"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." – Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man (1949).
The Leonardo versus Michelangelo immersive exhibition at the Norblin Factory's Art Box is compelling and moving. Having recently listened to the Rest is History three-part podcast about Florence of the Medicis and the show about the Mona Lisa (plus, I'm reaching the end of Plato's Republic – a huge influence on the development of Renaissance Italy), this exhibition snaps together so many ideas in my mind.
The Renaissance – a sudden burst of civilisation-boosting creativity in the latter half of 15th-century Italy (at the time a collection of warring city-states) as it emerged from the Middle Ages and Black Death – has shaped our modern world and our modern thinking to a great degree. This incredible flowering of the arts and sciences, the development of painting technique (perspective, oil paints), sculpture; mathematics, anatomy, philosophy and literature, as well as banking and finance, sprang from a singular point in time and space; a gathering together of so much genius.
Art critics rank Michelangelo as the top painter of the Italian Renaissance; Leonardo comes in at a lowly number four, with Raphael and Giotto ranked second and third. Yet Leonardo is responsible for the world's best-known painting, as well as for his military engineering (tanks, catapults, bastions etc) and anatomical drawings (including some of the first of the central nervous system. All these are on display at the show, along with and his religious paintings. Leonardo was the ultimate Renaissance Man, who believed in the unity of Art and Science. The breadth and depth of his interests is mind-blowing. This was also the man who devised the parachute and the helicopter (though not a working one). Michelangelo, however, focused his talents exclusively on painting and sculpture, and had a far closer relationship with the numinous – God and the metaphysical were never far from his mind.
An immersive experience, I would argue, is a good substitute for Being There In Person. The 180° close-up circumnavigation of Michelangelo's David, for example, reveals to you the sculpture in a way that seeing it live could never do (in particular the face); the AI fly-through a Leonardo-designed city shows his architectural vision is an innovative way to bring new insights into the geometry of urban spaces. Leonardo versus Michelangelo places much emphasis (as did the other immersive shows I've enjoyed to date) on the historical context; on the role of neo-Platonic thinking in the birth of the Renaissance, the personal life-stories of Michelangelo and Da Vinci, and on their influence on modern popular culture (from The Simpsons to the Da Vinci Code); all the highlights are there and in close-up: the Sistine Chapel, the Last Supper, the Last Judgment. You look at it, read the notes, and get it.
Allow about an hour and half for the whole show, and try to avoid times where school trips are likely to be coming through (it's a popular event). Notes are in Polish and in English. I found the whole show exceptionally moving; following the story of Renaissance is like witnessing an orchard coming into blossom.
The Leonardo versus Michelangelo immersive show ends on 14 June; I highly recommend it.
This time last year:
Warsaw rail scenes in the rain
Major rail project for the south of Warsaw
This time four years ago:
Prime spring, Jakubowizna
This time 10 years ago:
Classic car show, Nadarzyn
This time 13 years ago:
Malodorous passengers on Warsaw's public transport
This time 15 years ago:
Inside Filtry – Warsaw's waterworks (Museum Night 2011)
This time 16 years ago:
Warsaw's Museum Night 2010
This time 17 years ago:
On Transcendence
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