Paper Sculpture

The pictorial work, despite the exceptional quality of the results, is made up of a small number of paintings and frescoes both due to historical contingencies, which saw Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century traversed by bloody clashes and political instability which forced many artists to move often uncomfortable and hasty, both for a personal working method, marked by constant research and an in-depth study that comes close to that dissatisfaction that distinguishes, almost par excellence, the modern artist wuth a continuous hand to the brush.

Paper Sculpture

The pictorial work, despite the exceptional quality of the results, is made up of a small number of paintings and frescoes both due to historical contingencies, which saw Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century traversed by bloody clashes and political instability which forced many artists to move often uncomfortable and hasty, both for a personal working method, marked by constant research and an in-depth study that comes close to that dissatisfaction that distinguishes, almost par excellence, the modern artist wuth a continuous hand to the brush.
Leafing through the notebooks is like you’re witnessing, just like it is an invisible presence, to the stream of thoughts and to the reasonings that from the observation turn into solutions to specific practical problems or to a scheme of interpretation of natural events.

Leafing through the notebooks is like you’re witnessing, just like it is an invisible presence, to the stream of thoughts and to the reasonings that from the observation turn into solutions to specific practical problems or to a scheme of interpretation of natural events.
This working and studying process relives with strength and novelty in the editions of the manuscripts that are shown here. Process that, in its translation on paper, voluntarily ignores the blocks that today are consolidated between scientific and artistic activity. They are specimens that meticulously replicate Leonardo’s texts in all their details but they could also be defined with an oxymoron that qualifies them as “unique reproductions”.
The reproduction should be in contrast with the uniqueness of an object since it only yearns to be the most similar to the original and this seems to agree with what was said about the extreme care in recreating every aspect of Leonardo’s manuscripts. It should be noted that Collezione Apocrifa da Vinci didn’t want to create the technical reproductions (mechanical nature) of the notebooks and drawings. Mechanical reproductions produce a banal object because it lacks the aura that identifies the original. Instead, the worth and the meaning of his actions rely on this subtle distinction between mechanical reproduction and a reproduction where handcrafted and human techniques manage to create a strong bond of affinity with the original work. The work that Collezione Apocrifa da Vinci led on Leicester codex, codex of the flight of the birds, codex Forster I, codex Forster II, codex Forster III, manuscript A and the anatomical drawings of the series I and II is the result of a refined selection of materials (from the valuable papers to the dyeing products, to the silk of the wrapping) and of a long period of research on both the dyeing and paper processing procedures. The duration of these production procedures requires slow rhythms because it is constrained by choices of high-objective machining and therefore determines slow rhythms, given the particularity of the work.
The jagged edges of the pages, the lacerations and all the wounds that the time inflicted on the sheets of paper are looked after with a work of shaping and sharpening, that softens the clean cut of the paper and restores the sanding sensation that objects are subjected to because of the passing of time. But it’s the paper itself that acquires a different consistency since after the procedures the paper is different compared to the usual material that we are used to handle every day, just like the the sound that can be heard when quickly leafing through the pages reminds the action of natural elements, even more vivid if we consider that Leonardo took his manuscripts together with him wherever he went. It might be given by the heat of the sun that dries out the pages or the humidity that curls them slightly or just simple everyday facts that, in the passing of time, stained and consumed them. The tones vary from sand to brick red to cobalt blue and in some parts it tends to yellow-red shades. These variations depend on the passing of time but also on the availability of materials that Leonardo had when had to draw or just write down his observations and notes.

The manuscripts that Collezione Apocrifa da Vinci had produced represents a unique creation when it comes to the perceptual qualities that they propose and to the care of details and the overall execution.The main purpose of this result is not only to have been able to create an accurate representation of Leonardo’s original works, that allows us to handle an object that offers the experience of observing and leafing through the notebooks, finding the same characteristics, and also -and most importantly- the same sensations we feel when handling the authentic Codex, but also to have escaped the pretentious and impossible idea of an absolute copy, that therefore could’ve been considered really “false” because neutral.