Leonardo da Vinci : Art and Mind is an online course that explores the artistic works and writings, the mind and the imaginative world of the great Renaissance artist. Leonardo da Vinci’s accomplishments in the Fine Arts and in scientific inquiry and research impacted in various ways, directly and indirectly, his contemporaries as well as the imagination of the following centuries (including our own time). This is reflected in his universal fame, and in the countless works dedicated to the various facets, endeavors and creations of the great Florentine.
The “paradox” of Leonardo’s life and works can be stated as that of a creative genius on one hand completely situated in his own time, totally expressing the energies and the aspirations of the times, as the projected embodiment of the Renaissance Ideal of the “uomo universale” (Universal Man) and, on the other hand, a kind of singular, solitary and in many ways misunderstood personality and creative intellect. The “enigma” of Leonardo, the man and the artist, persisting throughout the centuries is indeed this mix or compound of brilliancy and obscurity, of formal clarity and ambiguity of content and intent. The course explores in an interdisciplinary perspective the artistic, cultural and intellectual dimensions of Leonardo da Vinci’s life and works from the perspective and with the contributions of Art History, Art Theory, Neuroscience, Cultural Psychology and Cultural Anthropology as well as the sociological and historical literature on the Renaissance that have contributed to our present perspectives on the origins and development of the modern world.
The course is partially sponsored by CEPAOS Research Center (São Paulo, Brazil).
and therefore it is offered for a nominal (one time) tuition fee.
Instruction is conducted via Blackboard Platform made available by CEPAOS, various online resources and materials, real time communication as well as group discussions, individual consultation and collaborative projects
Instructors
Marcelo Guimarães Lima, PhD, MFA
Marcelo Guimarães Lima, PhD, MFA, is a visual artist, researcher and writer. He has taught drawing, painting, printmaking, the history and the theory of art, and the history of photography in the United States, in Spain and in Dubai (UAE).
Elvira Souza Lima, PhD
Elvira Souza Lima, PhD is an author and researcher in the fields of neurosciences, psychology, anthropology and music. She designs and implements interdisciplinary research projects and intervention programs applied to the areas of education, media and culture.
For more information and to enroll please write to leonardo.artandmind@gmail.com
Annunciation, by Leonardo da Vinci
(workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio)
circa 1472–1475
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
