EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

Renaissance giant Leonardo da Vinci passed away in 1519. Leonardo painted the world’s best-known paintings, The Last Supper and Mona Lisa (‘La Gioconda’ in Italian). However, the number of the works he created in his life of 67 years was surprisingly small, and only 16 paintings are known to have existed. Furthermore, most of his existing paintings are unfinished or partially lost. Only four finished paintings by Leonardo have survived in a complete form. In 2019, 500 years after his death, the world’s first project to restore Leonardo’s unfinished works through the latest scholarly studies and virtual reality (VR) technology took place at Tokyo Zokei University. In the hope of creating inventions unfeasible with the technology of the time using current technology in 500 years, some 100 students and alumni of Tokyo Zokei University joined the project. Under the supervision of teachers of Tokyo Zokei University, including Professor Hidehiro Ikegami, who is known for his study on Leonardo, the project participants painted unfinished parts and restored lost parts of his paintings based on scientific evidence. This exhibition is the world’s first project that has restored his 16 surviving paintings and presents the finished form of his unfinished paintings. Besides, Leonardo’s unfinished bronze equestrian statue, envisioned immense monumental structures, and engineering inventions unfeasible with the technology of the time have been recreated in scale model and 3D computer graphics. This exhibition also allows visitors to enter the VR spaces of his paintings including The Last Supper and experience the VR that enables visitors to operate his invented machines [Note 1]. These are also the world’s first attempts. In 2012, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum donated to Italy the 16th-century oil painting Tavola Doria (panel painting of the Doria family), derived from Leonardo’s lost mural The Battle of Anghiari. TFAM hosted the exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci and the Battle of Anghiari,” which aimed to explore his lost masterpiece, in 2015. This exhibition brought an opportunity for us to participate and cooperate in the Tokyo Zokei University’s project restoring Leonardo’s unfinished works by providing the materials related to the Tavola Doria. The exhibition “Realization of the Dreams of Leonardo da Vinci” held at TFAM presents some 30 works by Leonardo that have been restored for this project for the first time in the world, as well as featuring a special display of the Tavola Doria [Note 2]. [Note 1]: Some VR-related exhibits are changed or canceled to prevent the spread of COVID-19. [Note 2]: Due to the spread of COVID-19 in Japan and Italy, the exhibition displays the full-size replica in place of the original.