I shouldn’t have waited until the last minute, but I did. Two days before this exhibit closed at the Reagan Library I finally got there. Sure the place was packed with people, clearly I wasn’t the only one waited until the very end.
A very crowded exhibit is hard to enjoy. I’ll be honest, I was impressed by his genius, I tried to read what I could, but a lot got by me.
What was apparent from the start is that someone took a lot of Da Vinci’s drawings and codex’s and actually created the objects he was imagining. This lion and a few others were built to scale. Others are much smaller, but as much as possible, they are able to function.
I’m sure, to many people the original codex’s and their drawing are the real draw. I’m not sure how many of the drawings are original and how many are copies. As I said, a lot of people, hard to really spend time on small details.
This is a rotating canon, possibly meant to be on board a ship. Many of the design were for military use.
Very quickly I realized that the beauty is in the details.
At one point I decided to just get some close up pictures of the works, not really documenting what the piece is. Whoever made these must have really loved these projects. So beautiful.
I looked up to see this and the first thought that came to mine was – so that is where the Wright brothers got their idea from! There was another flying contraption that had two cyclists – and this is before the unicycle or the bicycle were invented.
Then there were the different types of boats. Each one with a unique mechanism, for steering or moving the boat.
I have a special affinity for these models. My father made one model ship and had started a second, but didn’t get very far. So these just pull at my heart strings, regardless of the innovation. Btw, I do like the mirror that allows me to see the bottom of the hull.
So yeah, I took pictures of all the boats, although I didn’t read what was so unique about each one. I’m blaming the crowds.
One of my favorite items was a ‘build your own bridge’. Apparently Da Vinci came up with an easy way to built a bridge using just logs. Only problem is, that in order to build it one has to be standing in the middle of the river and building out to the shores. It simply isn’t stable enough to build on land and then transport over the river.
At the exhibit they had a table with the ‘Lincoln logs’ for people to try their hand at building the bridge. A bunch of kids were working very hard at it and they succeeded! Oh for more hands on activities like this!
I’m glad I bumped into my friend Bob, he told me about the memorial to the Gold Star families. It is beautiful, moving and touching.
Gold Star families are the many families who have lost their children in military service. We always honor the servicemen and women. I’m so glad their families are getting recognition.
I was concentrating on the words when I noticed the cutout, I took a closer look and was very moved.
On close inspection, it’s the cut out of soldier. It’s the empty space left in the hearts of the families and friends left behind. I was able to capture the flag through the cutout. Sorry, the high gloss of the granite means that I too am in the image. Not that I wanted to be.