Day Out with Da Vinci

"Sketches of a woman, bust length"

One of the advantages of my class schedule is flexibility. Since I only have class on two, sometimes three days out of the week, I can occasionally take a day to get out of the flat and explore.

I apologize in advance for the strange angles of my photographs - the lighting made it difficult to avoid a glare.

On Tuesday, my friends and I took a bus to Holyrood Palace. After a quick cup of tea, we spent hours walking through the Da Vinci exhibit. Audio guides told us about his drawings, his aspirations, his love of the sciences, and his curious mind. Our modern education system often treats the arts and sciences like completely separate subjects, but for Da Vinci, they were closely intertwined. His love of science and math informed his art, and his artistry informed his scientific and mathematical pursuits. Da Vinci used his art to understand how the world around him worked. His focus was on making his drawings accurate and precise, and this precision has its own incredible beauty to it.

"The bones, muscles, and tendons of the hand"

I especially loved a four-part drawing he did of a hand, where in each new part he added a layer of anatomy. Bone, then muscle, then tendons. He wanted to put together an anatomy anthology, but never finished it - only one of several projects he didn't have a chance to see to completion. Da Vinci was also commissioned to design a memorial statue, which he did, but the plans were eventually abandoned.

Sometimes it feels like every creative endeavor has to serve a purpose. Like every time we create something, it has to be seen, evaluated, used. That's something I love about aestheticism - it's art for the sake of art. Beauty for the sake of beauty, and for no other reason. The art we do, the things we create - they don't need to been seen or even to be 'good'. The word amateur, which often has a negative connotation, comes from the Latin word amare: to love. To do something for the love of it. Not that Da Vinci was an amateur in any stretch of the imagination, but it's nice to know that not all of his work went on to serve a particular purpose. That some of it ended up just existing, just for him (and now us). I'm sure he enjoyed the creative process all the same.

"Sketches for the Last Supper, and other studies"

The most interesting part of the exhibit was a piece of scrap paper. It shows a few diagrams, some notes, and two sketches of Da Vinci's most famous work, "Last Supper". They're not exactly something to behold, not anything I would have noticed if the audio guide didn't point them out. The artist was working out how to position Judas - on the same side of the table as Jesus, or on the opposite side? Leaning toward Him, or leaning away? Is Jesus reaching out to Judas, or not?

What fascinates me about this is that it's a piece of scrap paper. In the midst of planning out what would become one of the most well-known paintings in history, Da Vinci grabbed the closest piece of paper and sketched out a few partial scenes. He kept using that paper, too, for other work. He didn't keep it reverently off to one side with the thought that it would one day be displayed in a museum exhibit dedicated entirely to him - he just kept doing his work. He just kept on creating, pouring his attention to detail into every last project.

"Neptune"

We ogled over Da Vinci's work for the better part of two hours before leaving in search of dinner. Holyrood Palace sits at the bottom of the Royal Mile, so the four of us wandered up the incline to our chosen restaurant. On the way, we stopped by the Museum of Edinburgh. It's a smaller museum, with a few models of the Royal Mile and cabinets full of old silver. Interesting, but nothing I'd spend a day on.

The real treat was dinner, at a restaurant off Old Fishmarket Close called "Wings". It serves (surprise!) wings - amazing wings. Sizzling, dry, BBQ, sweet, fresh - you name it, they've got it. And the place is nerd heaven. The walls are covered in paintings and posters of every geeky franchise you can think of: Star Wars? Check. Jurassic Park? Check. Star Trek? You know it. Lord of the Rings? It's there somewhere. The building is hidden away in an alley on a hill, so you wouldn't know it's there if you're just wandering around, but look it up. Make a reservation. Get yourself to Wings.

No adventures this weekend, as a stomach virus got me after a game of Dungeons and Dragons on Thursday (my character is a dragon-born paladin, for those who know what that means. Brass class). But it's reading week now, which means I'll have time to work ahead before my brother and sister-in-law fly in this weekend! Yay! My first visitors since Thanksgiving!

"The skull sectioned"

Things I'm really missing from the US:

1. Eat N Park (it's a restaurant, if you're not from Western PA). There was one close to my office last year, and I ordered food from there so often they knew my 'usual' by heart. The conversations always went like this:

- "Thanks for calling Eat N Park, would you like to place an order for pick-up?"

- "Yes, please."

- "Name?"

- "Annie."

- "Annie! Let me see - reuben on a gluten-free bun, no cheese, with a side of hash browns?"

- "That's the one! Thanks Emily."

2. Snow. Don't get me wrong, I love not having to dig my car free every morning or shiver while I wait for the windshield to defrost, but the few flurries we've had here haven't stuck. I miss the winter wonderland feel.

Things I've discovered about Scotland:

1. Why nobody carries an umbrella. I'd thought it was because the rain just sort of spits, so it's not really worth it, and that's true. But when it pours, the winds are so strong that your umbrella is more likely to get blown inside-down than actually protect you. Read: my umbrella is broken now. At some point, you have to just give up and accept you're going to get soaked.

Book Recommendation: The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo. It's a collection of short, fairy-tale-like stories, and my YA class read it for Fantasy week. While these stories do resemble classic fairy-tales, the endings are not what you expect - which makes the implications and 'morals' all the more interesting. There is also some beautiful artwork for each story.