Leonardo da Vinci - Butler's Wharf, Shad Thames, London, UK - Etched in Stone on Waymarking.com

The sculpture is installed in front of the Design Museum on the Thames at Butler’s Wharf, London. It is by the sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi who, despite his Italian sounding name, was Scottish. The sculpture is dated 1989.

On one end is a quotation attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that reads:

Though human genius in its various inventions with various instruments may answer the same end, it will never find an invention more beautiful or more simple or direct than nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

Leonardo da Vinci.

Wikiquotes contains a full quotation from which the above was probably derived:

Though human ingenuity may make various inventions which, by the help of various machines answering the same end, it will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, and nothing is superfluous, and she needs no counterpoise when she makes limbs proper for motion in the bodies of animals. But she puts into them the soul of the body, which forms them that is the soul of the mother which first constructs in the womb the form of the man and in due time awakens the soul that is to inhabit it.

The bronze sculpture is of a human head laid with its left side down and rest on baulks of timber. The face is interlaced with incisions that have parts of the quotation set within them. Close to the chin are some gear wheels. The piece is about three metres in length and about two metres high.

At the rear of the sculpture the back of the head has been removed to espose bits of machinery that no doubt represent the brain. At the base of the neck is the inscription and on the crown of the head the sculptor's details.

Address: Butler's Wharf Shad Thames London United Kingdom Website: [Web Link]

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