Jackie Kennedy and Leonardo da Vinci?
“Style is a simple way of saying very complicated things.” It was Cocteau who said that. Well, he was French.
The latest news about da Vinci is that Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage is trying to crack a real-life da Vinci code: What he might have hidden in Mona Lisa’s eyes – like there are some numbers and letters, 72, LV or whatever. Some also want to exhume his body to measure his skull to see if Mona Lisa was a self portrait. All these make my Jackie and Leonardo pairing pretty ordinary by comparison.
Leonardo was not alone, if he did indeed hide some messages in his pictures. The late German modern artist Sigmar Polke did too, just for fun. And I found that out in a most extraordinary way. See my comment in this link (Reprinted below)*
But is it really possible for us to know more about da Vinci, or Mona Lisa by cracking this ‘da Vinci code,’ if any? Or is it necessary for us to know what Polke hid in his pictures in order to appreciate them? No to both, I think.
The best pictures, and the best styles, are just what they are – everything is there for our eyes to take in. We just have to learn to look. (Or un-learn to look).
If Mona Lisa is the most beautiful and perfect painting we recognize, Jackie Kennedy may be its equivalent in style and elegance in our recent memory. Both are enigmatic. The former a culmination of da Vinci’s passion and accomplishments; and we know that Jackie was not just a superficial fashion plate. She spent the last 20 years of her life working as a book editor, out of her love for writing and literature, enabling the publication of many books that otherwise would not have seen the light. She was also a passionate campaigner for conservation and the architectural environment.
So, simple things only look simple. Visual beauty, perfection, elegance, style…ultimately must come from something deeper, a sort of intelligent substrate, a humble humanity behind those forms and shapes. Otherwise they are just empty forms and shapes, with even less meaning than whatever the artist might have intentionally left hidden in it.
Leonardo was not alone.
I know that the artist Sigmar Polke did embed bits of information in his paintings, just for fun.
During the preview of the Sigmar Polke show in Tate Modern in 2003, I ran into Vicente Todoli (then director of Tate Modern) in the last gallery. I blurted out, “It looks like all he did was have fun in his studio!”
To my (and my companion’s) surprise, Todoli turned suddenly and darted towards a nearby picture, pretending to examine one part with a magnifying glass, and started laughing. He then explained to us that that was what Polke did during the installation of the show, when he (Polke) gleefully recalled the bits that he had encoded in the picture, magnifying glass in hand.
Sadly Polke died June of this year. I don’t know if anyone knows what he actually hid in those pictures. For me I do not need to know. Artists should be allowed some secrets of their own. Unless, of course, Leonardo had in Mona Lisa’s eye the answer to all our world’s problems, or the combination to his safe…
