Polymath masterclass
Martin Kemp’s new online course about Leonardo da Vinci is valuable for its portraits of both the Renaissance artist and the scholar who has studied him for decades.
To adapt a variously-attributed saying, filming drawings and paintings is like dancing about economics. For that reason, I have not been drawn to any number of online art “masterclasses,” which I have seen advertised. First, I do not think shiny screens and panning camerawork do artworks justice, and second, I prefer settings where I can bombard experts with as many questions as I am permitted to passive learning.
But as I try to do with every assignment I receive, I sought to set my biases aside when I began working on an article about renowned art historian Martin Kemp’s masterclass on Leonardo da Vinci. I sat through about four hours worth of lectures (divided into some 22 sessions), and I found the course doubly useful. I learned quite a bit about da Vinci and—surprisingly—found myself really appreciating getting more of a glimpse of who Kemp is as a person and a scholar.
Happily, I also had the chance to interview Kemp, Oxford University art history professor emeritus, and Waqas Ahmed, the masterclass producer, in an extended video conversation.
My article about the masterclass appears in artnet.