King David

I do not quite remember whether it was Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci that I had first read about. I remember starting to read ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’ sometime in the sixties or seventies and somehow giving it up even before young Michelangelo had finished his apprenticeship under the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio and joined the sculpture workshop in the Medici house. I think I had read about his work in the Sistine Chapel before I had heard about his sculpture of David. Moreover, one gets to see the picture post cards of the former more often than those of David. Similarly, Vinci’s Mona Lisa is probably the most publicized and therefore overexposed piece of art. May be that is why when I actually saw these two masterpieces during my Europe visit last year, I could absorb their impact within my usual (sensory) perceptibility.

On the other hand, I was totally mesmerized and even disturbed when I saw David for the first time at the Academia Gallery in Florence. I must submit here that for me, being disturbed is the highest expression of my appreciation for any work of art/literature/music; it means that my perception of that piece of art goes beyond the sensory bracket and becomes, what I may term as, a supra-sensory experience. I just did not want to take my eyes off the magnificent statue that stood before me. I stood there as if in a trance, and wishing that Time would stand still because that was the only way I would not have to quit King David’s presence.

We did not visit Milan and therefore could not view Vinci’s The Last Supper. Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’ had recently hit the bookstand and Mirchi had finished reading it in between visiting Rome and Florence. Much has been written in the past about the mysterious and enigmatic smile of Mona Lisa but if Mr Brown has his way, it is the Subject- Da Vinci himself, rather than the Object of his art, that is intrigue personified. Even Will Durant suggests that Mona Lisa probably wears Leonard’s smile-the smile of an inverted spirit.

As we know, Da Vinci was also an engineer, a scientist and an inventor. Will Durant describes him as the fullest man of the Renaissance, perhaps of all time. We had arrived into Italy from the North by a land route but flew out from Rome. As we were proceeding to the city’s airport, I noticed that the airport had been named after Leonardo da Vinci. For some reason, I felt a little uneasy with this name. I am sure they did not name this airport after Da Vinci just because he had thought of a flying machine in his time. I felt that, although they could have named the airport in Florence after Da Vinci with some justification, they should have chosen a truly Roman name from the pre-Christianity era for the airport in Rome. Or, may be deep down inside, I belong to a Michelangelo camp.