- Yeah. Yeah.
So trying to sort of measure
that space, really,
- and place the hand so that it...
- Mm.
It's like bookending, isn't it,
the space in the middle?
- Mm.
- If that makes sense.
- Easier said than done.
- Yeah! Get her hand in!
- I think... I'm not sure...
- If you're wrestling with it,
just draw it a few times
and then come back.
Think about how you want
to use your pencil.
You can work in cross-hatching
to build up tone,
if you want to think about light and dark.
If you're using the chalks,
you might want to switch.
If you've been using the black chalk,
maybe explore the red chalk as well,
so you get the much softer mark
with the red chalk.
Black chalk's slightly more
sort of bound together.
See if that changes the way that you draw.
Just have another 30 seconds
on this drawing.
So if you're working your way
around the figure,
just see if you want to, in very brief strokes,
complete this pose.
...from yesterday!
So good!
Reception. Does that mean...
No. He's just gone to check.
See how many we have left.
Very beautiful.
What a blessing.
Maybe a kind gesture.
More awakening.
Awakening gesture.
Even while the exhibition's been open,
Even while the exhibition's been open,
have there been insights that you've been
getting into the work of Leonardo?
One of the things that you do
as you start working on an exhibition
But you're also cataloguing
each work individually,
so at a certain point,
it becomes a mosaic, perhaps,
rather than a seamless narrative.
And, obviously, that remains the case
to some degree.
But at the same time, you are beginning
you're beginning to be able to appreciate
what makes them very special
as a kind of viewing experience.
And I suppose
what I've been struck about...
Well, I suppose what I've been struck by,
over and over again,
is this quality within these works,
whereby the paintings show figures
that are incredibly present,
incredibly vital, and yet extraordinarily
remote and other, as if they...
And that's something that, for me,
is very much a unifying factor.
So I suppose what I've been doing
thinking about what makes them
a complete oeuvre by a single artist,
what makes them Leonardo.
And it's really, I suppose,
I've been struck, over and over again,
by the quality of thought allied
with a kind of pitch of emotion
and an intensity of craft,
and it's that, really, that seeing the pictures
together has made me understand
about this extraordinary artist.
And have there been any insights,
anything you've learned that surprised you,
particularly since the work
has been gathered here?
What I've been amazed by
is how profound and layered and endless
the viewing experience is with Leonardo.
How you always feel that this is an artist
who goes on giving with each of the works.
And in fact, one of the ways I think
you can distinguish a Leonardo painting
from one by a member of his workshop
is that... is this process
of endless revelation,
whereby it's almost as if sort of
onion layers are being peeled away,
and yet you never, ever
quite get to the core.
Leonardo's capacity to paint the invisible,
just out of reach, is really extraordinary,
and that's been the revelation,
but it's not about, you know,
who painted what,
or... or anything of that kind,
it's really about the personality of the artist.
I think, for what it's worth, that it's
this spiritual quality in Leonardo's work
that has raised this exhibition
to the event it's been,
in the sense that it's not
just about the name,
with the way in which
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