Surface tensions ... Leonardo da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi
Maurizio Seracini is a phenomenon. A Channel 4 programme recently called the scientist - who uses hi-tech methods to analyse works of art - "The Da Vinci Detective". A few years ago the Uffizi Gallery asked Seracini to apply his "diagnostics" to one of its treasures, Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished Adoration of the Magi. He found many drawings - human and animal figures, an extensive battle, a building site, even a stray elephant - below the visible surface.
It is scarcely surprising that Leonardo's most complex image contains even more figures than the eye can see. Yet Seracini does find it surprising, and believes he has found "proof" that Leonardo did not paint most of what we see: an early layer was, he proposes, already old when later layers were added. His theory is that a painter was hired to botch Leonardo's giant drawing into something like a conventional Adoration.
Last week I met Seracini in Florence, but I left appalled by the insensitivity and lovelessness of his view of Leonardo's great work.
Let's get something straight. The Adoration of the Magi, as it stands, as it looks, as it has been loved for centuries, is a masterpiece, its greatness as much a "fact" as anything Seracini has come up with.
So I sat outraged in front of his computer while he went through detail after detail of what he claims is the sloppy work of a painter who cannot have been Leonardo. What's he talking about? I look at the Adoration and see genius. If any hand but Leonardo's shaped it then the second artist, too, was a genius. How likely is that?
The Uffizi is currently displaying the Adoration in a way that contextualises Seracini's findings. The important drawings he has brought to light are shown in a film alongside Leonardo's Saint Jerome from the Vatican - an unfinished work like the Adoration with the same brown tones and deep shadows. If a later artist repainted the Adoration he must have imitated the way an unfinished Leonardo looks. Again, is that likely?
I put this to Seracini and he replied that it's time to do diagnostic tests on the St Jerome. Now we're through the looking glass. Presented with another Leonardo that resembles the Adoration, Seracini implies it, too, must have been doctored, rather than consider the possibility that he has overstated his case.
People often get excited about the appliance of science to art but the traditional methods of criticism have their place. Surely if you can't see that The Adoration of the Magi is a masterpiece, you probably shouldn't be allowed anywhere near it?
