Leonardo Da Vinci and Bare Feet

A brief look on his art and anatomy sketches, in special reference to bare feet


A zoomed-in view of Raffael's The Athens
School , Plato (left) and Aristotle. (1)
Many have interpreted the face of Plato
as being an idealized portrait of
Leonardo himself.
(Note that Plato/"Leonardo" is shown barefoot...!)

The image above depicts a greek philosopher (if not the most commonly known ancient Greek philospher) in his bare feet... But it is not only in reverence to Plato but also in reverence to the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci that Raffael did this picture, of which the image shows only a part.

This is a sub-page of Andreas Spring's barefoot page, and now he even gets good ol' Leonardo into the matter...? - Yes, and rightly so. Leonardo is known all over the world not only for his art, but also for his achievements in technology, astronomy, biology and anatomy. And for the latter part, he found it necessary to study the human body in all its parts and sometimes praise the aesthetics of its from in both word and picture. The human foot is no exception, as some images here will clearly show: Leonardo has in fact praised the foot as being both the strongest and the most beautiful tool in achieving the goal of holding a human body's weight, and carry that human body, wherever its inhabitant wishes...

Take a look at the following images and decide, whether Leonardo was right:

Top left: Leonardo's sight of a calf with an X-ray view
at the foot, muscles and bones exposed. (2)
Top right: A foot in motion, with a detailed look at it
from underneath the sole... (2) .
Bottom left: Study sketches (charcoal drawing) of an infant's
foot and the front part of an adult's foot. (3)

(1) Taken from: Silvia Alberti de Mazzeri, Leonardo da Vinci - Die moderne Deutung eines Universalgenies, (translated from Italian), Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, München, 1995
(2) Taken from: Leonardo da Vinci - Anatomische Zeichnungen , (German edition), Fribourg/Genève, 1978
(3) Taken from: Leonardo da Vinci (German edition), Hasso Ebeling Verlag, Luxembourg, 1977

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Page Design by: Andreas Spring
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Last updated: Aug. 7, 2006

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