I Don't Mean to be Too Hard on Walter Isaacson, but...

... you can't mess with Leonardo; he's sacred.

Two posts in a row on author Walter Isaacson screwing up is probably two too many, but we’re talking Leonardo Da Vinci this time. He’s sacred. We can’t be misattributing paintings to the greatest creative genius in history!

Mr. Isaacson had just published a book on Leonardo which made this doubly upsetting. But being able to tell a story does not mean one has an artistic eye for detail.

For the learning experience and to spice up this post, I copied the painting that is the subject of this post. It was a bit of a rush job and it shows. I’m about 2/3’s of the way through and I’ve made a lot of mistakes already including, 1) my nose isn’t curved enough, 2) I made the right 5th finger too long, I showed too much of the cap of his head, 4) I messed up the dots of light in the orb, 5) the orb is not round on the right (it’s too linear), 6) I put too much detail in the hair going down along the sides of his face, 7) the mouth is off a little, 8) My highlights on the chest goes up too high, 9) my left eye is way too light, 10)The medallion with the jewel in it is all messed up, 11) I messed up the shape of the nose at the bottom AND ABOUT TEN MORE!

Next to the actual painting. I see now why painters never let people look at their work before it’s finish! My mistakes are easy to fix. I’ll do them when I go back in to lighten the highlights and darken the low lights. This will give it some much-needed contrast. I discussed this over a couple of emails with Roy. I hope it works.

This post consists of two videos. The first shows Mr. Isaacson speaking about the life of Leonardo DaVinci at the Aspen Institute, a very hoity-toity place where they host A-List guest speakers in addition to supporting environmental causes, mostly. I know one person who’s a member. I think he’s a billionaire now. Isaacson himself used to be President of the Institute and this lecture had to be one of his favorites on what appears to be a lecture tour promoting the book. He talks about several of Leonardo’s paintings including the subject of this post, the recently-discovered Salvator Mundi. His discussion starts at 39:10 and goes to 43:

Mr. Isaacson states that the painting was “only re-authenticated as a Leonardo about 10 or 15 years ago.”

The only problem is, Leonardo did not paint it.

Which leads us to video 2, my proof that Leonardo didn’t paint it, and its precursor, video 3 (which is a quickie I did before I knew how to make videos for YouTube using power point. I made # 3 with a tiny I-phone 4 and my hands were shaking. Strangely, it continues to get more views than the polished re-make, Video 2.

Here are the videos:

Video 1: (watch from 39:10 to 43:35)

I don’t point out everything I disagree with. You’ll get plenty of that in video s 2 and 3 (if you choose that one)

Video 2:

Video 3: