Museums around the U.S. feature creations of artist and inventor

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NEW YORK (AP) - Cities around the U.S. are in da Vinci mode with shows about Leonardo da Vinci's work.

In New York, "Leonardo Da Vinci's Workshop: Inventor, Artist, Dreamer," opens Nov. 20 at the Discovery Times Square Exposition and runs through April 4.

The show offers full-scale, interactive models of da Vinci's inventions, including his ideas for the airplane, automobile, robot knight and mechanical lion.

In Baltimore, "Da Vinci -- The Genius: A Travelling Exhibit" at the Maryland Science Center through Jan. 31 features some of his inventions, anatomical drawings and writings, plus "secrets of 'The Last Supper' and the 'Mona Lisa' revealed in 3D animation. "

In Atlanta, an exhibit of sculptures and sketches by da Vinci and his contemporaries is at the High Museum, including some never before seen outside of Europe, borrowed from the Vatican's art collection, the Louvre in Paris and the royal collection at Windsor Castle in England.

The exhibit will be at the High until February, when a modified version of the show travels to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

The centrepiece is a nearly 10-metre re-creation of da Vinci's destroyed horse statue, which towers over the plaza outside the High.

Inside the museum are the meticulous drawings and anatomical notes he made of horses in hopes of perfectly capturing the animals' motion.

The work was never completed because the bronze intended for the statue was used to make cannons, and a plaster model was destroyed by soldiers.

Another show is at the Birmingham Museum of Art until Monday, before reopening at the San Francisco Museum of Art Nov. 15-Jan. 4.

"Leonardo da Vinci: Drawings from the Biblioteca Reale in Turin" displays a 500-year-old group of chalk, metalpoint and ink drawings from da Vinci's notebooks, including 11 drawings and his Codex on the Flight of Birds, an 18-page notebook which has never been shown in the United States. Magnifying glasses are available for visitors to get a close look at the detail he packed into the drawings, some of which are nearly complete and others that seem like quick doodles.