Jacques Franck is a specialist in Leonardo da Vinci who has trained both as an art historian and as a classical painter. A consulting expert to the Louvre, the Armand Hammer Centre for Da Vinci Studies at UCLA, and other institutions, he has spent almost fifty years immersed in the Italian master’s body of work. Franck has made “critical copies” in order to better understand DaVinci’s techniques, which have been shown at the Uffizi, and has dedicated his life to raising awareness about the dangers of restoration based on insufficient knowledge. He spoke to Mia on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of DaVinci and his major retrospective exhibition at the Louvre bringing together almost 120 works from the most prestigious European and American institutions.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

So, you have been working all your life attached to DaVinci. We are lucky to be doing this interview in Paris. As I understand, as we look at the paintings in the collections at the Louvre and the paintings that DaVinci brought to France, it's like a love story, the Mona Lisa which he keeps close to him. As I understand, speaking to you, your relationship with him is also like a love story.

JACQUES FRANCK

Yes, well, more or less so but I was a little child actually when I first saw Leonardo's work. That work was the Mona Lisa, on a photograph, that was shown in a book. Well, that's many years ago. I must have been seven or eight years of age. It struck me immediately as if I had already seen that picture, and it seemed to me absolute perfection. It struck me mostly because of the wonderful sfumato of the flesh and the presence of the figure, of the sitter, as if she was there. Then I considered immediately, not having much culture about Renaissance painting at that age, that Leonardo was probably the most important artist in Western art.

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THE CREATIVE PROCESS

What for you made him the definitive artist of the Renaissance and Western art?

FRANCK

The sense of perfection in every sense. First of all, spiritual perfection, the expression in the portraits. The sort of deep understanding of the human soul. Also, when representing sacred subjects, representing the divine as though he had been able to see it. Just in front of God himself in a way. Because the expression in Saint Anne's face is so Christ-like and the expression of divine love over humanity. And this is very seldom represented in art. So this extraordinary way of representing this supreme feeling and also the perfection in the shaping, and the composition and everything was perfect with him.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Yes. Perfect and yet human. He gives a deeper humanity.

FRANCK

Yes, human. Yes, well, he has both. He'd been painting all his life, and he was a researcher in his soul mostly. Painting was a means to question the universe. In order to make his art as perfect as possible, he would know everything that he could put into his paintings. So everything on perspective, everything on optics and mathematics, everything on the ingredients that have to go into the making. Everything about geology, because it has to be represented in a very accurate way in landscape painting and so and so forth. I don't think that Leonardo had difficulty in imposing himself as an artist because he was so, I should say divinely, gifted, that it struck everyone that he was a genius at once. And that occurred in Verrocchio's studio when he entered the workshop at the age of let's say 13 or so. He'd been already creating and painting and modeling because he was a sculptor also. He impressed his master Verrocchio. And, of course, he needed to have further academic training to learn all sorts of essential topics that were needed for proper instruction of a good painter. All this was rather easy, I should say. At the age of 30, he was a famous artist.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

And in Verrocchio's studio. Now he stayed there quite a while, too?

FRANCK

Yes, quite a while. He stayed there for at least 10 years.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

He also was picking up, I understand–and I don't know if that was unique for other ateliers at the time–but a lot of engineering knowledge.

FRANCK

Yes, in addition, because he was very much interested in these matters because the Duomo, Brunelleschi's in Florence was still on its way to be built up, it wasn't entirely finished when Leonardo was young, let's say by 1470. So he could see all the workmen and architects and all these people cropping around in a building and Verrocchio was invested, too. He had commissions because these botteghe had different possibilities. There would be architects, there would be sculptors, painters. They had all sorts of crafts. So Leonardo could pick up a lot of knowledge, information, and training during these years in Verrocchio's workshop. When I got into the Beaux-Arts school in Boulogne-sur-Mer, I was taught architecture, I was taught sculpture, and art history at the age of 13. Further on, I wanted to know everything about poetry, literature, acting.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Yes, you were London . . .

FRANCK

Yes, on the stage in England. And all these things because every discipline is helpful to the other one. I could never have had the patience I had to recreate the Saint Anne, although I had already guessed, rediscovered the technique. It's not the technique enough, it's a piece of art, so you've got to be as high in the artistic level as possible. At that time, I was making this, I was also writing poetry, and I was very much inspired by French symbolism. Someone like Mallarmé, who was a great, great poet, had a way of writing his poetry, quite extraordinary. He would create his poetry very much using words and not paint. Like Leonardo did, which means very chiseled. The thinking of which word will go with another word in order to create both sense and harmony was extraordinary. And if I hadn't been focusing so much on Mallarmé's way of writing poetry, I don't think I would have had the patience to spend three thousand hours on this copy. Because his famous poem Hérodiade, he spent 40 years writing it. When Paul Valéry, who knew Mallarmé well, although he was younger, said when he first saw Hérodiade, he said, "I was so shocked, so impressed by the perfection of this poetry because it was so perfect that the images in that poetry were absolutely clear, would be striking you, get into your memory and then, once you'd read that poetry you could remember it without making an effort because it was so perfect it's something you couldn't forget. Of course, I was a painter having my own style.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Yes.

FRANCK

When I started copying Leonardo, it was an exercise to learn. It's like a man who would try to climb up the Alps or the Everest mount you see, because Leonardo is so mad. But I knew that that way I would learn something important because he was such a high level master. But then I tried to learn out by myself. I was taught by Demizel, who's the man who painted this landscape of post-impressionist of high level, trained in the late 19th century. But I had to go all through the process of, first of all, working, trying to understand what art is about, trying to create, make oneself a technique and also know, finally, what is the right level. Art should have... Rigorousness in art is based on something that has been sort of schemed I should say by Paul Valéry. He says, "La seule réelle dans l'art, c'est l'art". The only thing that is real in art is art itself. So the logic in art is art. So one has to understand what art is.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Inside out learning, yes.

FRANCK

Yes. Well, in itself,and it's a level. I mean it's something like Holy Grace. You've got to come across it, and then you see what it means. And it can only come like a revelation, it only comes like something that is what it is. And you know what it is not. You can't go and penetrate such high intellectual spheres unless you are a man of good. Do you understand what I mean?

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Yes.

FRANCK

To have some ideal of perfection, beauty, and humanity inside yourself. Well, I have always considered Leonardo as the perfect artist, and more or less like a father. The real master is a kind of a father figure. So, to help me understand better, improve myself, know more, make the proper efforts and listen to someone who is so knowledgeable that in listening to what he says you will make real progress. I was listening to Maria Callas some time ago, because when she came to Paris in 1968 she was in the Opéra Paris, and she was in a concert. She could sing well still. So I looked at her and Callas had been training very much, if you know about her biography, she started as a little child and she was so keen on opera music that when she was going to bed at the age of eight, nine or so, she would take a small lamp under the sheets in her bed, because her mother wanted her to sleep. She would follow old musical parts of the romantic 19th century period just to get information and be very knowleged about these old parts that no one would ever sing again in the 20th century, because she rediscovered Bellini and all these parts, you see. Music was in her psychology. In Leonardo, art was in his psychology, as an expression of the mystery of life in him. The same in Callas. I'm always observing artists performing because it's very interesting to observe. She was living in another dimension. As if she were connected to an invisible source, and that invisible source suddenly gave her genius. On top of all she'd been learning technically, so she had the art, the architectural setting of the technique. So she couldn't fail, because of course what she was singing was very difficult, but also, suddenly, life came into it. And this is what makes the difference between artists and those who are not artists. If you really wish to be at the highest level, you've got to consider that perfection is just a base. And in these times we really had that sense, you see, today it's more or less, "perfection is something that stops me from being myself". If you think that way, you'll never reach what you are aiming at. You must renounce to something that is in you, to let out the best. It's logical and mathematical. If you want to have really the top inspiration, you've got to focus your mind on the highest value in aesthetics. Art is art, and that's all. To me, art is the expression of beauty, and beauty is something like the sun, shall we say. An absolute.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Ally Chou. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee. “Winter Time” was composed by Nikolas Anadolis and performed by the Athenian Trio.

This is an excerpt of a 15,000 word interview which will be published and podcasted across a network of participating university journals and national arts/literary magazines.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.

It's about, can you handle the complexity of these things and, with American Indians, it's overwhelming, for the American public, this terrible tragedy and seeing Indians as part of the 21st century. Seeing Indians who are engineers or contemporary artists at Biennales is hard for people becaue they're always thinking about (not always, but) many of the kind of people who go to our museum. They're coming from a place of guilt and also not knowing how to process things. And so to always see Indians as of the past, which is sort of what happens. We're only Indian as much as we're like our ancestors, is something the museum has always been trying to challenge. And, you know, it's difficult. This is not a good time for complexity and nuance. We're trying to flip the script from the idea of just tragedy, this terrible past, to say, American Indians are part of the 21st century doing all kinds of interesting things. And the connections between American Indians and the United States are profound and deep, and it's not simply an issue of us being victims and the U.S. being the opressor. It's much more complicated than that.

–PAUL CHAAT SMITH · ASSOCIATE CURATOR
SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
Excerpt of an interview for The Creative Process

I actually assumed in graduate school that I would become a teacher and I've taught in a number of different universities, but it was working with art objects and seeing them in museums like the Metropolitan Museum or The Frick that made me want to go into museum work and ultimately become a curator. So when I was finishing my dissertation and had to think about a career, I applied to a lot of teaching jobs and there was one job that year in America in my specialized field, which was European sculpture, and I was very lucky. But a professional career is a bit of luck as well as predisposition, so I knew I wanted to work in museums, and I was lucky enough when
I was able to find my way here.

–IAN WARDROPPER · DIRECTOR
THE FRICK COLLECTION
Excerpt of an interview for The Creative Process

I think there are certainly social aspects to this because, you know, whether painting a landscape or doing a conceptual piece or large sculpture, I think artists, who are all involved in this creative process, I always say they are almost like bellwethers. They pick up on trends, pick up on anxieties, pick up on things in the world almost before the rest of us do. And artists get up, eat their cornflakes, go to work. They really do. And it's this creative process, which as Chuck Close once debunked and said, "Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us get up and work." It's not always inspiration, but another great quote of his is that he always, anytime he sees a lot of painting like going to a museum, he's always astonished by the transcendent moment when you realize that this is just colored dirt and pigment laid on the surface with what's arguably just a stick. There's such a metaphysical moment when these images are created on a surface. In three dimension, if you're talking about something that has reference in the natural world. In three dimension on a flat surface, it's kind of a head-scratcher to start. So great art has a transcendent moment.

–ALICIA LONGWELL · CHIEF CURATOR
PARRISH ART MUSEUM
Excerpt of an interview for The Creative Process

I think that contact with ancient civilizations is very important because we get to have in our life a third dimension. If we live only in the present, we don't understand what happened many thousand years ago. We don't realize what the development of humanity really is. I think it's very helpful to know history. I don't believe that history can teach for the future, but history can give us another dimension, can make us wiser with more abilities to judge our present. Sometimes we think that we invented everything, but this is not true. The history of human thinking is very important, is very useful for us to know different thinking of other people. At the end of the day, multicultural civilization is also very helpful today. I know, for myself, for example, I concentrate on antiquity, but sometimes I work on other civilizations. Some months ago I organized an exhibition on a very famous Chinese emperor – Qianlong (1711-99). And through this opportunity, I studied a little about Chinese culture, and I found very exciting things. And I can compare these things with our Western civilization. All this is very fruitful because we open our eyes, and we are not going on only one track. There are different approaches in life and different interpretations of the world and of societies.

–DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS · DIRECTOR
ACROPOLIS MUSEUM
Excerpt of an interview for The Creative Process

The whole thing is to get them to feel like no matter where their background is from, the difficulty they have in their personal lives, the isolation that they feel in relationship to that, that within the art community they are embraced, they are welcomed. All they have to do is just keep getting better at it, but the community is there. I think that something we're all looking for is where we belong.

–ERIC FISCHL
ARTIST
Excerpt of an interview for The Creative Process

When I first started acting, I came to Los Angeles for a one week job. I was with my dad and we went to a production of a play called Fences. And James Earl Jones was the star. And I remember I was just the whitest kid ever from small town New Mexico. I'm sitting there watching this play about a lower middle-class African American man in Pittsburg and his family. And I just remember being so moved, moved to tears at thirteen, fourteen years old about a world that I really knew nothing about. Not even from school, even, but certainly not this feeling empathy for this specific man and wife, and she was peeling potatoes on a rocking chair and monologing ire at his character. And it was so moving. I did think, even back then I recognized the impact that the theater can have on someone that isn't even anything like what they're like.

–NEIL PATRICK HARRIS
ACTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER, MAGICIAN & SINGER
Excerpt of an interview for The Creative Process

Creativity is perhaps the ultimate mystery. I veer wildly between opposing views on it and have different feelings depending on whether the creator is isolated or a collaborator. Gropius said the artist is an exalted craftsman. “In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his will, the grace of Heaven may cause his work to blossom into art, but proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the source of creative imagination." And Steve Sondheim said, "Art is craft, not inspiration." And Rilke mistrusted any artist's knowing participation in his own creative process.

–TONY WALTON
ART & THEATER DIRECTOR · COSTUME DESIGNER
Excerpt of an interview for The Creative Process