Da Vinci
Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the greatest and most
ingenious men that history has
produced. His contributions in the areas of
art, science, and humanity are still
among the most important that a single
man has put forth, definitely making his
a life worth knowing. Da Vinci, born
on April 15, 1452, is credited with being a
master painter, sculptor,
architect, musician, engineer, and scientist. He was
born an illegitimate
child to Catherina, a peasant girl. His father was Ser
Piero da Vinci, a
public notary for the city of Florence, Italy. For the first
four years of
his life he lived with his mother in the small village of Vinci,
directly
outside of the great center of the Renaissance, Florence. Catherina was
a
poor woman, with possible artistic talent, the genetic basis of
Leonardo’s
talents. Upon the realization of Leonardo’s potential, his father
took the boy
to live with him and his wife in Florence (Why did). This was
the start of the
boy’s education and his quest for knowledge. Leonardo was
recognized by many
to be a "Renaissance child" because of his many talents.
As a boy,
Leonardo was described as being handsome, strong, and agile. He
had keen powers
of observation, an imagination, and the ability to detach
himself from
the world around him. At an early age Leonardo became interested
in subjects
such as botany, geology, animals (specifically birds), the motion
of water, and
shadows (About Leonardo). At the age of 17, in about 1469,
Leonardo was
apprenticed as a garzone (studio boy) to Andrea del Verrocchio,
the leading
Florentine painter and sculptor of his day. In Verrocchio’s
workshop Leonardo
was introduced to many techniques, from the painting of
altarpieces and panel
pictures to the creation of large sculptural projects
in marble and bronze. In
1472 he was accepted in the painter’s guild of
Florence, and worked there for
about six years. While there, Leonardo often
painted portions of Verrocchio’s
paintings for him, such as the background
and the kneeling angel on the left in
the Baptism of Christ (Encarta).
Leonardo’s sections of the painting have soft
shadings, with shadows
concealing the edges. These areas are distinguished
easily against the
sharply defined figures and objects of Verrocchio, that
reflect the style
called Early Renaissance. Leonardo’s more graceful approach
marked the
beginning of the High Renaissance. However, this style did not become
more
popular in Italy for another 25 year (Gilbert 46). Leonardo actually
started
the popularization of this style. For this reason Leonardo could be
called
the "Father of the High Renaissance." Leonardo’s leading
skills emerged
through his paintings and his techniques. Leonardo’s talents
soon drew him
away from the Guild and in 1472 Leonardo finished his first
complete
painting, Annunciation. In 1478 Leonardo reached the title of
an
Independent Master. His first large painting, The Adoration of the
Magi (begun
in 1481), which was left unfinished, was ordered in 1481 for the
Monastery of
San Donato a Scopeto, Florence. Other works ascribed to his
youth are the Benois
Madonna (1478), the portrait Ginevra de’ Benci
(1474), and the unfinished
Saint Jerome (1481). Leonardo expanded his
skills to other branches of interest
and in 1481 Leonardo wrote an
astonishing letter to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico
Sforza. In this letter
he stated that he knew how to build portable bridges;
that he knew the
techniques of constructing bombardments and of making cannons;
that he could
build ships as well as armored vehicles, catapults, and other war
machines;
and that he could execute sculpture in marble, bronze, and clay. Thus,
he
entered the service of the Duke in 1482, working on Ludovico’s
castle,
organizing festivals, and he became recognized as an expert in
military
engineering and arms. Under the Duke, Leonardo served many
positions. He served
as principal engineer in the Duke’s numerous military
enterprises and was
active as an architect (Encarta). As a military engineer
Leonardo designed
artillery and planned the diversion of rivers. He also
improved many inventions
that were already in use such as the rope ladder.
Leonardo also drew pictures of
an armored tank hundreds of years ahead of its
time. His concept failed because
the tank was too heavy to be mobile and the
hand cranks he designed were not
strong enough to support such a vehicle. As
a civil engineer, he designed
revolving stages for pageants. As a sculptor he
planned a huge monument of the
Duke’s father mounted up on a leaping
horse. The Horse, as it was known, was
the culmination of 16 years of work.
Leonardo was fascinated by horses and drew
them constantly. In The Horse,
Leonardo experimented with the horses' forelegs
and measurements. The severe
plagues in 1484 and 1485 drew his attention to town
planning, and his
drawings and plans for domed churches reflect his concern with
architectural
problems (Bookshelf). In addition he also assisted the Italian
mathematician
Luca Pacioli in the work Divina Proportione (1509). While in
Milan
Leonardo kept up his own work and studies with the possible help of
apprentices
and pupils, for whom he probably wrote the various texts later
compiled as
Treatise on Painting (1651). The most important painting of
those created in the
early Milan age was The Virgin of the Rocks. Leonardo
worked on this piece for
an extended period of time, seemingly unwilling to
finish what he had begun
(Encarta). It is his earliest major painting that
survives in complete form.
From 1495 to 1497 Leonardo labored on his
masterpiece, The Last Supper, a mural
in the refectory of the Monastery of
Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. While
painting The Last Supper, Leonardo
rejected the fresco technique normally used
for wall paintings. An artist
that uses this fresco method must work quickly.
Leonardo wanted to work
slowly, revising his work, and use shadows-which would
have been impossible
in using fresco painting. He invented a new technique that
involved coating
the wall with a compound that he had created. This compound,
which was
supposed to protect the paint and hold it in place did not work, and
soon
after its completion the paint began to flake away. For this reason
The
Last Supper still exists, but in poor condition (Gilbert 46).
Leonardo had at
many times merged his inventive and creative capabilities to
enhance life and
improve his works. Although his experiments with plastering
and painting failed,
they showed his dissatisfaction with an accepted means
and his creativity and
courage to experiment with a new and untried idea.
Experimentation with
traditional techniques is evident in his drawings as
well. During Leonardo’s
18 year stay in Milan he also produced other
paintings and drawings, but most
have been lost. He created stage designs for
theater, architectural drawings,
and models for the dome of Milan Cathedral.
Leonardo also began to produce
scientific drawings, especially of the human
body. He studied anatomy by
dissecting human corpses and the bodies of
animals. Leonardo’s drawings did
not only clarify the appearance of bones,
tendons, and other body parts but
their function in addition. These drawings
are considered to be the first
accurate representations of human anatomy.
Leonardo is also credited with the
first use of the cross section, a popular
technique for diagramming the human
body. Leonardo wrote, "The painter who
has acquired a knowledge of the
nature of the sinews, muscles, and tendons
will know exactly in the movement of
any limb how many and which of the
sinews are the cause of it, and which muscle
by its swelling is the cause of
this sinew’s contracting" (Wallace 131).
In December, 1499, the Sforza
family was driven out of Milan by French forces
and Leonardo was forced to
leave Milan and his unfinished statue of Ludovico
Sforza’s father, which
was destroyed by French archers that used it for target
practice. Leonardo
then returned to Florence in 1500 (Bookshelf). When Leonardo
returned to
Florence the citizens welcomed him with open arms because of the
fame he
acquired while in Milan. The work he did there strongly influenced
other
artists such as Sandro Botticelli and Piero di Cosimo. The work he was
to
produce would influence other masters such as Michelangelo and Raphael. In
1502
Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna and
son and Chief
General of Pope Alexander VI. For this post he supervised
work on the fortress
of the papal territories in central Italy. In 1503 he
was a member of a
commission of artists to decide on the proper location for
the David by
Michelangelo (Encarta). Towards the end of the year Leonardo
began to design a
decoration for the Great Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio.
Leonardo chose the Battle
of Anghiari as the subject of the mural, a victory
for Florence in a war against
Pisa. He made many drawings and sketches of
a cavalry battle, with tense
soldiers, leaping horses and clouds of dust. In
painting The Battle of Anghiari
Leonardo again rejected fresco and tried
an experimental technique called
encaustic. Once again the experiment was
unsuccessful. Leonardo went on a trip
and left the painting unfinished. When
he returned he found that the paint had
run and he never finished the
painting. The paintings general appearance is
known from Leonardo’s sketches
and other artists' copies of it (Creighton 45).
During the period of time
that Leonardo spent painting the Palazzo Vecchio he
also painted several
other works, including the most famous portrait ever, the
Mona Lisa. The
Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, (after the presumed name of
the model’s
husband) became famous because of the unique expression on Lisa
del
Gioconda’s face. She appears to have just started to or finished
smiling.
This painting was one of Leonardo’s favorites and he carried it
with him on
all of his subsequent travels (Clark 133). In 1506, Leonardo
returned to Milan
to finished up some of his projects that he had to abandon
during his hasty
departure. He stayed there until 1516 when he moved to
Cloux, France, where he
stayed with his pupil Melzi. While in Milan he was
named Court Painter to King
Louis XII of France, who was then residing in
Milan. For the next six years he
traveled from Milan to Florence repeatedly
to look after his inheritance. In
1514 he traveled to Rome under the
patronage of Pope Leo X. During this time
Leonardo’s energy was focused
mainly on his scientific experiments. He then
moved to France to serve King
Francis I. It is here in Chateau de Cloux that he
died on May 2,1519 (Wallace
127). Leonardo constantly reworked his drawings,
studies and mechanical
theories. His observations of the motion of water are
amazingly accurate. In
Leonardo’s Studies of Water Formation, the flow
patterns observed are
swirling around , then below as it forms a pool. Using
modern slow motion
cameras' scientists now study the same effects that Leonardo
wrote about and
observed with his naked eye (Encarta). Another study of water
and wind is his
Apocalyptic Visions. This is a collected study of hurricanes and
storms. In
these highly detailed drawings the pen lines so carefully marked
explode into
action similar to the storms themselves. Leonardo’s mathematical
drawings are
also highly skilled. In a math formula Leonardo proved the theory
of
perpetual motion false but it still intrigued him. Among his vast notes
were
small ideas for a perpetual motion machine. His ideas for completing
this task
involved an unbalanced wheel that would revolve forever, conserving
its energy.
However these machines were never constructed. Another
mathematical drawing was
the Polyhedron. This three dimensional figure
represented proportions to him
"not only in numbers and measurements but also
in sounds, weights,
positions and in whatsoever power there may be" (Wallace
59). The notebooks
of Leonardo contain sketches and plans for inventions that
came into existence
almost five-hundred years after the Renaissance. Leonardo
practiced a technique
of writing backwards. It has been postulated that he
did this, being
left-handed, so that he wouldn’t smear the ink by his left
hand running across
newly-written words. Moreover, the individual words are
spelled backwards. In
order to read the Notebooks one must hold the pages up
to a mirror and it is
believed by some that Leonardo did this to keep his
writing and theories secret.
In any event, contained in the Notebooks are
plans and drawings for what we
recognize today as the first working
propeller, a submarine, a helicopter, a
tank, parachutes, the cannon,
perpetual motion machines, and the rope ladder.
There are perfectly
executed drawings of the human body, from the proportions of
the full figure
to dissections in the most minute detail. It was observed,
however, that
Leonardo’s interest in the human body and his ability to invent
mechanical
things were actually not as paramount to him as was his fascination
and awe
of the natural world (Clark 133). Leonardo lived to be 67 years old. He
is
not known to have ever married or had children. In fact, it was said of
him
that he only saw women as "reproductive mechanisms" (Clark 134).
If
there is one quality that characterizes the life of Leonardo da Vinci it
would
be his curiosity for life and the world around him. Curiosity is the
force that
motivated him to observe, dissect and document every particle of
matter that
warranted his attention. From babies in the womb to seashells on
the beach,
nothing escaped his relentless intellect. The mind of Leonardo
transcends the
period of the Renaissance and every epoch thereafter. It is
universally
acknowledged that his imagination, his powers of reason, and his
sheer energy
surpass that of any person in history. The study of Leonardo is
limited only by
the inadequacy of the student.