Ladies and gentlemen ambassadors,
Ministers, ladies and gentlemen,
Mr President and Director of the Louvre Museum,
Presidents and Directors of Museums,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
How many artists can boast, 500 years after leaving us, of convening an assembly as illustrious as tonight’s?
It takes all the genius of a Leonardo da Vinci.
His genius, and his mystery.
For Leonard’s aura is as much about what he has bequeathed to us as it is about the mystery surrounding him.
How could a single man grasp not only painting, but also sculpture, architecture, military engineering, anatomy, mathematics?
How could he have mastered, to the point of revolutionizing them, so many disciplines, so many fields of knowledge and practice?
« There is something supernatural, says Vasari, in [such] an accumulation of beauty in the same individual. »
Something of a supernatural nature.
Superhuman.
Of the elusive.
Something as unfathomable as the Saint Jean-Baptiste, to androgynous beauty, which gave rise to the most contradictory interpretations.
As impenetrable as the Portrait of Musician, whose identity remains an enigma.
As prodigious as The Mona Lisa, which “has the brilliance of life” and of which we have already said everything; an almost sacred picture.
Yes: there is a part of sacred, in his work and in his person.
Part sacred, part secret.
For five centuries, many have tried to penetrate them, as he tried to penetrate the secrets of the world.
Paul Valéry is one of them.
« The secret of Leonard […], he writes, is […] in the relations [which he found] […] between things from which the law of continuity escapes us. »
What makes Leonard Leonard, what makes us still celebrate him, half a millennium after his death, is that he looks where others don’t look.
He sees what others do not see; imagine what does not exist.
He sees things as a whole, and breaks them down into parts.
He observes the movements and breaks them down into moments.
His ideas are forms; drawings are his words.
' He’s the master of faces, anatomy, machines.
He knows what makes a smile. […]
He translates into [a] universal language all his feelings with clarity. »
He has a deep desire to seek the truth.
To know man, and the world, and the universe.
There is a willingness to question everything.
An urgent need to understand and create.
It is this inordinate ambition, this obsession for greatness, this ' stubborn rigor ” who certainly left many of his works unfinished, but who also tirelessly pushed him to surpass himself.
To surpass oneself, to become this universal man.
This absolute artist.
This unusual spirit, which has neither precedent nor equivalent.
Leonard was able to circumvent the obstacles that his birth had imposed on him.
He turned things around.
To lie the destiny that was traced to him.
Draw the path of your own freedom.
It is through culture that he was able to rise.
Become emancipated.
It was through culture, too, that he forged and strengthened an unwavering friendship between Italy and France.
Leonard is the symbol of the indestructible bond between our two countries.
A bond that we celebrated on 2 May in Amboise with the President of the Republic and the President of the Italian Republic.
A stronger bond, deeper, more eternal than the vagaries that sometimes keep us apart.
A bond that must never be broken.
And I would like to commend the commitment of Dario Franceschini, Italian Minister of Culture, and his predecessor, Alberto Bonisoli, to enable our joint efforts to succeed.
To allow, among other things, that The Vitruvian Man be with us.
They could not be with us, but I know, Madam Ambassador, that you will convey France’s thanks to them.
With this exhibition, we are not just celebrating the artist or the scientist.
It is one of the precursors of the European idea.
For Leonard really experienced «the art of being European».
He saw in the borders, not barriers, but invitations to cross them, to dialogue, to exchange.
It is through him, through our artists, through their movements that Europe – before it was as we know it, even before it had institutions – was a community of destiny.
A community of values, languages, memories.
A community that put the founding fathers on the road to Union.
In Leonard, I also see an incarnation of French universalism.
Of this vocation which is ours.
The vocation to welcome, on our soil, the genius of the whole world; and to make cultures dialogue.
I want to say this forcefully: there will always be a place for artists, creators and inventors in this country.
For the bold, the pioneers, the dreamers.
Wherever they come from, they will always find a homeland in France.
Yes: France is a land of artists.
Our culture is made up of creators from elsewhere, who, like Leonard, chose France.
Have created in France.
Have loved France.
Intimately. Viscerally. Totally.
Our culture is Goya and Kundera; Chagall and Fitzgerald; Pei and Hemingway; Stravinsky and Kieslowski; Brancusi and Giacometti.
It’s Picasso, Chahine, Cioran, Senghor, Beckett, and Thomas Mann.
This is the story of Kore-eda, who came to Paris to shoot his last film – like Scorsese, Haneke or Farhadi before him.
Our culture is that of Leonardo da Vinci, called to Louis XII, housed by Charles d'Amboise and protected by Francis I – who loved him even before he knew him ».
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
It is a great pride for me to open this exhibition.
And it is an immense pride to do so with you.
In many ways, it is historic.
You have just recalled, Mr. Chairman, dear Jean-Luc Martinez: this is the first time that Leonard’s work has been presented in such fullness.
And I want to thank very warmly all those who allow it.
First, the lenders.
Thank you for your participation, for your generosity.
Thank you for making this event possible.
I greet the presence among us of the leaders of the most prestigious institutions of Europe, America and Russia: the Royal Collection, the Hermitage of St Petersburg, the British Museum, the National Gallery of London, the Vatican Pinacoteca, the Ambrosian Library of Milan, the National Gallery of Parma, the Accademia of Venice, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Kimbell Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts of Budapest, the Faculty of Fine Arts of Porto, the Institut de France, and many others.
Many thanks also to the patrons of the exhibition.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman, dear Jean-Luc, for your involvement.
I know you’ve spared neither your time nor your energy.
To present this ambitious project.
And to convince, everywhere, to lend works.
I want to thank you for that, and thank you with you:
The two curators of the exhibition: Vincent Delieuvin and Louis Frank.
As well as all the teams: the Louvre, the Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France – our laboratory of excellence in museum collections, and the Ministry of Culture.
Only the Louvre could do this tour de force.
This exhibition could only be held here.
But it was not designed just for France.
It was designed for the world.
For this is also France’s universal vocation.
That is the message we want to convey beyond our borders.
This universalism, which was what Leonard believed in.
Who was what he aspired to.
Here, for four months, we will show the Beautiful and make it accessible to as many people as possible.
That is what we are doing here at the Louvre, as in all our museums.
With the conviction that culture soothes.
Bring her closer.
Let her make up.
Long live Leonard, and long live the Franco-Italian friendship.