Birth Year : 1452
Death Year : 1519
Country : Italy
Leonardo da Vinci, the epitome of the Renaissance man, was born in Vinci,
a village near Florence and was brought up by his grandfather. In 1467
Leonardo entered Verrocchio's studio, and in the same year became a member
of the Painter's Guild. He worked with Verrocchio for several years, collaborating
with him on paintings and working on individual commissions of his own.
In 1478 he became an independent artist under the protection of Lorenzo
the Magnificent. In 1482 Leonardo left Florence for Milan, where he was
to stay for nearly twenty years. He was attached to the court of Lodovico
Sforza and applied his talent to music, decorating, pageantry, portrait
painting, and engineering projects, particularly of weapons for war and
bridge construction. From 1500 Florence was his home, but he traveled widely
particularly in 1502-03, when he inspected and constructed rural fortifications
for Cesare Borgia. During this period he painted the Mona Lisa and worked
on dissection of corpses at the hospital and on theoretical mathematical
problems. Leonardo returned to Milan in 1506 and was welcomed by the French
governor, Charles d'Amboise. He was sixty-one in 1513 when he entered the
service of Giuliano de'Medici, brother of Pope Leo X. Leonardo applied
his talents to architectural and engineering projects and continued his
notes for his famous Treatise on Painting. François I of France
invited him to Amboise in 1517, and Leonardo lived in the small chäteau
of Cloux, enjoying great honor and the esteem of the kind and the court.
He died there in 1519 and was buried in the Church of St. Florentin, which
was destroyed during the French Revolution. Leonardo's knowledge extended
to such widely separated fields as philosophy, natural history, anatomy,
biology, medicine, optics, acoustics, astronomy, botany, geology, flight
science, mathematics, hydraulics, warfare, and the arts. His heavily illustrated
notebooks are among the most fascinating documents in the world, not only
for his experimental ideas and inventions, but also for his accurate anticipation
of a world that would exist long after his death. For Leonardo, painting
was but one of many media for communicating ideas, but it was the supreme
one for expressing spiritual values. His color was warm and the landscapes
behind his portrait heads or religious scenes are enveloped in a fine mist.
This sfumato, a delicate gradation of light imparting an atmospheric effect,
gives a three-dimensional quality to the foreground figures. The most difficult
and highest aim of painting, Leonardo wrote in his notebooks, is to depict
"the intention of man's soul."
|
|
Leonardo
da Vinci
Mona
Lisa
Leonardo
da Vinci
Last
Supper, The
Leonardo
da Vinci
Studio
Di Cavelli Con Cavalieri
Leonardo
da Vinci
Proportions
of the Human Figure
Leonardo
da Vinci
Last
Supper, The
View
all Leonardo da Vinci
Books about
Leonardo da Vinci |
