The Fragile Image in the Renaissance:
Leonardo and the Undone

»For as much as we want artworks to last, we know this is not always the case. This lecture argues that the Renaissance marked the first moment when the material decay of artworks became not only a concern but a subject of aesthetic and scientific attention. Central to this shift was Leonardo da Vinci, whose experimental techniques produced unstable works that prompted viewers to consider not just how art is made, but how it comes apart. As cracks, flaking, and fading exposed the sedimented layers of artistic labor, they turned paintings into ›open‹ works, legible through their dissolution. Much as Leonardo helped elevate the non-finito as a celebration of the artist’s hand, he also foregrounded a different kind of openness – the one furnished by decay. This lecture calls for the recognition of the ›undone‹ as a conceptual category through which to rethink early modern making. As a material condition, it speaks to matter in collapse, to form in retreat – yet it also stages revelation. In the undone, the artwork does not disappear, but makes itself known.«

— Francesca Borgo