The Dark and Grotesque Art of Leonardo da Vinci.
A new exhibition at the National Gallery in London showcases Leonardo da Vinci's grotesque caricatures, which anticipate the anxiety of Munch and the horror of Francis Bacon. These drawings depict irregular, diseased, and aged faces whose "monstrous" distortions Leonardo drew with daunting precision. The exhibition also features a painting by Quinten Massys, which is a careful copy of a lost caricature by Leonardo da Vinci. The ultimate theme of these drawings is human decay, portraying the universal human condition in the bleakest way possible.