The Character of Leonardo

... Part Two: The Character of Leonardo's Art Alexander Nagel's Leonardo's Sfumato opens with a quote in French by Paul Valery. Translated it states, "The particular case of Leonardo da Vinci proposes one of the many remarkable coincidences for us to return to our practice of spirit and to alarm our attention to the medium of ideas which were transmitted to us". Leo Steinberg also shares this outlook on the study of Leonardo's art. Like Nagel, Steinberg advocates an exhaustive study and attention over each detail. Additionally, Nagel and Steinberg share an understanding for the importance of the relationship between art and ambiguity. For Steinberg, ambiguity denotes more than the multiple meanings and moments condensed in Leonardo's picture. Ambiguity affects the entire mural, determining and over-determining everything about it, from the structure of space down to the individual painterly mark. Ambiguity also asks the key question: is all of this ambiguity a feature

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