Imagine sitting down with Leonardo da Vinci, engaging him in conversation, perhaps even wandering into his genius. That is exactly what you will do at “Da Vinci: The Exhibition” at Kansas City’s Union Station.
Occupying nearly 15,000 square feet in Union Station’s Bank of America Gallery, “Da Vinci: The Exhibition” presents the works of Leonardo da Vinci like never before. All of Leonardo’s major works are on display, including brilliant re-creations of his two most famous paintings, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper presented at their full size.
While the mastery of Leonardo’s paintings are undeniable, the real eye-opener is everything else Leonardo did.
He designed the Ideal City, invented the helicopter, created the first SCUBA system, and made plans for the first automobile – all of this over 500 years ago. Turns out, Leonardo was as accomplished in scientific thinking and creative problem solving as he was at the Arts.
“Da Vinci: The Exhibition” unlocks the secrets of Leonardo’s notebooks, also known as Codices, which in addition to illustrations, poetry, and secret writing, also contain thousands of designs for practical, ingenious machines meant to make our lives easier. Da Vinci’s designs come off the page and become life-sized dimensional machines for you to explore and experience.
At the beginning of the exhibition, a brief film invites you to explore Leonardo’s works and let your imagination take flight – an appropriate word that leads into the first gallery, where Leonardo’s flying machines surround you. Some hang from the ceiling, looking very much like they could carry you across the room, while the Aerial Screw — the first design for the helicopter — turns before you. Da Vinci, it turns out, spent much of his life dedicated to devising a method for human flight, wanting us to one day soar as high as his ideas.
Instead of displaying objects under glass, the exhibition presents machines you can actually touch and move. It also has carved out spaces where you can create your own flying machines. The giant Study of the Flapping Wing is a favorite in the Flight Gallery; and the vertical wind tunnel lets you give flight to our own inventions.
As we journey deeper into the exhibition, we learn flight was only one of many subjects Leonardo tackled. He delved into nearly every discipline. Galleries dedicated to physics, civil engineering, time, and optics include inventions such as the first spring-wound clock, a room of mirrors you can enter, and a flywheel (which inspired the creation of the first steam engine). At one point, I found myself asking “What didn’t Leonardo invent?” Such is the familiar feeling the exhibition creates, one that allows us to call Da Vinci by his first name.
There are surprises around every corner . . . as if Leonardo himself (an accomplished Master of Ceremonies) had planned your journey. A diving suit with underwater breathing equipment is followed by the first concept for the automobile, and nearby the first bicycle. The Military Gallery further into the exhibition is equally impressive.
It’s fitting the exhibition concludes with Da Vinci’s anatomical illustrations and paintings. The only artist of his era to perform dissections, Leonardo’s drawings of human anatomy changed medicine and the understanding of the human body forever, and directly influenced his uncanny ability to represent the human form in his paintings. All of his major paintings are displayed at their full size in a sublime art gallery style (including a few that scholars still dispute were created by him) and culminate with a gallery dedicated to that impressive Last Supper painting. Sit and take it all in, then try your own hand at a masterpiece in the final art activation area.
Leonardo’s powerful legacy and staying power are evident all around us. We still consider him one of history’s most prolific thinkers. We still look to his Codices for inspiration centuries after they were created. The exhibition, like Leonardo himself, will encourage you – and your entire family — to let your ideas take flight.
“Da Vinci: The Exhibition” at Union Station runs October 23, 2015 thru May 1, 2016. Downloadable audio tour is available and Group Ticket prices are offered. More info at unionstation.org/davinci.
