Opinion Piece
Leonardo da Vinci and Merlin
Alfred Tennyson wrote the collection of poems known as "Idylls of the King" The Illustrator for this piece was Gustave Doré who was an Illustrator, engraver, painter and sculptor.
|
As I have scoured the internet and libraries to find anything and everything about Leonardo da Vinci, there is so much information, yet so little. In the course of my own academic adventure, I stumbled across an interesting but astonishing idea.
A famous poet by the name of Alfred Lord Tennyson, wrote a collection of poems on his take of the legend of King Arthur called Idylls of the King. In that collection, I noticed the illustrations in the section of Merlin and Vivien. What I saw was peculiar to me.
A famous poet by the name of Alfred Lord Tennyson, wrote a collection of poems on his take of the legend of King Arthur called Idylls of the King. In that collection, I noticed the illustrations in the section of Merlin and Vivien. What I saw was peculiar to me.
Idylls of the King : Merlin and Vivien
Da Vinci and Merlin
Comparing the illustrations in Lord Tennyson's book, I saw a an astonishing resemblance to da Vinci in the illustrations of Merlin. Gustave Doré was the illustrator of the book of which da Vinci may have been one of his idols. Could Doré have used the great Leonardo da Vinci as a source for the wizard Merlin in the story? Though Merlin was a wizard in the tale, there are striking similarities between what was known as science or as sorcery.
If you place both the picture of Merlin and Leonardo da Vinci together, there striking similarities between the two that it does not seem like a coincidence. The collection of poems were written well after the death of da Vinci, but the image of the Renaissance man that was Leonardo still had an impact in the time of Tennyson and Doré, as well as it does today.