As Leslie A. Geddes explains in Watermarks: Leonardo da Vinci and the Mastery of Nature, Leonardo da Vinci worked on the historical cusp between purely theoretical and more observational methods of analysis in the earth sciences. It was a time, too, that saw the artistic and analytic as intimately entwined. To understand better the special qualities of Leonardo’s moment, not to mention his interdisciplinary mind, Geddes takes up the problem of water in his art and thought. She makes use of the art historian’s methods, and the resulting book reads like an extended ekphrasis of those works touched by Leonardo’s aqueous concerns, whether they address puzzles of engineering or render portraits of natural phenomena. From Madonnas to mapmaking, Geddes reveals how Leonardo’s understanding of water inflects just about everything.
The book is divided into two parts. The first, titled “Water Tamed,” treats Leonardo’s mechanical studies employing water, such as...
University of California Press