By Patrick F. Cannon

Sometimes, the world throws irony right in our kisser. A couple of weeks ago, PBS ran a four-hour documentary by Ken Burns on Leonardo DaVinci. It appeared on November 18 and 19. The very next day, artist Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian,” which consists of a banana taped to a wall with duct tape, sold to a crypto currency billionaire for $6.24 million at Christie’s auction house in New York.

            The new owner planned to eat the banana, which seems counter intuitive. But wait. It was not actually that specific banana and piece of tape he bought, but the idea. He is now free to spend about 35 cents on a new banana; a fresh roll of duct tape can be had for less than $10. So long as he has his certificate of authenticity, he’s golden (or at least yellow). Of course, Cattelan has complained that he only got $120,000 to $150,000 for the three versions he originally sold in 2019. Since he created the work as an ironical comment on the craziness of the art market, I think he should feel vindicated by the stupidity of the transaction.

            Another of Cattelan’s masterpieces is a gold toilet, titled “America.” Presumably, it’s meant as a comment on our bathroom activities. It reminds one of Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal of 1917, which he hung on the wall  and called “Fountain.” The original urinal is lost, but nice copies are available at your plumbing supply store. Duchamp has a lot to answer for!    

            Back to DaVinci. His “Salvator Mundi” is currently the most expensive art work ever sold at public auction. It also sold at Christie’s. The hammer price in 2017 was approximately $450 million. It’s said to be in storage in Saudi Arabia, awaiting the construction of a new museum to house it (and draw the tourists). Interestingly, the authenticity of the paining has been questioned by some experts, which is par for the course in the art world.

            The artist’s “Mona Lisa,” at the Louvre in Paris, is thought to be the most valuable of all paintings, estimated to be worth north of a billion dollars. It’s such a draw that it is now almost impossible to get close enough to study it. It is one of only about 20 finished works by him.

            As the documentary makes clear, painting may not have been Leonardo’s primary interest. He also left behind thousands of pages of illustrated journals, full of drawings just as brilliant as his paintings. He even managed to make drawings of our innards elegant and compelling. In trying to understand how we might fly, he observed and sketched hundreds of birds in flight. Almost nothing escaped his interest – military fortifications and weapons; methods and apparatus for moving and controlling water; a parachute design that would prove to be workable; and studies in solar power, geometry, and even plate tectonics.

            One of the expert talking heads claimed that Leonardo was transformative in art and science in the same way that Shakespear and Bach would become in literature and music. While you might argue that other painters were as good or better than him, none could claim his passion for discovering how things in nature actually worked. He simply wasn’t satisfied with the notion that the Gods were directing the world like some heavenly choir.

            Today is Thanksgiving. Like the rest of the year, we are surrounded by the absurd, not only in the art market, but even more in the political realm. On this day at least, let’s put all of that aside and concentrate on those like Leonardo who created the modern world. In my own lifetime, for example, the native Turkey has gone from bony and tough to the toothsome delight it is today. So, please pass the stuffing, and I’ll need more of that gravy!

Copyright 2024, Patrick F. Cannon