Leonardo was not a sculptor

Sculpture of Leonardo in Château du Clos Lucé

Web sites state Leonardo was a sculptor. He wasn’t.

Use any search engine for images of his sculptures. You won’t find any because there are none.

The most you can say is that he was a modeller, sometimes in clay, sometimes in wax.

Determined to compete with Michelangelo’s magnificent David, Leonardo planned to make a cast of his huge clay (terra cotta) model of an equestrian statue for the Duke of Milan. Sadly, the war with France meant the bronze was used to make cannons instead.

Leonardo considered sculpting far inferior to painting. He dismissed it as noisy, dirty work. He was far too effete to go around looking like Michelangelo covered in stone dust. Leonardo preferred to be covered in cologne.

Michelangelo had to find his marble, cut it out, heave it on to a cart, then on a barge, and take it to his workshop miles away from the stone quarry. Sometimes he even had to build a road through the mountains to transport it. It was heavy, dangerous work. When he got the marble home, he had to carve it, working all day breathing dust.

Leonardo preferred to sit in his studio sketching out ideas for sculptures, ideas which, like so many of his projects, never saw the light of day.

Post by Pamela Shields (BA History of Art)

Pamela, a Graduate and Tutor in the History of Art, trained as a magazine journalist at the London College of Printing and has been a freelance writer for over twenty years. She has a passion for history and has published several books on various subjects.