How to find the true face of Leonardo Siegfried Woldhek
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good morning let’s look for a minute
as the greatest icon of all Leonardo da
Vinci we’re all familiar with his
fantastic work his drawing these
paintings his inventions his writings
but we do not know his face thousands of
books have been written about him but
there’s controversy and it remains about
his looks even this well-known portrait
is not accepted by many our historians
so what do you think is this the face of
Leonardo da Vinci or isn’t it let’s find
out Leo now there was a man that drew
everything around him he drew people
anatomy plants animals landscapes
buildings water everything but no faces
I find that hard to believe
his contemporaries made faces like the
ones you see here faster 3/4 so surely a
passionate drawer like Leonardo must
have made self-portraits from time to
time so let’s try to find them I think
that if we were to scan all of his work
and look for self-portraits we would
find his face looking at us so I looked
at all of his drawings more than 700 and
looked for male portraits there are
about 120 you see them here which ones
of these could be self-portraits well
for that they have to be done as we just
saw our fast or 3/4 so we can eliminate
all the profiles it also has to be
sufficiently detailed so we can also
eliminate the ones that are very vague
or very stylized and we know from his
contemporaries that Leonardo was a very
handsome even beautiful man so we can
also eliminate the ugly ones or the
caricatures and look what happens only
three candidates remain that fit the
bill and here they are yes indeed the
old man is there as is this famous pen
drawing of the home of a true pianist
and lastly the only portrait of a male
that Leonardo painted the musician
before we go into these faces I should
explain why I have some right to talk
about them I’ve made more than 1,100
portraits myself for newspapers over the
course of three hundred thirty years
sorry thirty is only but there are
eleven hundred and very few artists have
drawn so many faces so I know little
about drawing and analyzing faces okay
now let’s look at these three portraits
and hold on to your seats because if we
zoom in on those faces remark how they
have the same broad forehead the
horizontal eyebrows the long nose the
curved lips and the small well-developed
chin I couldn’t believe my eyes when I
first saw that there is no reason why
these portraits should look alike all we
did was look for portraits that had the
characteristics of a self-portrait and
look they do are very similar now are
they made in the right order the young
man should be made first and as you see
it from the years that they were created
it is indeed the case they are made in
the right order what was the age of
Leonardo at the time does that fit yes
it does he was 33 38 and 63 when these
were made so we have three pictures
potentially have the same person of the
same age is Leonardo at that time but
how do we know it’s him and not someone
else well we need a reference and here’s
the only the only picture of the Inara
that’s widely accepted that’s a statue
made by Verrocchio of David for which
Leonardo posed there’s a boy of 15 and
if we now compare the face of the statue
with the face of the musician you see
the very same features again the statue
is the reference and it connects the
identity of Leonardo to those three
faces ladies and gentlemen this story
has not yet been published it’s only
proper that you here at Ted here and see
it first the icon of icons finally has a
face here he is Leonardo da Vinci
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you