How Science Taught Leonardo How to Paint: Interviewing Francesca Fiorani

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Image Source: Francesca Fiorani


It is guaranteed that when talking about the Renaissance period, the name Leonardo da Vinci will appear. Though he has only a handful of paintings to his name (art historians have only found 15 paintings that can be attributed to him), his magnum opus is his notes on the usage of light and optical science within painting and the portrayal of nature, which is believed to have been upwards of 16,000 pages. This connection between the polymath and artistry of Leonardo—which have long been considered core, yet discrete parts of his identity—have been fused together within The Shadow Painting: How Science Taught Leonardo How to Paint (published November of 2020), the latest work by Dr. Francesca Fiorani, Commonwealth Professor of Art History at the University of Virginia. Earlier this month, she was the guest speaker of the Irwin C. Schroedl Lecture series on Material Culture & Decorative Arts, with the stewardship of Goucher’s Visual and Material Culture program. 

[Image: Front cover of The Shadow Painting]

Note from the author: I = Interviewer, F = Dr. Fiorani.

I: What has brought you to the art of Leonardo?

F: A deep understanding that Leonardo the artist and Leonardo the scientist were inextricably connected from the very beginning; that Leonardo did not become a scientist as an adult man, as it is traditionally thought, but that his interest in the science and training in it went hand in hand with his artistic training since his youth. In short, Leonardo did not become a scientist. He was one all along.


I: As we both know, the art and the artistry of Leonardo is a topic that has had a large body of scholarship over the centuries. How did you come up with the concept for the book we now know as “The Shadow Drawing: How Science taught Leonardo How to Paint”?

F: It became clear to me that among the many interests Leonardo had, the science of optics was of paramount importance to him as it was the science that taught him how to learn about the world through the eyes.


I: During the process of writing this book, was there a system/order that you thought/synthesized your ideas in? Please elaborate more on this process if there was!

F: I was focused on searching for an explanation for the things Leonardo did, rather than describing what he did or how he did them. Why did he do this? Why did he paint this way? Why did he conceive his book on painting this way? Why did he read these books?


I: Considering that The Shadow Painting was published amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, was there an aspect during either the research, writing, or editing process that was particularly challenging for you?

F: It was challenging to do the final revision of the book when libraries were closed. I used whatever resource/book/article was available online, my own personal library, and also the library of friends. It was challenging and time consuming—much more time consuming than having a library at hand—but I did it.

I: Was there any part of the research process for this particular book that surprised you?

F: It was surprisingly hard to write in an approachable way about complicated scientific matters, even though I had deep knowledge of those matters. Chapter 3 [titled “Body and Soul”] was especially hard to write.

I: In your opinion, who would be the target readership for The Shadow Painting?

F: People interested in Leonardo da Vinci, in Renaissance art and culture, and in the intersection of art, science and technology, and in the process of innovation. This includes graduate and undergraduate students in art history, the history of science and technology, faculty in various fields in the humanities, but also the general public of interested readers.


I: Chapter 12 of The Shadow Painting [titled “The Biographer and the Doctored Book”] focused primarily on the doctoring and the distortion of Leonardo’s art and artistry, with a focus on the initial publication of Leonardo’s Book on Painting [also known as the Treatise on Painting], which was heavily doctored and distorted. It could be said that this chapter is very contemporary, as it offers a case study on the distortion of an artist’s biography and the commercialization of art, which are topics that garner much debate these days. What is your take on this?

F: This is correct. The Leonardo that was known in past centuries is very different from the Leonardo we know today. This is certainly due to the fact that today we have a much deeper understanding of his works, his writings, his way of thinking, the books he read, the people he met, etc. But it is also true that in every period, country, and geographical area, different groups of people have different and selective takes on the artist, building different views based on what matters to different people at different times in different places.

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We would like to thank Dr. Fiorani for her knowledge and time through her lecture on Leonardo da Vinci. Goucher College hosts guest speakers on various topics throughout the school year; check your email regularly for updates from the Goucher events calendar, or it can also be found at https://events.goucher.edu.

By Jamie Nguyen ’25

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