Muscarelle Museum of Art Opens Leonardo da Vinci Exhibit Today

The Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary announced that the first exhibition devoted to Leonardo da Vinci's fascination with the beautiful and the ugly will open today, February 21, 2015 and will remain on view through April 5.

Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty will comprise more than 25 outstanding drawings by the Renaissance genius, including the precious sketches in the Codex on the Flight of Birds and the delicate Study for the Head of an Angel, which Sir Kenneth Clark considered "one of the most beautiful drawings in the world."

Visitors will be afforded a unique opportunity to explore the sources and influence of Leonardo's philosophy of beauty as revealed in an unprecedented concentration of his drawings, lent from the Uffizi museum in Florence and the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, Italy, and as contrasted with eight original drawings by his greatest rival, Michelangelo Buonarroti, specially selected from the Casa Buonarroti in Florence.

"Perhaps the emblem of this groundbreaking exhibition is the famous drawing from the Uffizi which represents an Old Man and Youth Seen in Profile. This image encapsulates Leonardo's obsession with the relentless natural destruction by time with beauty," said Aaron De Groft, director and CEO of the Muscarelle Museum of Art. "Two great scholars, Bernard Berenson and Sir Kenneth Clark, regarded this drawing as one of Leonardo's most intriguing of drawings and Clark regarded Study for the Face of an Angel the star of our exhibition perhaps "the most beautiful drawing in the world."

Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty has been curated by John T. Spike, assistant director and chief curator at the Muscarelle Museum of Art, and will be on view at the Muscarelle February 21 through April 5, 2015. It will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where it opens on Leonardo's birthday, April 15, and closes on June 14, 2015. These are the only two venues for this extraordinary exhibition.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art is located at 603 Jamestown Rd in Williamsburg, Va. For more information, call 757-221-2700 or visit www.wm.edu/muscarelle. Follow on Twitter (@Muscarelle), Pinterest (at the Muscarelle) or on Facebook (Muscarelle Museum of Art).