Fotoreproductie van een schets door Leonardo da Vinci, voorstellende een zelfportret c. 1875 - 1900

Curator: It’s fascinating, isn't it? This phot reproduction of a sketch, allegedly Leonardo da Vinci’s self-portrait, made sometime between 1875 and 1900 by Carlo Naya, rendered in pencil and graphite. The Italian Renaissance re-imagined through a 19th-century lens... interesting! Editor: I find myself immediately drawn to the profound sense of introspection. It’s as if da Vinci, even through this reproduction, is looking inward, contemplating the mysteries of existence. Curator: Absolutely. It brings up interesting questions around authenticity, of course. Naya's work here presents us not with *the* original Renaissance, but with a crafted vision of it for his contemporary audience, placing Da Vinci squarely in the realm of genius for consumption by the bourgeois. What do you think Naya was trying to communicate? Editor: It feels like an elegy to a titan, a melancholic revisiting. The soft graphite lines contribute to this feeling. There’s a quiet vulnerability to it. Almost as though, looking at his own image, he found peace and turmoil equally intermixed. I imagine the weight of brilliance. Curator: A great point. Think of the role photography played at the time—increasingly available but also mediated and framing artistic tradition. So we see a copy of Da Vinci's image, itself subject to interpretation, widely distributed through photo reproduction. Its access that creates distance... quite complex, wouldn’t you say? Editor: Complex, but deeply moving. What’s really striking about the work to me is that the artist managed to capture, with relatively sparse strokes, such an intense emotional space. Even a reproduced sketch can be a raw exposure, revealing a truth about a person’s spirit, even centuries later. The mystery only adds to his iconic status, which, in the end, only increases our hunger to understand. Curator: Indeed. A ghostly whisper echoing through time, reproduced again and again, ensuring Leonardo and Renaissance never disappear. Editor: A perfect note to end on. Thank you.