ARRYN SNOWBALL
Whirlpools of water. Image: Leonardo da Vinci, RL 12660, Windsor, Royal Library.
Movement in air and water - Images and notes
This famous drawing of Da Vinci is not a naturalistic/realistic/photographic image.
It is not an instant reproduced, instead it has duration.
It contains information about the way the water is flowing.
It tells us about surface and depth.
Gombrich, E.H. "The Form of Movement in Water and Air," in The Heritage ofApelles: Studies in the Art
of the Renaissance(Oxford: Phaidoti, 1976) pp. 39-56. 5. Gombrich [4] p. 39. 94.
It doesn't really look like water, but that doesn't matter, because it taps into our knowledge of and experience with water. The lines in the drawing act in act in multiple ways, describing ripples, at the same time as the direction of the flow. They are complex and subtle conveyors of meaning
