Leonardo Drawings

This is the last week of active term, when we can use the college facilities.  I am pretty much OK with my work for the final show,  but it is still slightly anxious-making to be in college full of feverishly busy people, some of whom still seem to have a long way to go to get their work ready for the show.  

I went in to college on Friday (not one of our usual days but effectively the last working day of term) in order to paint the 'sand box' which Jan has made for me for the show.  It was an easy task, and gave me time to hang around little, and take a last session in the library.  

But it needed two coats of paint, and while I was waiting for the paint to dry I went along to the City Museum to see the Leonardo Drawings currently on show.  

                  A study for an equestrian monument, c. 1485-90, Leonardo da Vinci 
                                    The Royal Collection © 2012, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

There are only 12 of them on loan from the Royal Collection, and perhaps we are all getting a little too familiar with reproductions of his work, but I was less excited by them than perhaps I should have been. The drawings were of a range of subjects - the foot, the shoulder, detailed plant drawings, a map of the Pontine Marshes, various improbable war machines.  I can see that the selectors (presumably from the Royal Collection who have farmed out various bundles of drawings to provincial galleries this year) have tried to provide a representative sample of different types and periods of Leonardo's work, but the net result felt like a rag-bag - a teasing set of tit-bits which left you with no clear impression.  Or so I thought.  

There were very few people there, and I gather there have been no queues (in contrast to the Birmingham Art Gallery, where - when I was there in february for the Lost in Lace exhibition - there were quite long queues of people waiting to see the equivalent Leonardo show).   Perhaps people have maxed out on these drawings - or perhaps it was a sunny day and people had better, outdoor things to do.