The Da Vinci Women
The Untold Feminist Power of Leonardo's Art
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The Da Vinci Women
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Narrated by:
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Ana Clements
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By:
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Kia Vahland
About this listen
This new biographical look at Leonardo da Vinci explores the Renaissance master's groundbreaking portrayal of women which forever changed the way the female form is depicted. Leonardo da Vinci was a revolutionary thinker, artist, and inventor who has been written about and celebrated for centuries. Lesser known, however, is his revolutionary and empowering portrayal of the modern female centuries before the first women's liberation movements.
Before da Vinci, portraits of women in Italy were still, impersonal, and mostly shown in profile. Leonardo pushed the boundaries of female depiction having several of his female subjects, including his Mona Lisa, gaze at the viewer, giving them an authority which was withheld from women at the time. Art historian and journalist Kia Vahland recounts Leonardo's entire life from April 15, 1452, as a child born out of wedlock in Vinci up through his death on May 2, 1519, in the French castle of von Cloux. Included throughout are 80 sketches and paintings showcasing Leonardo's approach to the female form (including anatomical sketches of birth) and other artwork as well as examples from other artists from the 15th and 16th centuries. Vahland explains how artists like Raphael, Giorgione, and the young Titan were influenced by da Vinci's women while Michelangelo, da Vinci's main rival, created masculine images of woman that counters Leonardo's depictions.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Kia Vahland (P)2020 Black Dog & LeventhalListeners also enjoyed...
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Narrator ruins the narrative
- By amavita on 03-24-22
By: Paul Strathern
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Leonardo and the Last Supper
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 193
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 170
Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art - The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Informative yet creative
- By Isabellabasil on 05-27-15
By: Ross King
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Caravaggio
- A Life Sacred and Profane
- By: Andrew Graham-Dixon
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 478
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 413
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 413
In the tradition of John Richardson's Picasso, a commanding new biography of the Italian master's tumultuous life and mysterious death. For four hundred years Caravaggio's (1571-1610) staggering artistic achievements have thrilled viewers, yet his volatile personal trajectory - the murder of Ranuccio Tomasini, the doubt surrounding Caravaggio's sexuality, the chain of events that began with his imprisonment on Malta and ended with his premature death - has long confounded historians.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting life
- By Jean on 08-28-13
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Twelve Caesars
- Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern (Bollingen Series)
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Mary Beard
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? In this book - against a background of today’s “sculpture wars” - Mary Beard tells the story of how for more than two millennia portraits of the rich, powerful, and famous in the Western world have been shaped by the image of Roman emperors, especially the “Twelve Caesars”, from the ruthless Julius Caesar to the fly-torturing Domitian.
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1 out of 5 stars
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This foray into art history is a disappointment.
- By Stephen J Chiulli on 11-10-21
By: Mary Beard
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Proust's Duchess
- How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siecle Paris
- By: Caroline Weber
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 29 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enthralling, entertaining and brilliant
- By Uli Baer on 01-14-19
By: Caroline Weber
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Red
- A History of the Redhead
- By: Jacky Colliss Harvey
- Narrated by: Jacky Colliss Harvey
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 168
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 151
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 153
Red is a brilliantly told, captivating history of red hair throughout the ages. An audiobook that breaks new ground, dispels myths, and reinforces the special nature of being a redhead, with a look at multiple disciplines, including science, religion, politics, feminism and sexuality, literature, and art. With an obsessive fascination that is as contagious as it is compelling, author Jacky Colliss Harvey (herself a redhead) begins her exploration of red hair in prehistory and traces the redhead gene as it made its way out of Africa with the early human diaspora.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pushing Past Stereotypes
- By Troy on 06-09-15
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The Man in the Red Coat
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4 out of 5 stars 61
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker, and man of science with a famously complicated private life....
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pathetic narration makes this title unbearable
- By Chris Quigg on 02-27-20
By: Julian Barnes
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Foursome
- Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salsbury
- By: Carolyn Burke
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
New York, 1921: Acclaimed photographer Alfred Stieglitz celebrates the success of his latest exhibition - the centerpiece, a series of nude portraits of his soon-to-be wife, the young Georgia O'Keeffe. The exhibit acts as a turning point for the painter poised to make her entrance into the art scene. There, she meets Rebecca Salsbury, the fiancé of Stieglitz’s protégé, Paul Strand, marking the start of a bond between the couples that will last more than a decade and reverberate throughout their lives.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A competent account of four interesting lives
- By Sil A. on 11-21-20
By: Carolyn Burke
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The Ugly Renaissance
- Sex, Greed, Violence and Depravity in an Age of Beauty
- By: Alexander Lee
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4 out of 5 stars 99
Renowned as a period of cultural rebirth and artistic innovation, the Renaissance is cloaked in a unique aura of beauty and brilliance. Its very name conjures up awe-inspiring images of an age of lofty ideals in which life imitated the fantastic artworks for which it has become famous. But behind the vast explosion of new art and culture lurked a seamy, vicious world of power politics, perversity, and corruption that has more in common with the present day than anyone dares to admit.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Author falls into the pit he digs for others
- By Sean on 01-23-16
By: Alexander Lee
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Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely
- By: Andrew S. Curran
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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lifelong coverage of his life.
- By Michael Daly on 03-22-21
By: Andrew S. Curran
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 338
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 155
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Story4 out of 5 stars 155
Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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What the Ermine Saw
- The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo da Vinci's Most Mysterious Portrait
- By: Eden Collinsworth
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Five hundred and thirty years ago, a young woman sat before a Grecian-nosed artist known as Leonardo da Vinci. Her name was Cecilia Gallerani, and she was the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan. Sforza was a brutal and clever man who was mindful that Leonardo’s genius would not only capture Cecilia’s beguiling beauty but also reflect the grandeur of his title. But when the portrait was finished, Leonardo’s brush strokes had conveyed something deeper by revealing the essence of Cecilia’s soul.
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4 out of 5 stars
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So Many Names
- By Sue Solomon on 12-13-22
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What Would Frida Do?
- A Guide to Living Boldly
- By: Arianna Davis
- Narrated by: Marisa Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Story4 out of 5 stars 67
Revered as much for her fierce spirit as she is for her art, Frida Kahlo stands today as a brazen symbol of daring creativity. She was a woman ahead of her time whose paintings have earned her generations of admirers around the globe. But perhaps her greatest work of art was her own life. What Would Frida Do? explores the feminist icon's signature style, outspoken politics, and boldness in love and art, even in the face of pain and heartbreak.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I was excited
- By Edgar E Armendariz on 01-14-21
By: Arianna Davis
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The Vanishing Velázquez
- A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece
- By: Laura Cumming
- Narrated by: Siobhan Redmond
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 156
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Story4 out of 5 stars 139
When John Snare, a 19th-century provincial bookseller, traveled to a liquidation auction, he stumbled on a vivid portrait of King Charles I that defied any explanation. The Charles of the painting was young - too young to be king - and yet also too young to be painted by the Flemish painter to which the work was attributed. Snare had found something incredible - but what? His research brought him to Diego Velázquez, whose long-lost portrait of Prince Charles has eluded art experts for generations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A fascinating study of art history
- By Ron on 07-02-16
By: Laura Cumming
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The Sistine Secrets
- Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican
- By: Benjamin Blech, Roy Doliner
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story5 out of 5 stars 34
Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world - the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year millions of people come to see Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity's chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well-researched!
- By Natalie K. on 08-28-17
By: Benjamin Blech, and others
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Love and Louis XIV
- The Women in the Life of the Sun King
- By: Antonia Fraser
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 322
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 226
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 226
The self-proclaimed Sun King, Louis XIV, ruled over the most glorious and extravagant court in 17th-century Europe. Now, Antonia Fraser goes behind the well-known tales of Louis' accomplishments and follies, exploring in riveting detail his intimate relationships with women.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent!
- By Louise on 04-27-08
By: Antonia Fraser
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Prince Albert
- The Man Who Saved the Monarchy
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert’s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Bio!
- By Nancy on 04-24-24
By: A. N. Wilson