Bernardino Branca
University of Kent, UK
https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7509-6163
Abstract Wind left relatively few notes and publications on his Leonardo lectures and studies. This means that reconstructing his interpretation of Leonardo must involve some degree of conjecture. However, the slides of Leonardo’s drawings and paintings which he selected for his lectures, ‘talk’; as Wind says, they embody the metaphysical ideas present in Leonardo’s art, which Wind wanted to underscore. In his Leonardo studies, Wind followed in the footsteps of Warburg. Like Warburg, he identifies Leonardo’s Last Supper as part of a culture in which opposing rational and irrational forces— ‘Logos’ and ‘Magic’— coexist. Such forces are expressed through allegorical works of art, which create a ‘conceptual space’ between the viewer and the traumatic events depicted. Wind, following Warburg, recognizes that such forces are expressed through the ‘Afterlife’ of ancient physiognomic profile types. In so doing, Wind perfects Warburg’s interpretation of Leonardo and Italian Renaissance culture. As shown in my previous Wind studies, Wind’s aim in his papers on Raphael and Michelangelo was the same as the goal of his Leonardo studies: the understanding of the spiritual world of the Renaissance. In doing so, he would pave the way for the understanding of the symbolic meaning of each of the Leonardo works he interpreted. As Wind said, ‘a great symbol is the reverse of a sphinx; it is more alive when its riddle is answered’.
Keywords Leonardo, Platonism, Physiognomy, Aby Warburg, Edgar Wind
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The Edgar Wind Journal 8: 4-70, 2025
DOI: 10.53245/EWJ-000040
Copyright: © 2025 B. Branca. This is an open access, peer-reviewed article published by Bernardino Branca