Da Vinci's Shadow: The High Realist Legacy in Canadian Art

May 6, 2006 to September 24, 2006

Organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Saskatchewan Arts Board and City of Regina Arts Commission.

What is the real legacy of Leonardo da Vinci for the generations that have followed? While writers from Sigmund Freud to Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) have attempted to decipher his work in hopes of revealing its mysteries to audiences in our era, the real meaning of his work still lies in the artistic revolution which he and his contemporaries initiated over 500 years ago. This exhibition looks at how the visual language of Leonardo and the High Renaissance continues to speak today through the work of Canadian high realists, including Alex Colville, Ken Danby, Robert Bateman, and Mary Pratt among others. Leonardo's intense interest in observation - whatever the anotomy of a bird's wing or the reflected colours in a shadow - is a common thread that runs through this exhibition, which is drawn from the collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

Introducing the exhibition is a Renaissance drawing of two heads, which is a copy after one of Leonardo's most famous compositions, his monumental drawing The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist. Interestingly, Norman MacKenzie acquired this drawing in 1919 on the off-chance that it might make him one of North America's few owners of an authentic Leonardo da Vinci!

Image Credit:

Unknown (formerly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci or Giovanni Antonio Bazzi)
Virgin and Saint Anne, no date
black chalk on paper, 34 x 44.1 cm
MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection, gift of Mr. Norman MacKenzie

Da Vinci's Shadow: The High Realist Legacy in Canadian Art

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