
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
Studies of water c.1510-12
RCIN 912660
This is the most masterly of Leonardo’s many drawings of the movement of water. The central study shows the eddies and air bubbles in water falling from a sluice into a pool. It exemplifies Leonardo’s ability to fix a momentary impression in his mind and capture it on paper with absolute conviction, as if the endlessly changing scene had been frozen before him and thus laid open to analysis.