An interesting afternoon on Sunday at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Cardiff, where there's currently the Leonardo da Vinci, A Life in Drawing exhibition. I'm always amazed by the power artefacts from hundreds of years ago can have over me, the strange bond they establish with the long dead of vastly different ages and cultures, the acknowledgement of the common human concerns and aspirations across the centuries - and what we can learn from them.
Unfortunately, time didn't allow a long visit (though I'll certainly be back); but two things struck me very forcibly. The first was the diligence in preparation for projects, the tremendous amount of time and effort expended studying the minutiae of the subject matter before getting anywhere near execution. The second was the fact that nothing is wasted; da Vinci spent ten years preparing for a huge equine monument project only for it to be abandoned at the last moment, but the sketches and models he had made were fundamental to other, later creations as well as being works of art in themselves. Certainly a couple of lessons there for anyone in the creative arts!
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