AHCS Speaker Series - Michael Cole

Leonardo Against Nature

Leonardo da Vinci’s investigations of nature led him to reflect on the “counter-natural,” a category revived from antiquity that identified art with violence. This paper will examine Leonardo's redefinition of thecounter-natural, looking both at his sources and at the significance of his thinking for the understanding of painting ca. 1500.

Michael Cole
Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

Michael Cole is a leading expert on European art of the fifteenth
through eighteenth centuries, with a specialization in early modern
Italy.  His recent books and articles have focused on sculpture and
urbanism in Rome and Florence, on Renaissance magic and demonology, and
on experimental etching. In 2009-2010, he was Robert Sterling Clark
Visiting Professor at Williams College. His book publications include:
Ambitious Form: Giambologna, Ammanati, and Danti in Florence (Princeton
University Press, 2011); Italian Renaissance Art (with Stephen Campbell)
(Thames & Hudson, 2011); The Early Modern Painter-Etcher (editor) (Penn
State Press, 2006); Inventions of the Studio, Renaissance to Romanticism
(co-edited with Mary Pardo) (University of North Carolina Press, 2004);
and Cellini and the Principles of Sculpture (London and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004)