Researcher says Leonardo Da Vinci was probably strabic

Several factors make physical problems no longer impeding a dignified and independent life. Accessibility solutions have brought new possibilities for these people, not to mention the surgical options that have become available, thanks to medical advances.

Strabismus is a relatively common disorder that, besides the aesthetic issue, can cause some vision difficulties. There are currently ways to correct the problem through surgery, but during the Middle Ages this was not an option. What is treated as a problem may have been the differential of Leonardo Da Vinci, who according to a recently published survey was strabic and benefited from the problem.

Problem?

The study was led by Cristopher Tyler, a visual neuroscientist at City, University of London, who analyzed six works by Da Vinci (two sculpture, two oil paintings and two drawings). There are few portraits of the renowned Italian artist, but the researcher argues that any work of his to some extent would have its characteristics.

In the collection of documents left by Leonardo, called the Codex Atlanticus, he wrote that “(the soul) guides the painter's arm and causes him to reproduce himself, for it seems to the soul that this is the best way to represent a human being. ”For Tyler, this statement makes explicit the fact that he used his own physical characteristics as a model for his works.

Along with this statement is the fact that several renowned artists, such as Rembrandt, Durer, Degas and Picasso, also had some degree of strabismus, a condition verified through the analysis of their self-portraits. This disturbance would cause the misaligned eye to be suppressed at times, alternating between monocular and spatial vision, a situation that would facilitate the representation of reality on a screen.

Expected Questions

The artist's lack of self-portraits ends up putting Tyler in a tricky situation, since the assurances that he has used his own body as a reference for his works are based only on probabilities. Although art experts disagree about the amount of Leonardo's portraits, a drawing depicting the old-age red-chalk artist is the only one recognized by Kenneth Clark, the leading authority on the Italian artist's work.

Still, other experts say the work represents a man much older than Da Vinci's age at the time of registration. They argue that the portrait could represent the artist's father or uncle, although some modern researchers believe that Leonardo appeared to be older than he really was.

Another work that was probably a faithful representation of the artist as a young man was Verrocchio's David sculpture. The fact was recorded by the historian Vasari, responsible for the biography of several Italian artists, and makes sense since Da Vinci was an apprentice of Verrocchio, who classified the student as possessing an “exceptional physical beauty”.

Another fact that contributes to the thesis of using one's own body as a reference was a study, published in 2012 and of which Tyler was co-author, which analyzed six works that were probably representations of Leonardo Da Vinci. The team concluded that the odds that it was used as a model are quite large, but a greater number of comparisons are still needed to validate the data statistically.

Unanimity among art critics is something Tyler does not expect, but he is very confident that his assumptions and diagnoses of strabismus are correct. Research like this makes us wonder how harsh living conditions could be in the past, when the only option was to learn to live with problems.

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