Fine Art: Perception, Seeing and Meaning of Aesthetics

It is true that art is spiritual; it is also true that art is ever present with us. In the words of the late sculptor and art educator, Mr. Sam Majemite: “Look at the whole man-made world, all you see is art.” There cannot be a better truth. In all my years as a practising artist and art writer, I have come to a better understanding of the intrinsic values of (fine) art simply by noticing people’s perception of the world around them. Art embodies all works having to do with human creativity – works wrought by human hands; fine art deals with fineness, and even finesse as a concept; it is about any work requiring specialised skills. But art transcends the physical essence; art is – romancing with the muse.

Leonardo da Vinci

It was the Renaissance man – Leonardo da Vinci who rightly stated that “The eye is the window of the soul”; such amazing thought. It summarises all that art and the artist is about. At this point you would wonder if art is not a branch of philosophy; well, I think it is. Drawing inference from the power of conjecture, and how different people tend to observe differently, seeing and looking become two markedly divergent concepts.

Leonardo da Vinci – the Renaissance man

Have you ever heard of the Renaissance Man; what about the painting called ‘Mona Lisa’; do you know of the one who first thought of the possibility of flying that he even went ahead to execute drawings of flying machines centuries before man ever actualised that dream? These and many more are all attributable to one man, indeed one of the greatest geniuses if not the greatest, that ever walked the surface of this planet earth. I am talking of Leonardo da Vinci. Thus this is my personal perception of the universe man whose body of works has continued to astound everybody around the world. That is Leonardo da Vinci - the legend and enigma; a bundle of unquantifiable creative opulence.

‘Virgin of the Rocks’ - Painting

Thus Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, republic of Florence or present day Italy; he excelled in everything he ever set out his mind to do: He was outstanding as an artist (painter, sculptor, and draughtsman); he was equally outstanding and accomplished as an architect, poet, anatomist, writer, musician, mathematician, inventor, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and engineer. The world’s most famous piece of painting today, and the most expensive at that – Mona Lisa, is the work of this genius, and it is at least five hundred years old now. If you think of the popular painting called ‘The Last Supper’, it is also attributable to this great man of the arts and sciences. 

‘The Last Supper’ - Painting by Leonardo da Vinci

So much of Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical drawings have given vent to the drawings of anatomy that medical doctors make use of today. He sort of exemplifies the meaning and essence of the entire Renaissance period in that he stood as a figure towering centrally about this epoch. This was the period of European history at the close of the Middle Ages and the rise of the modern world; a cultural rebirth from the 14th through the middle of the 17th centuries.