Leanardo Da Vinci - the facts
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, & writer.
He was born & raised near Vinci, Italy, the illegitimate son of a notary, Messer Piero, & a peasant woman, Caterina. He had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci". His full birth name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, son of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci."
Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time & perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.
It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was & is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa & The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, the most illustrated & most imitated portrait & religious painting of all time. Their fame is approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic.
As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptually inventing a helicopter, a tank, the use of concentrated solar power, a calculator, a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics, the double hull, & many others. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were feasible during his lifetime. Some of his smaller inventions such as an automated bobbin winder & a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.
He greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, & the study of water. Of his works, perhaps 15 paintings survive, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, & notes.
Early life, 1452-1466
Leonardo
was born on April 15, 1452, in Anchiano, a hamlet near the town of Vinci in the
lower valley of the Arno, within the territories of Florence.
Leonardo was later to record only two incidents of his childhood. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a hawk dropped from the sky & hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face.
Leonardo's earliest known drawing,
the Arno Valley, 1473.The second incident occurred while he was exploring in the
mountains. He discovered a cave & recorded his emotions at being, on one hand,
terrified that some great monster might lurk there & on the other, driven
by curiosity to find out what was inside.
At the age of five, he went to live in the household of his father, grandparents & uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci, where his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but unfortunately died young.
Vasari, the 16th century biographer of Renaissance painters, tells the story of how a local peasant requested that Ser Piero ask his talented son to paint a picture on a round plaque. Leonardo responded with a painting of snakes spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a plaque decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow which he gave to the peasant.
Verrocchio's
workshop, 1466-76
In 1466 Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most
proficient artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. The workshop
of this renowned master was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence,
assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Among the painters
apprenticed or associated with the workshop & also to become famous, were
Perugino, Botticelli, & Lorenzo di Credi.
In a quarttrocento workshop such as Verrocchio's, artists were regarded primarily as craftsmen & only a master such as Verrocchio had social standing. The products of a workshop included decorated tournament shields, painted dowry chests, christening platters, votive plaques, small portraits, & devotional pictures. Major commissions included altarpieces for churches & commemorative statues. The largest commissions were fresco cycles for chapels. As a fourteen-year-old apprentice Leonardo would have been trained in all the countless skills that were employed in a traditional workshop.
Although many craftsmen specialised in tasks such as frame-making, gilding & bronze casting, Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of technical skills & had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics & carpentry as well as the obvious artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting & modelling.
Although Verrocchio appears to have run an efficient & prolific workshop, few paintings can be ascertained as coming from his hand. & on one of those, according to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated.
According to tradition, Leonardo posed
for Verrocchio's David. The painting is the Baptism of Christ. According to Vasari,
Leonardo painted the young angel holding Jesus’ robe. Verrocchio, overwhelmed
by the sweetness of the angel’s expression, its moist eyes & lustrous
curls, put down his brush & never painted again. This is probably an exaggeration.
The truth is that on close examination the painting reveals much that has been
painted or touched up over the tempera using the new technique of oil paint. The
landscape, the rocks that can be seen through the brown mountain stream &
much of the figure of Jesus bears witness to the hand of Leonardo.
The other creation of Verrocchio’s which is particularly pertinent to the young Leonardo is the bronze statue of David, now in the Bargello Museum. Apart from the exquisite quality of this work of art, it is significant in holding the claim to be a portrait of the apprentice, Leonardo. If this is the case, then in the figure of David we see Leonardo as a thin muscular boy, quite different to the rounded androgynous figure made by Verrocchio’s teacher, Donatello. It is also suggested that the Archangel Michael in Verrocchio's Tobias & the Angels is a portrait of Leonardo.
When Leonardo was twenty he joined the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists & doctors of medicine, but even after his father set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to work with him.
Professional life, 1476-1519
The
earliest known dated work of Leonardo's is a drawing done in pen & ink of
the Arno valley, drawn on 5 August, 1473.
It is assumed that Leonardo had his own workshop in Florence between 1476 & 1481. He was commissioned in 1478 to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of St Bernard & in 1481 by the Monks at Scopeto for The Adoration of the Magi. In 1482 Leonardo, whom Vasari tells us was a most talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de’ Medici was so impressed with this that he decided to send both the lyre & its maker to Milan, in order to secure peace with Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan,. At this time Leonardo wrote an often-quoted letter to Ludovico, describing the many marvellous & diverse things that he could achieve in the field of engineering & informing the Lord that he could also paint.
Between 1482 & 1499, when Louis XII of France occupied Milan, much of Leonardo’s work was in that city. It was here that he was commissioned to paint two of his most famous works, the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, & The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. While living in Milan between 1493 & 1495 Leonardo listed a woman called Caterina as among his dependants in his taxation documents. When she died in 1495, the detailed list of expenditure on her funeral suggests that she was his mother rather than a servant girl.
Study of horse from Leonardo's journals.For Ludovico,
he worked on many different projects which included the preparation of floats
& pageants for special occasions, designs for a dome for Milan Cathedral &
a model for a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, Ludovico’s predecessor.
Leonardo modelled a huge horse in clay. Known as the “Gran Cavallo”,
seventy tons of metal were set aside for casting it in bronze. It surpassed in
size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello’s
statue of Gattemelata in Padova & Verrocchio’s Bartolomeo Colleoni in
Venice. The monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not in the
least unusual for Leonardo. Michelangelo rudely implied that he was unable to
cast it. In 1495 the bronze was used for cannons to defend the city from invasion
under Charles VIII.
The French returned to invade Milan in 1498 under Louis XII & the invading French, with their monarchist army, used the “Gran Cavallo” one of the greatest artistic master pieces ever, for target practice.
With Ludovico Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salaino & friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice. In Venice he was employed as a military architect & engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.
Returning to Florence in 1500, he entered the services of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect & engineer & travelling throughout Italy with his patron. In Forlì he met Caterina Sforza, of whom it is speculated by some that the Mona Lisa may be a portrait. At Cesenatico he designed the port. In 1506 he returned to Milan, which was in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French. Many of Leonardo’s most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan, including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio & Marco D'Oggione
From 1513 to 1516,
Leonardo lived in Rome, where Raphael & Michelangelo were both active at the
time. In Florence, he was part of a committee formed to relocate, against the
artist’s will, Michelangelo’s statue of David.
In 1515, François I of France retook Milan. Leonardo was commissioned to make a centrepiece (a mechanical lion) for the peace talks between the French king & Pope Leo X in Bologna. In 1516, he entered François' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé[12] next to the king's residence at the royal Chateau Amboise. It was here that he spent the last three years of his life. The King granted Leonardo & his entourage generous pensions: the surviving document lists 1,000 écus for the artist, 400 for Count Francesco Melzi, (his pupil, named as "apprentice"), & 100 for Salaino ("servant"). In 1518 Salaino left Leonardo & returned to Milan, where he eventually perished in a duel.
Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, France, on May 2, 1519. François I had become a close friend. Vasari records that the King held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died. According to his wish, sixty beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Although Melzi was his principal heir & executor, Salaino was not forgotten, receiving half of Leonardo's vineyards & the Mona Lisa.
Some twenty years after Leonardo's death, François was reported by the goldsmith & sculptor Benevenuto Cellini as saying:
“ No man ever lived who had learned as much about sculpture,
painting, & architecture, but still more that he was a very great philosopher.
”
Relationships & influences
Ghiberti's 'Gates of Paradise'
were a source of communal pride. Many artists assisted in their creation.
Florence
— Leonardo's artistic & social background
Leonardo commenced his apprenticeship
with Verrocchio in 1466, the year that Verrocchio’s master, the great scuptor
Donatello, died. The painter Uccello whose early experiments with perspective
were to influence the development of landscape painting, was a very old man. The
painters Piero della Francesca & Fra Filippo Lippi, sculptor Luca della Robbia,
& architect & writer Alberti were in their sixties. The successful artists
of the next generation were Leonardo's teacher Verrocchio, Antonio Pollaiuolo
& the portrait sculptor, Mino da Fiesole whose lifelike busts give the most
reliable likenesses of Lorenzo Medici's father Piero & uncle Giovanni.
Leonardo's youth was spent in a Florence that was ornamented by the works of these artists & by Donatello's contemporaries, Masaccio whose figurative frescoes were imbued with realism & emotion & Ghiberti whose "Gates of Paradise", gleaming with gold leaf, displayed the art of combining complex figure compositions with detailed architectural backgrounds. Piero della Francesca had made a detailed study of perspective, & was the first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies & Alberti's Treatise were to have a profound effect on younger artists & in particular on Leonardo's own observations & artworks.
Massaccio's depiction of the naked & distraught Adam & Eve leaving the Garden of Eden created of powerfully expressive image of the human form, cast into three dimensions by the use of light & shade which was to re-emerge in the works of Leonardo in a way that was to change the course of painting. The Humanist influence of Donatello's David can be seen in Leonardo's late paintings, particularly John the Baptist.
A prevalent tradition in Florence was the small altarpiece of the Virgin & Child. Many of these were created in tempera or glazed terracottta by the workshops of Lippi, Verroccio & the prolific Robbia family. Leonardo's early Madonnas such as the The Madonna with a carnation & The Benois Madonna followed this tradition while showing indiosyncratic departures, particularly in the case of the Benois Madonna in which the Virgin is set at an oblique angle to the picture space with the Christ Child at the opposite angle. This compositional theme was to emerge in Leonardo's later paintings such as The Virgin & Child with St. Anne
Leonardo was the contemporary of Botticelli, Ghirlandaio & Perugino who were all slightly older than he was. He would have met them at the workshop of Verrocchio, with whom they had associations, & at the Academy of the Medici. Botticelli was a particular favourite of the family & thus his success as a painter was assured. Ghirlandaio & Perugino were both prolific & ran efficient workshops. They competently delivered commissions to well-satisfied patrons who appreciated Ghirlandaio's ability to portray the wealthy citizens of Florence within large religious frescoes, & Perugino's ability to deliver a multitude of saints & angels of unfailing sweetness & innocence.
The Portinari Altarpiece, by Hugo van der Goes for a Florentine familyThese
three were among those commissioned to paint the walls of the Sistine Chapel,
the work commencing with Perugino's employment in 1479. Leonardo was not part
of this prestigious commission. His first significant commission, the Adoration
of the Magi for the Monks of Scopeto, was never completed.
In 1476, during the time of Leonardo’s association with Verrocchio’s workshop, Hugo van der Goes arrived in Florence, bringing the Portinari Altarpiece & the new painterly techniques from Northern Europe which were to profoundly effect Ghirlandaio, Perugino & others. In 1479, the Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina, who worked exclusively in oils, travelled north on his way to Venice, where an older painter, Giovanni Bellini adopted the media of oil painting, quickly making it the preferred method in Venice. Leonardo was also later to visit Venice.
Leonardo was also the contemporary of the two architects, Bramante & Sangallo. Like these artists, he experimented with designs for centrally-planned churches, a number of them appearing in his journals, as both plans & views, but none was ever realised.
Lorenzo de' Medici between Antonio Pucci & Francesco
Sassetti, with Giulio de' Medici, fresco by Ghirlandaio.Leonardo’s political
contemporaries were Lorenzo Medici (il Magnifico), who was three years older,
& his popular younger brother Giuliano who was slain in the Pazzi Conspiracy
in 1478. Ludovico il Moro who ruled Milan between 1479–99 & to whom Leonardo
was sent as ambassador from the Medici court, was also of Leonardo’s age.
With Alberti, Leonardo visited the home of the Medici & through them came to know the older Humanist philosophers of whom Marsiglio Ficino, proponent of Neo Platonism & Cristoforo Landino, writer of commentaries on Classical writings, were foremost. Also associated with the Academy of the Medici was Leonardo's contemporary, the brilliant young poet & philosopher Pico della Mirandola. Leonardo later wrote in the margin of a journal "The Medici made me & the Medici destroyd me." While it was through the action of Lorenzo that Leonardo was to receive his important Milanese commissions, it is not known exactly what Leonardo meant by this cryptic comment.
Although usually named together as the three giants of the High Renaissance, Leonardo, Michelangelo & Raphael were not of the same generation. Leonardo was 23 when Michelangelo was born & 31 when Raphael was born. The short-lived Raphael died in 1520, the year after Leonardo, but Michelangelo went on creating for another 45 years.
Assistants & pupils
Gian
Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, nicknamed Salai or il Salaino ("The little devil),
was described by Giorgio Vasari as "a graceful & beautiful youth with
fine curly hair, in which Leonardo greatly delighted."
Il Salaino entered Leonardo's household in 1490 at the age of ten. The relationship was not an easy one. A year later Leonardo made a list of the boy’s misdemeanours, calling him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, & a glutton." The "Little Devil" had made off with money & valuables on at least five occasions, & spent a fortune on apparel, among which were twenty-four pairs of shoes. Nevertheless, Leonardo’s notebooks during their early years contain many pictures of the handsome, curly-haired adolescent. Il Salaino remained his companion, servant, & assistant for the next thirty years.
As a painter, Salaino’s work is generally considered to be of less artistic merit than others among Leonardo's pupils such as Marco d'Oggione & Boltraffio. In 1515 he painted, under the name of Andrea Salai, a nude portrait of "Lisa del Giocondo", based upon the Mona Lisa & known as Monna Vanna. The Mona Lisa was bequeathed to Salaino by Leonardo, & in Salaino's own will it was assessed at the high value of £200,000.
In 1506, Leonardo took as a pupil Count Francesco Melzi, the fifteen-year-old son of a Lombard aristocrat. Salaino, at first jealous of Melzi, eventually accepted his continued presence & the three undertook journeys throughout Italy. Melzi became Leonardo's life companion, & is considered to have been his favourite student. He travelled to France with Leonardo & was with him until his death.
Leonardo da Vinci's relationships
Leonardo
had many friends who are figures now renowned in their fields, or for their influence
on history. These included the mathematician Luca Pacioli with whom he collaborated
on a book in the 1490s & Cesare Borgia, in whose service he spent the years
1502 & 1503. During that time he also met Niccolò Machiavelli, with
whom later he was to develop a close friendship. Also among his friends are counted
Franchinus Gaffurius & Isabella d'Este. Isabella was probably his closest
female friend. He drew a portrait of her while on a journey which took him through
Mantua which appears to have been used to create a painted portrait, now lost.
Beyond friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. He commented "the act of procreation & anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings would soon die out if there were no pretty faces & sensuous dispositions".
Leonardo appears to have had no close relationships with women beyond his friendship with Isabella d'Este. His most intimate relationships were with his pupils Salai & Melzi, Melzi writing that Leonardo's feelings for him were both loving & passionate. It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of an erotic nature & since that date much has written about this aspect of Leonardo's life.
Leonardo’s painting
Despite
the recent awareness & admiration of Leonardo as a scientist & inventor,
for the better part of four hundred years his enormous fame rested on his achievements
as a painter & on a handful of works, either authenticated or attributed to
him that have been regarded as among the supreme masterpieces ever created.
These painting are famous for a variety of qualities which have been much imitated by students & discussed at great length by connoisseurs & critics. Among the qualities that make Leonardo’s work unique are the innovative techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany & geology, his interest in physiognomy & the way in which humans register emotion in expression & gesture, his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition & his use of the subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together in his most famous works, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper & the Virgin of the Rocks.
Early works
AnnunciationLeonardo’s
early works begin with the Baptism of Christ painted in conjunction with Verrocchio.
Two other paintings appear to date from his time at the workshop, both of which
are Annunciations. One is small, 59 cms long & only 14 cms high. It is a “predella”
to go at the base of a larger composition, in this case a painting by Lorenzo
Di Credi from which it has become separated. The other is a much larger work,
217 cm long. In both these Annunciations Leonardo has used the very formal arrangement
of Fra Angelico’s two well known pictures of the same subject, the Virgin
Mary sitting or kneeeling to the right of the picture, approached from the left
by an angel in profile, with rich flowing garment, raised wings & bearing
a lily.
In the smaller picture Mary averts her eyes & folds her hands in a gesture that symbolised submission to God’s will. In the larger picture, however, Mary is not in the least submissive. The beautiful girl, interrupted in her reading by this unexpected messenger, puts a finger in her bible to mark the place & raises her hand in greeting. This calm young woman accepts her role as the Mother of God not with resignation but with confidence. In this painting the young Leonardo presents the Humanist face of the Virgin Mary, a woman who recognises humanity’s role in God’s incarnation.
St Jerome
Paintings
of the 1480s
In the 1480s Leonardo received two very important commissions,
& commenced another work which was also of ground-breaking importance in terms
of compositon. Unfortunately two of the three were never finished & the third
took so long that it was subject to lengthy negotiations over completion &
payment. One of these paintings is that of St Jerome in the wilderness. Although
the painting is barely begun the entire composition can be seen & it is very
unusual. Jerome, as a penitent, occupies the middle of the picture, set on a slight
diagonal & viewed somewhat from above. His kneeling form takes on a trapezoid
shape, with one arm stretched to the outer edge of the painting & his gaze
looking in the opposite direction. Across the foreground sprawls his symbol, a
great lion whose body & tail make a double spiral across the base of the picture
space. The other remarkable feature is the sketchy landscape of craggy rocks against
which the figure is silhouetted.
The daring display of figure composition, the landscape elements & personal drama were to reappear in the great unfinished masterpiece, the Adoration of the Magi, a commission from the Monks of St Donato a Scopeto. It is a very complex composition about 250cm square. For it Leonardo did numerous drawings & preparatory studies, including a detailed one in linear perspective of the ruined Classical architecture which makes part of the backdrop to the scene. But in 1482 Leonardo went off to Milan at the behest of Lorenzo de’ Medici in order to win favour with Ludovico il Moro & the painting was abandoned.
Virgin of the Rocks, London.The third important work
of this period is the Madonna of the Rocks which was commissioned in Milan for
the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. The painting, to be done with
the assistance of the de Predis brothers was to fill a large complex altarpiece,
already constructed.
Leonardo chose to paint an apocryphal moment of the infancy of Christ when the Infant John the Baptist, in protection of an angel, met the Holy Family on the road to Egypt. In this scene, as painted by Leonardo, John recognizes & worships Jesus as the Christ. The painting demonstrates an eerie beauty as the graceful figures kneel in adoration around the infant Christ in a wild & rocky landscape of tumbling rock & whirling water.
While the painting is quite large, about 200 x 120 cms, it is nowhere as complex as the painting ordered by the monks of St Donato, having only four figures rather than about 50 & a rocky landscape rather than architectural details. The painting was eventually finished; in fact, two versions of the painting were finished, one which remained at the chapel of the Confraternity & the other which Leonardo carried away to France. But the Brothers did not get their painting, or the de Predis their payment until both were long over due.
Paintings of the
1490s
The most famous painting the 1490s is Last Supper, also painted in Milan.
The painting represents the last meal shared by Jesus with his desciples before
his capture & death. It shows, specifically the moment when Jesus has said
“one of you will betray me.” See painting reproduced further down this
page.
Leonardo tells the story of the consternation that this statement caused to the twelve followers of Jesus. Vasari describes in detail how he worked on it, how some days he would paint like fury, how other days he would spend hours just looking at it, & how he walked the streets of the city looking for the face of Judas, the traitor.
When finished, the painting was acclaimed as a masterpiece of design & characterisation. But its artist was also denounced for the fact that it was no sooner finished than it began to fall off the wall. Leonardo, instead of using the reliable technique of fresco had experimented with different paint-binding agents, which were subject to mold & to flaking. Despite this, the painting has remained one of the most reproduced works of art, countless copies being made in every medium from carpets to cameos.
Virgin &
Child with St. Anne
Paintings of the 1500s
Among the works created by Leonardo
in the 1500s is the small portrait known as the Mona Lisa or “la Gioconda”,
the laughing one. The painting is famous, in particular, for the elusive smile
on the woman’s face, its mysterious quality brought about perhaps by the
fact that the artist has subtly shadowed the corners of the mouth & eyes so
that the exact nature of the smile cannot be determined. The shadowy quality for
which the work is renowned came to be called “sfumato” or Leonardo’s
smoke. Other characteristics found in this work are the unadorned dress, in which
the eyes & beautiful hands have no competition from other details, the dramatic
landscape background in which the world seems to be in a state of flux, the subdued
colouring & the extremely smooth nature of the painterly technique, employing
oils, but laid on much like tempera & blended on the surface so that the brushstrokes
are indistinguishable.
In the Virgin & Child with St. Anne the composition
again picks up the theme of figures in a landscape. It harks back to the St Jerome
picture with the figure set at an oblique angle. What makes this painting unusual
is that there are two obliquely-set figures, superimposed. Mary is seated on the
knee of her mother, St Anne. She leans forward to support the Christ Child as
he plays (rather roughly) with a lamb, the sign of his own impending sacrifice.
In the composition of this painting, Leonardo is showing trends which would be
adopted in particular by the Venetian painters, Titian & Tintoretto as well
as by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo & Correggio.
Leonardo's drawings
The
Virgin & Child with St. Anne & St. John the Baptist.Leonardo was not a
prolific painter, but he was a most prolific draftsman, keeping journals full
of small sketches & detailed drawings recording all manner of things that
took his attention. As well as the journals there exist many studies for paintings,
some of which can be identified as preparatory to particular works such as The
Adoration of the Magi, The Virgin of the Rocks' & The Last Supper. His earliest
dated drawing is a Landscape of the Arno Valley, 1473, which shows the river,
the mountains, Montelupo Castle & the farmlands beyond it in great detail.
Among his famous drawings are the Vitruvian Man, a study of the proportions of the human body, the Head of an Angel, for The Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre, a botanical study of Star of Bethlehem & a large drawing (160×100 cm) in black chalk on coloured paper of the The Virgin & Child with St. Anne & St. John the Baptist in the National Gallery, London. This drawing employs the subtle sfumato technique of shading, in the manner of the Mona Lisa. It is thought that Leonardo never made a painting from it, the closest similarity being to The Virgin & Child with St. Anne in the Louvre.
A study for Leda & the Swan.Other
drawings of interest include numerous studies of facial deformities which are
frequently referred to as "caricatures", while close examination of
the skeletal proportions indicates that the majority are based directly on live
models. There are numerous studies of the beautiful young man, Salaino, with his
rare & much admired facial feature, the so-called "Grecian profile".
He is often depicted in fancy-dress costume. Leonardo is known to have designed
sets for pageants with which these may be associated. Other, often meticulous,
drawings show studies of drapery. A marked development in Leornardo's ability
to draw drapery occurred in his early works. Another often-reproduced drawing
is a macabre sketch that was done by Leonardo in Florence in 1479 showing the
body of Bernado Baroncelli, hanged in connection with the murder of Giuliano,
brother of Lorenzo de'Medici, in the Pazzi Conspiracy. With dispassionate integrity
Leonardo has registered in neat mirror writing the colours of the robes that Baroncelli
was wearing when he died.
Leonardo as observer, scientist & inventor
Studies of the action of running water.Main article: Leonardo da Vinci - scientist
& inventor
Journals
Renaissance humanism saw no mutually exclusive
polarities between the sciences & the arts, & Leonardo's studies in science
& engineering are as impressive & innovative as his artistic work, recorded
in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes & drawings, which fuse
art & natural philosophy (the forerunner of modern science). These notes were
made & maintained daily throughout Leonardo's life & travels, as he made
continual observations of the world around him.
The journals are mostly written in mirror-image cursive. The reason may have been more a practical expediency than for reasons of secrecy as is often suggested. Since Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it is probable that it was easier for him to write from right to left.
His notes & drawings display an enormous range of interests & preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries & people who owed him money & some as intriguing as designs for wings & shoes for walking on water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details & drapery, studies of faces & emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations, whirl pools, war machines, helicopters & architecture.
A page from
Leonardo's journal showing his study of a foetus in the womb.These notebooks—originally
loose papers of different types & sizes, distributed by friends after his
death—have found their way into major collections such as the Louvre, the
Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, &
the Victoria & Albert Museum & British Library in London. The British
Library has put a selection from its notebook (BL Arundel MS 263) on the web in
the Turning the Pages section. The Codex Leicester is the only major scientific
work of Leonardo's in private hands. It is owned by Bill Gates, & is displayed
once a year in different cities around the world.
Why Leonardo did not publish or otherwise distribute the contents of his notebooks remains a mystery to those who believe that Leonardo wanted to make his observations public knowledge. Technological historian Lewis Mumford suggests that Leonardo kept notebooks as a private journal, intentionally censoring his work from those who might irresponsibly use it (the tank, for instance). They remained obscure until the 19th century, & were not directly of value to the development of science & technology.
In January 2005, researchers discovered what some believe to be a hidden laboratory used by Leonardo da Vinci for studies of flight & other pioneering scientific work in previously sealed rooms at a monastery next to the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata, in the heart of Florence.
Scientific studies
Leonardo's
approach to science was an observational one: he tried to understand a phenomenon
by describing & depicting it in utmost detail, & did not emphasize experiments
or theoretical explanation. Since he lacked formal education in Latin & mathematics,
contemporary scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he did teach
himself Latin. In the 1490s he studied mathematics under Luca Pacioli & prepared
a series of drawings of regular solids in a skeletal form to be engraved as plates
for Pacioli's book Divina Proportione, published in 1509.
It has also been said that he was planning a series of treatises to be published on a variety of subjects though none survives; it appears he did complete a coherent treatise on anatomy, which was observed during a visit by Cardinal Louis D'Aragon's secretary in 1517.
Anatomy
Leonardo's formal training in the anatomy of the
human body began with his apprenticeship to Andrea del Verrocchio, his teacher
insisting that all his pupils learn anatomy. As an artist, he quickly became master
of topographic anatomy, drawing many studies of muscles, tendons & other visible
anatomical features.
As a successful artist, he was given permission
to dissect human corpses at the hospital Santa Maria Nuova in Florence & later
at hospitals in Milan & Rome. From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated in his studies
with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre & together they prepared a theoretical
work on anatomy for which Leonardo made more than 200 drawings. It was published
only in 1680 (161 years after his death) under the heading Treatise on painting.
Leonardo drew many studies of the human skeleton & its parts, as well as muscles & sinews, the heart & vascular system, the sex organs, & other internal organs. He made one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus in utero.
He also studied & drew the anatomy of many other animals as well. He dissected cows, birds, monkeys, bears, & frogs, comparing in his drawings their anatomical structure with that of humans. He also made a number of studies of horses.
As an artist, Leonardo closely observed & recorded the effects of age & of human emotion on the physiology, studying in particular the effects of rage. He also drew many models among those who had significant facial deformities or signs of illness.
Engineering & inventions
Fascinated by the phenomenon
of flight, Leonardo produced detailed studies of the flight of birds, & plans
for several flying machines, including a helicopter powered by four men (which
would not have worked since the body of the craft would have rotated) & a
light hang glider which could have flown. On January 3, 1496 he unsuccessfully
tested a flying machine he had constructed.
During his lifetime Leonardo was valued as an engineer. In a letter to Ludovico il Moro he claimed to be able to create all sorts of machines both for the protection of a city & for siege. When he fled to Venice in 1499 he found employment as an engineer & devised a system of moveable barricades to protect the city from attack. He also had a scheme for diverting the flow of the Arno River in order to flood Pisa.
In 1502, Leonardo produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot (240 m) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Istanbul. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosporus known as the Golden Horn. Beyazid did not pursue the project, because he believed that such a construction was impossible. Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway.
Leonardo,
the "Legend"
Within Leonardo's own lifetime his fame was such that
the King of France carried him away like a trophy, supported him in his old age
& held him in his arms as he died. Vasari, in his "Lives of the Artists"
written about thirty years after Leonardo's death, described him as having talents
that "transcended nature".
The interest in Leonardo has never slackened. The crowds still queue to see his most famous artworks, T-shirts bear his most famous drawing & writers, like Vasari, continue to marvel at his genius & speculate about his private life & , particularly, about what one so intelligent actually believed in.
Vasari's "Lives"
Leonardo da Vinci tomb in Saint Hubert Chapel (Amboise).Giorgio Vasari, in
his "Lives of the Artists", in its enlarged edition of 1568 introduces
his chapter on Leonardo da Vinci with the following words:
"In the normal course of events many men & women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace & talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actions seem inspired & indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill. Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty, who displayed infinite grace in everything that he did & who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied he solved with ease."
On
Leonardo's genius
The continued admiration that Leonardo commanded from painters,
critics & historians can be appreciated from the following quotations.
Boltraffio c.1520
“ The man Leonardo
alone above all others
surpasser of Phidias
conqueror of Apelles
and over every one
of their
victorious followers!
”
Castilione, 1528
"...Another of the greatest painters in this world looks down on this art in which he is unequalled..."
"Anonimo Gaddiano" c. 1540
"His genius was so rare & universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf..."
H. Fuseli, 1801
"Such was the dawn of modern art, when Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour that distanced former excellence: made up of all the elements that constitute the essence of genius..."
Leonardo
da Vinci statue outside the Uffizi, FlorenceA. E. Rio, 1861
"He towered above all other artists through the strength & the nobility of his talents."
H. Taine, 1866
"There may not be in the world an example of another genius so universal, so incapable of fulfilment, so full of yearning for the infinite, so naturally refined, so far ahead of his own century & the following centuries."
Berenson, 1896
"Leonardo is the one artist of whom it may be said with perfect literalness: Nothing that he touched but turned into a thing of eternal beauty. Whether it be the cross section of a skull, the structure of a weed, or a study of muscles, he, with his feeling for line & for light & shade, forever transmuted it into life-communicating values."
Liana Bortolon, 1967
"Because of the multiplicity of interests that spurred
him to pursue every field of knowledge,...Leonardo can be considered, quite rightly,
to have been the universal genius par excellence, & with all the disquieting
overtones inherent in that term. Man is as uncomfortable today, faced with a genius,
as he was in the 16th century. Five centuries have passed , yet we still view
Leonardo with awe."
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