The National Gallery’s exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan in 2011 famously attracted too many visitors, so how will Leonardo’s science and engineering side fare at the Science Museum? Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius has already been tipped by the Telegraph to be one of the most popular exhibitions of 2016.
From the off, this touring exhibition does little to shake the caricature of the Science Museum as the institution with all the buttons and levers, even though The Mechanics of Genius was actually conceived and realised by the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie institution in Paris.
The show begins with a timeline of Leonardo’s life and culture – explored, of course, by cranking a lever. The first stopping point is “1444: Piero della Francesca paints the Flagellation of Christ”, the relevance of which isn’t immediately clear. Later on, the timeline highlights the occasion when Leonardo and some of his fellow students were accused of sodomy, which suggests that it may not have been designed with the themes of this exhibition in mind.
The Mechanics of Genius is in part an exhibition of a previous exhibition: the main attractions are scale models of many of Leonardo’s imagined constructs, originally created for an exhibition in 1952 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, which celebrated the 500th anniversary of the polymath’s birth.
In detailing Leonardo’s credentials and positions as engineer and designer, the new exhibition provokes the visitor to ask whether Leonardo – a passionate observer of nature – was indeed a genius in this field.
It is clear from the models on display, and unclear from the interpretation, that many of the designs were never realised in Leonardo’s lifetime – or if they were, they were very shortlived. Looking at models of flippers to wear on the hands, repeating cannons, trundling fortresses and magnificent flying machines, you can’t shake the feeling that Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps more of a Dick Dastardly on paper than an engineering genius. Later models of weaving looms seem more down to earth and potentially useful, but it is not clear how influential these designs, realised or not, actually were.
Bells and whistles
The 1952 models are complemented by lots of other material – interactives, audio, games, text, video, animations and images. Modern reconstructions have cranks and handles to push and pull to show their inner workings, while animations show how the inventions would have worked.
Audio stations detail some of Leonardo’s inspirations, text labels describe the function of the objects, touchscreens show digital versions of the plans and drawings, and each exhibit is accompanied by reproductions of some of the images that, 500 years later, the models were based on.
There are also various interactive stations. Some of these seem out of place: for instance, a game with magnets in which the object is to identify correctly which animals, including dragons, have skeletons and which don’t. There’s a glut of content from start to finish, but it is to the detriment of the exhibition as a whole.
Visiting this show feels like running a gauntlet of learning. It doesn’t help that the over-sensitive motion-sensing alarms are constantly being triggered – so that retiring to the comparatively quieter permanent displays comes as a relief.
There is a mismatch between the larger written panels and the interpretation around the models. Visitors are told that Leonardo was inspired by the natural world but apart from a few tentative comparisons no evidence is offered for the assertion. We are also told about Leonardo’s engineering credentials and inspirations, but I was left unsure whether any of the contraptions made it off the page.
Lost in the clutter
There is also the challenge, ever-present for science museums, of describing how complex machines function – further complicated in this instance by up to three levels of interpretation: Leonardo’s incomplete sketches, un-annotated, then made into 3D models. The label of the weaving-loom model, for example, reads, “the shuttle is not launched by a spring mechanism but instead guided by clamps”.
In general, reproductions (and even the merchandise) of the sketches and drawings of the inventions are poorly reproduced and, in many cases, too small. Visitors are expected to scrutinise a drawing running along the margins of a 9cm x 6cm reproduction image and trust that the 1952 scale model is an accurate interpretation. Among the myriad of other distractions, the images, the ideas and ultimately the link to the artist are all too often lost in the clutter of interpretation.
Part way through the show is a small area focusing on the ways in which modern science still draws inspiration from the natural world, with robots and other inventions inspired by eels, spiders, flies and bees. This succeeds in emphasising the inventing from nature theme stated throughout, but is less well illustrated with the selection of models on display.
Near the end of the exhibition a selection of Leonardo’s work on theatre design is highlighted with a modern interactive diorama, showing some of the tricks of theatre lighting and stage production. According to the instructions, the three-buttoned diorama has a secret combination of buttons that will reveal the secrets of the stage lighting, a gimmick seemingly designed expressly to transform even the most sophisticated visitor into a button-mashing test animal, never quite sure if the secret combination has been hit or not.
The exhibition finishes with a pod of subtitled videos covering the themes of the show. But only the most stalwart of museum goers won’t be too worn out to endure the overwhelming visual and aural noise from this cacophonous exhibition before heading into the shop and out.
Commendably, the interpretation is offered in English, French and Italian and there is braille interpretation (presumably in English) throughout.
The exhibition does highlight the creativity behind Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions, and shows how revolutionary some of the notions would have been in the 15th and 16th centuries. But this is an example of an exhibition in which less would have perhaps been more. And with greater refinement of the attempt to put the man and his ideas in context, the genius mentioned in the title would have been allowed to shine through.
Mark Carnall is the collections manager (Life Collections) at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Main funders Airbus Group; players of People’s Postcode Lottery
Exhibition design and production Cité des Sciences; Museo Nazionale della Scienza
e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci
Exhibition ends 4 September
Admission MA Members free, £10 Adult, £8 Concessions
From the off, this touring exhibition does little to shake the caricature of the Science Museum as the institution with all the buttons and levers, even though The Mechanics of Genius was actually conceived and realised by the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie institution in Paris.
The show begins with a timeline of Leonardo’s life and culture – explored, of course, by cranking a lever. The first stopping point is “1444: Piero della Francesca paints the Flagellation of Christ”, the relevance of which isn’t immediately clear. Later on, the timeline highlights the occasion when Leonardo and some of his fellow students were accused of sodomy, which suggests that it may not have been designed with the themes of this exhibition in mind.
The Mechanics of Genius is in part an exhibition of a previous exhibition: the main attractions are scale models of many of Leonardo’s imagined constructs, originally created for an exhibition in 1952 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, which celebrated the 500th anniversary of the polymath’s birth.
In detailing Leonardo’s credentials and positions as engineer and designer, the new exhibition provokes the visitor to ask whether Leonardo – a passionate observer of nature – was indeed a genius in this field.
It is clear from the models on display, and unclear from the interpretation, that many of the designs were never realised in Leonardo’s lifetime – or if they were, they were very shortlived. Looking at models of flippers to wear on the hands, repeating cannons, trundling fortresses and magnificent flying machines, you can’t shake the feeling that Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps more of a Dick Dastardly on paper than an engineering genius. Later models of weaving looms seem more down to earth and potentially useful, but it is not clear how influential these designs, realised or not, actually were.
Bells and whistles
The 1952 models are complemented by lots of other material – interactives, audio, games, text, video, animations and images. Modern reconstructions have cranks and handles to push and pull to show their inner workings, while animations show how the inventions would have worked.
Audio stations detail some of Leonardo’s inspirations, text labels describe the function of the objects, touchscreens show digital versions of the plans and drawings, and each exhibit is accompanied by reproductions of some of the images that, 500 years later, the models were based on.
There are also various interactive stations. Some of these seem out of place: for instance, a game with magnets in which the object is to identify correctly which animals, including dragons, have skeletons and which don’t. There’s a glut of content from start to finish, but it is to the detriment of the exhibition as a whole.
Visiting this show feels like running a gauntlet of learning. It doesn’t help that the over-sensitive motion-sensing alarms are constantly being triggered – so that retiring to the comparatively quieter permanent displays comes as a relief.
There is a mismatch between the larger written panels and the interpretation around the models. Visitors are told that Leonardo was inspired by the natural world but apart from a few tentative comparisons no evidence is offered for the assertion. We are also told about Leonardo’s engineering credentials and inspirations, but I was left unsure whether any of the contraptions made it off the page.
Lost in the clutter
There is also the challenge, ever-present for science museums, of describing how complex machines function – further complicated in this instance by up to three levels of interpretation: Leonardo’s incomplete sketches, un-annotated, then made into 3D models. The label of the weaving-loom model, for example, reads, “the shuttle is not launched by a spring mechanism but instead guided by clamps”.
In general, reproductions (and even the merchandise) of the sketches and drawings of the inventions are poorly reproduced and, in many cases, too small. Visitors are expected to scrutinise a drawing running along the margins of a 9cm x 6cm reproduction image and trust that the 1952 scale model is an accurate interpretation. Among the myriad of other distractions, the images, the ideas and ultimately the link to the artist are all too often lost in the clutter of interpretation.
Part way through the show is a small area focusing on the ways in which modern science still draws inspiration from the natural world, with robots and other inventions inspired by eels, spiders, flies and bees. This succeeds in emphasising the inventing from nature theme stated throughout, but is less well illustrated with the selection of models on display.
Near the end of the exhibition a selection of Leonardo’s work on theatre design is highlighted with a modern interactive diorama, showing some of the tricks of theatre lighting and stage production. According to the instructions, the three-buttoned diorama has a secret combination of buttons that will reveal the secrets of the stage lighting, a gimmick seemingly designed expressly to transform even the most sophisticated visitor into a button-mashing test animal, never quite sure if the secret combination has been hit or not.
The exhibition finishes with a pod of subtitled videos covering the themes of the show. But only the most stalwart of museum goers won’t be too worn out to endure the overwhelming visual and aural noise from this cacophonous exhibition before heading into the shop and out.
Commendably, the interpretation is offered in English, French and Italian and there is braille interpretation (presumably in English) throughout.
The exhibition does highlight the creativity behind Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions, and shows how revolutionary some of the notions would have been in the 15th and 16th centuries. But this is an example of an exhibition in which less would have perhaps been more. And with greater refinement of the attempt to put the man and his ideas in context, the genius mentioned in the title would have been allowed to shine through.
Mark Carnall is the collections manager (Life Collections) at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Project data
Cost UndisclosedMain funders Airbus Group; players of People’s Postcode Lottery
Exhibition design and production Cité des Sciences; Museo Nazionale della Scienza
e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci
Exhibition ends 4 September
Admission MA Members free, £10 Adult, £8 Concessions
