One of the mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci is that he had very few pupils of any renown, even though he maintained a large studio. In this next series, we will see if that claim is really true. That he had many apprentices and associates is certainly a matter of record. Being accepted as a pupil to a Florentine studio meant that aspiring artists would learn to draw, to prep wet plaster or wooden panels, to stretch canvas, and to grind and mix pigments in order to create paint (since ready-made paint tubes of the type we use today would not appear until the late 19th century).
As the apprentice advanced in skill and experience, he would be allowed to transfer a preparatory drawing or “cartoon” to a plaster or wood surface, or to paint elements of lesser importance, such as details of the background. To acquire such assistants, artists usually accepted promising young pupils at an early age, and trained them through various stages of apprenticeship until they were thoroughly indoctrinated in the style and technique of the master.
The essential difference between “apprentices” and “collaborators” was that Leonardo was paid for taking pupils under his wing, because he would also be responsible for their food and clothing, whereas fellow maestri would conceivably share in the proceeds of whatever work they sold together.
Like his teacher Verrocchio, Leonardo always emphasized the art of drawing as a principal pedagogical agency in his workshop. Whereas a painting involves a long and laborious effort with uneven outcome, a drawing could be sketched quickly, and then modified or improved upon with just a few strokes.
According to Paolo Giovio, one of Leonardo’s biographers, Leonardo went as far as to forbid his pupils, until twenty years of age, to “use a paintbrush or paints.” Instead, he made them “work with lead point to choose and reproduce diligently the excellent models of earlier works, to imitate with simple line drawings the force of nature, and outlines of bodies that present themselves to our eyes with a great variety of movement.” Thus, Giovio believed, Leonardo prevented his students to be “seduced by the brush and colors” before they learned to properly draw.
It is not always easy to determine the pedagogical purpose of some of the drawings that Leonardo executed in the years when he ran his first Milanese studio. In many, he appears to be preoccupied with themes that appealed to him personally, rather than those that could be used to teach drawing to a beginning artist. Nevertheless, it is possible to discern some ideas that would interest him throughout his career. One of these is his constant concern to inject life and spontaneity in the motif of the Madonna, which was a highly popular motif in Quattrocento Italy.
From the very beginning of his career as an artist, starting in the workshop of Verrocchio, Leonardo looked for ways in which Mary and her child could be depicted in a more natural, more affective way, thus eliciting empathy and love in the beholder. Starting around 1480, this produced a series of drawings around the theme of the infant Jesus and a cat. Having the child play with a cat could inject the sense of playfulness and spontaneity that Leonardo was looking for.
