"Leonardo was captivated with the intensely ugly, he was rumoured to stalk the streets of his home in Italy searching for artistic inspiration for his unforgiving portraits of animalistically brutal faces."
"These high Renaissance caricaturesque drawings are a far cry from the expected pristine beauty of da Vinci's work that we have become accustomed to, showcasing his fascination with grotesqueness."
"He often blurred the lines between gender and realism which gave his sketches a surrealist quality and made them highly visually dynamic, arguably more attention grabbing than his idealised paintings."
"Da Vinci likely did not work from models in these drawings, and instead used his imaginative creativity to form the fascinating dreamlike expressions and features of his figures."
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