Leonardo Da Vinci

• Leonardo's Drawings

Leonardo (1452 - 1519) has probably had more influence on more people than any other artist; but the reason for that is not just because he was one of the greatest artists who ever lived, it is because he was also a great architect and engineer, a botanist, a biologist and a scientist in just about every possible branch of science. And when a branch of science didn't exist yet, Leonardo would invent it! Not only one of the greatest artists of all time, he was also undisputedly one of the greatest minds. He was, on top of everything else, a poet and a musician for good measure, although in those two fields I don't believe that he moved any particular mountains; I often think that perhaps they were a form of relaxation to him, as in all other fields his brain was at work like a computer, several hundred years ahead of its time. In most branches of his multi-faceted genius however, he has influenced people, who have studied him and his findings since his death nearly 500 years ago. Being possibly the least technologically or scientifically minded person on our planet, I will concentrate on Leonardo the artist - even more specifically for me, Leonardo the Draughtsman - to tell you the way in which he had a great influence on my work. Before concentrating on Leonardo's drawings, I must mention however that Leonardo was the first Master of the Italian Renaissance to paint in oils, having learnt the technique of doing so from his friend Antonello da Messina,(1430 - 1479) who in turn had learnt it through Hans Memling (1433 - 1494) in Bruges who had learnt it from its originator, Jan Van Eyck.(1390 - 1441). The technique allowed a softer and more highly detailed kind of painting to come into existence, full of shadows and nuances that with egg tempera, the technique used for painting up until the discovery of oil painting, had not been possible. Leonardo developed particularly the soft-edged quality achievable by using oil and called his technique sfumato. Of course, the first painting in this technique that became famous was no less than the most famous painting in the world even to this day, his Mona Lisa.

Hands Study Leonardo

Hands Study Christian

My interest in psychic phenomenon started when I was very young. Due to my painting in the National Gallery from the age of ten, I not only attracted a great deal of publicity, but also some extremely interesting people who came to see me. One of these was an astrologer, who introduced me to the idea of there being another world, or dimension, "out there," that could be communicated with. My interest aroused, during a lifetime of extensive travels, my interest grew and I met many psychics in several countries. Amongst many other things, I learnt that we all have two "Spirit Guides," usually quite visible to genuine psychics. Between the ages of 10 and 24 years old, I was told more than a dozen times by these completely disconnected people, that Leonardo da Vinci was one of my Guides. They didn't name him, but all of them, in several totally diverse countries and cultures, described Leonardo in great detail, until he was unmistakeable to me - even though in two of the cases, in India and Nepal, he would have been a complete unknown to the psychics who were describing him to me. I was convinced.

Equally convincing was the fact that when I started to study the drawings of Leonardo, when I was ten, noticing that he wrote in mirror-script (back to front) I tried to do the same thing and found that I could do so quite naturally. I have used this technique of writing ever since, and write "backwards" as quickly and as fluently as I write normally.

I studied Leonardo's anatomy drawings particularly, as I needed to know as much about "what lies beneath" as possible, so that my drawing had conviction. If you know nothing of anatomy and you draw a sleeve, for example, the viewer will not feel an arm beneath that sleeve. Or even more important, if you then draw the arm, the viewer will not be able to feel the bones, the muscles or the blood beneath the surface skin. If you look at the drawings of Leonardo, or Michelangelo, you can feel all this just at a glance. This comes purely from the gift for drawing, which no matter how great a gift must still be watered like a plant is watered, and that nurturing is study. Leonardo studied from Nature, and he studied anatomy by dissecting bodies. His drawings are so great that we can now study anatomy through them, as I did.

DRAPERY STUDIES

I was also fascinated by Leonardo's beautiful Drapery Studies. I had often noticed that in crumpled up sheets I could see faces, or even bodies, and so I too was always fascinated by cloth, and made many drapery studies over the years. I also paint cloth in many of my paintings, whenever possible, as I am still fascinated by all its expressive and aesthetic qualities.

Drapery Study Christian	Drapery Study Leonardo

GROTESQUES (and unusual faces/expressions)

Another of the many things Leonardo and I have in common is that he was fascinated by peoples' faces, particularly physiognomies that were extreme. He would be known to pursue a particular "subject" for hours, studying their facial movements, grimaces and features, and then return to his studio and make sketches from his memory, if he hadn't already made them while he was following his man (or woman) around. He made the most fantastic studies of many people of this ilk, and they are known as "Grotesques." I loved his most famous one, and as I do when I want a favourite Master drawing, I copied it. This is always done free-hand, using a technique in which erasing is impossible, and therefore no mistakes can be made. When I am doing it, I really feel a strong sense of the presence of the Spirit of the master whom I am copying; it is really as if their Spirit is entering into the actual work, helping me the more accurately to achieve it. This is true to the point where on two occasions I have made copies with no knowledge whatsoever of the size of the original. In each case it transpired that my copy was the same size as the original - and in one case where I had worked from a black and white reproduction even the colour proved identical to the original - to the millimetre. On one occasion, I met someone whose face excited me so much I persuaded him to allow me to draw him. I made four drawings of him, three of which I sold over the next year or two. The one I kept however, turned out to bear such a strong resemblance to one or even two Leonardo drawings I saw years later that I am convinced we have used the same model - only in different lifetimes and different centuries. My model was a smuggler. I later actually painted him, and called the portrait "The Smuggler." Years later I saw the same painting, i.e. obviously the same model, with even the same title, in the Louvre, by a friend of Leonardo's. It's experiences like that which make me believe absolutely in psychic phenomenon, including of course reincarnation. Such experiences have also told me quite clearly who I was "before." A final note to alarm sceptics further but to fascinate believers (in psychic phenomenon) one of the reasons why I know so much about Leonardo is that one of my closest friends, a writer, has been in psychic contact with Leonardo for as long as thirty years! This friend talks to the Master - and several other ones - as regularly as you and I might talk to our best friends. He has told me so many things that only I could know the truth of, having made such similar drawings myself for example, that I never doubted the verity of my friend at all, or all he told me of some of the most extraordinary things I have ever heard, coming directly from the Master himself. The reason he never published this unique knowledge before was simply because he knew that no one (other than me!) would ever believe him, and he wasn't interested in simply publishing another "fantasy" novel. Between my constant persuasion and the renewed interest in Leonardo due to a popular thriller however, my friend will be publishing his book later this year titled "Conversations With Leonardo da Vinci (and other Old Masters)" Watch out for it and find out the truth of many mysteries, including the story of Mona Lisa and even Leonardo's (two) reincarnations.
	Self-Portrait, Grotesque Christian
	Profile Drawing Leonardo
	Joseph Christian Profile Study Leonardo

Apart from his "Grotesques" Leonardo was also fascinated, as am I, by particularly beautiful faces, especially of young girls or young men. Sometimes I see similarities between our models or drawings that may be completely coincidental but interesting nevertheless. I show the drawing of the girl in a turban as well, because it is typical of the kind of thing that would excite Leonardo, the combination of a beautiful face at an unusual angle and drapery - all in one drawing. Just up his street, but happily for me, I did it.

Susan in a Turban Christian	Susan Christian	Portrait of a Young Woman Leonardo

Flower Study Leonardo

Chrysanthemums Christian

BOTANICAL DRAWING

While Leonardo's interests in Nature tended to be scientific and mine are purely aesthetic, nonetheless the beauty of his sketches which I saw when still very young inspired me enough to get out there and start really looking. Leonardo, like me, was left handed - he was in fact ambidextrous, but used mainly his left hand - and so when he shades it is an automatically left-handed shading, with the lines going diagonally from left to right. Therefore, as my drawing technique evolved over years of practice, since my manner of shading was the same as Leonardo's, our drawings tended to look more and more stylistically similar, and my drawings tended to be likened to those of Leonardo more than any other Master, except perhaps Durer, (1471 - 1528) who was another of those up there with the greatest amongst all draughtsmen. During his Italian travels he actually met and worked with Leonardo; they apparently went out into the countryside together to follow Leonardo's creed and make "drawings from Nature." I find the idea of the two of them, two of the finest draughtsmen in the history of art creating their miracles side by side in the then unspoilt countryside almost too wonderful to imagine, but it happened. By the way, returning to the subject of Leonardo having been one of my Guides from when I was ten, it is interesting to note that since I finally became a Master draughtsman, not actually until 1970 when I was already 25, Leonardo was never "sighted" behind my left shoulder by any psychics ever again. I felt the honour he had done to me had been served, and I became too busy actually drawing to miss him, which I know is exactly what he would want.

Tree Drawing Leonardo

The Bull Tree Christian

Leonardo seems to me to have his scientific eye even on trees, but nevertheless draws them with a fluency that makes anything he ever approaches into a work of beauty. Trees fascinated me from when I first spent time in the country, away from cities in which I was brought up and therefore spent all my time in. But no sooner was I let loose in Mother Nature than trees became one of my main subjects. (I once spent two and a half months in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, where I drew 118 trees!) This particular tree I show here was drawn in Nepal. As I was drawing it, on a mountain ledge, a bull came sauntering past, and so I stood to let it pass by. He casually turned his head towards me, picked me up in his horns and tossed me like a matchstick over the 120 foot drop. By the grace of the gods who were determined that I should at least finish my drawing, I managed to grab an overhanging bit of foliage and pull myself up. The bull had completely lost interest by then and meandered off. As soon as my trembling knees stopped their shaking, I sat back down on the blessed earth and completed the drawing. And so it has a quite special sentiment for me, this particular tree...

Anthony Christian

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