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Oil Painting -> Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci
Life Leonardo was born before modern naming conventions developed in Europe; his name "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", simply means "Leonardo, son of [Mes]ser Piero, from Vinci". Leonardo signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo"). Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence, where he started drawing and painting. His early sketches were of such quality that his father soon showed them to the painter Andrea del Verrocchio, who subsequently took on the fourteen-year old Leonardo as an apprentice. In this role, Leonardo also worked with Lorenzo di Credi and Pietro Perugino. But the greatest of all Andrea's pupils was Leonardo da Vinci,
in whom, besides a beauty of person never sufficiently admired and
a wonderful grace in all his actions, there was such a power of
intellect that whatever he turned his mind to he made himself master
of with ease. —Vasari Modern critics contend that Leonardo's love of boys was well-known even in the sixteenth century. Rocke reports that in a fictional dialogue on l'amore masculino (male love) written by the contemporary art critic and theorist Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Leonardo appears as one of the protagonists and declares, "Know that male love is exclusively the product of virtue which, joining men together with the diverse affections of friendship, makes it so that from a tender age they would enter into the manly one as more stalwart friends." In the dialogue, the interlocutor inquires of Leonardo about his relations with his assistant, Salai, "Did you play the game from behind which the Florentines love so much?" There is no evidence that Leonardo was ever intimately involved with any woman, nor in a close friendship with one. Though he kept his private life particularly secret, it is known that he surrounded himself with handsome young men throughout his life, and his art reflects an appreciation of androgynous beauty (and in at least one instance, sexuality). It has therefore been widely assumed that he was a homosexual. One of his lovers is thought to have been Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno (nicknamed Salai (Little Devil)). Gian entered Leonardo's household around 1488 at the age of 10, becoming his servant and assistant for the next thirty years. However some simply believe that Leonardo was an exceptional teacher that needed assistants to aid him in his work and his appreciation of androgynous beauty was just his fascination with the workings of the human body. In 1506, Leonardo met Count Francesco Melzi, the 15 year old son of a Lombard aristocrat. Salai eventually accepted Melzi's continued presence and the three undertook journeys throughout Italy. Though Salai was always introduced as Leonardo's "pupil", he never produced any work of artistic merit. Melzi, however, became Leonardo's pupil and life companion. Leonardo had many other friends who are now figures renowned in their fields, or for their influence on history; these included Niccolò Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia and Franchinus Gaffurius. It is apparent from the works of Leonardo and his early biographers that he was a man of high integrity and very sensitive to moral issues. His respect for life led him to being a vegetarian at least part of his life (although the term 'vegan' would fit him well, as he even entertained the notion that taking milk from cows amounts to stealing. Under the heading, "Of the beasts from whom cheese is made," he answers, "the milk will be taken from the tiny children." [2]). Vasari reports a story that as a young man in Florence he often bought caged birds just to release them. He was also a respected judge on matters of beauty and elegance, particularly in the creation of pageants. Self-portrait in red chalk, circa 1512 to 1515 When the French returned under Louis XII in 1498, Milan fell without a fight, overthrowing Sforza [4]. Leonardo stayed in Milan for a time, until one morning when he found French archers using his life-size clay model of the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. He left with Salai and his friend Luca Pacioli (the first man to describe double-entry bookkeeping) for Mantua, moving on after 2 months to Venice (where he was hired as a military engineer), then briefly returning to Florence at the end of April 1500. In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia,, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer; with Cesare he travelled throughout Italy. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French. From 1513 to 1516, he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time, though he did not have much contact with these artists. However, he was probably of pivotal importance in the relocation of David (in Florence), one of Michelangelo's masterpieces, against the artist's will. Clos Lucé.In 1515 Francis I of France retook Milan, and Leonardo was commissioned to make a centrepiece (a mechanical lion) for the peace talks between the French king and Pope Leo X in Bologna, where he must have first met the King. In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé (also called "Cloux") next to the king's residence at the royal Chateau Amboise. The King granted Leonardo and his entourage generous pensions: the surviving document lists 1000 écus for the artist, 400 for Melzi (named "apprentice") and 100 for Salai (named "servant"). In 1518 Salai left Leonardo and returned to Milan, where he eventually perished in a duel. Francis became a close friend. Leonardo da Vinci died at Clos Lucé, France, on 2nd May, 1519. According to his wish, 60 beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Melzi was his principal heir and executor, but Salai was not forgotten: he received half of Leonardo's vineyard. Art Leonardo often planned grandiose paintings with many drawings and sketches, only to leave the projects unfinished. For example, in 1481 he was commissioned to paint the altarpiece The Adoration of the Magi. After extensive, ambitious plans and many drawings, the painting was left unfinished and Leonardo left for Milan. Of his paintings, only seventeen survived. None of his sculptures have survived. In Milan he spent 17 years making plans and models for a monumental seven metre (24 ft) high horse statue in bronze called "Gran Cavallo". Because of war with France, the project was never finished. (In 1999 a pair of full-scale statues based on his plans were cast, one erected in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the other in Milan [5].) The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland has a small bronze horse, thought to be the work of an apprentice from Leonardo's original design. After returning to Florence, he was commissioned for a large public mural, The Battle of Anghiari; his rival Michelangelo was to paint the opposite wall. After producing a fantastic variety of studies in preparation for the work, he left the city, with the mural unfinished due to technical difficulties. Leonardo pioneered new painting techniques in many of his pieces. One of them, a colour shading technique called sfumato, used a series of custom-made glazes by Leonardo. It is characterized by subtle transitions between colour areas, creating an atmospheric haze or smoky effect. Chiaroscuro is the technique of modelling and defining forms through contrasts of light and shadow. List of artworks His approach to science was an observatory one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanations. Throughout his life, he planned a grand encyclopedia based on detailed drawings of everything. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist. As did most people at the time, he believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and that the Moon reflects the sun's light due to its being covered by water. Anatomy Leonardo drew many images of the human skeleton, and was the first to describe the double S form of the backbone. He also studied the inclination of pelvis and sacrum and stressed that sacrum was not uniform, but composed of five vertebrae. He was also able to represent exceptionally well the human skull and cross-sections of the brain (transversal, sagittal, and frontal). He drew many images of the lungs, mesentery, urinary tract, sex organs, and even coitus. He was one of the firsts who drew the fetus in the intrauterine position (he wished to learn about "the miracle of pregnancy"). He often drew muscles and tendons of the cervical muscles and of the shoulder. He was a master of topographic anatomy. He not only studied the anatomy of human, but also of other beings. It is important that he was not only interested in structure but also in function, so he was anatomist and physiologist at the same time. Because he actively searched for bodily deformed people to paint them, he is also considered to be the beginner of caricature. Leonardo's drawing of the cross section of a skull (c. 1489)His study of human anatomy led also to the design of the first known robot in recorded history. The design, which has come to be called Leonardo's robot, was probably made around the year 1495 but was rediscovered only in the 1950s. It is not known if an attempt was made to build the device. Inventions and engineering In 1502 Leonardo da Vinci produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot (240 m) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Sultan Beyazid II of Constantinople. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosphorus known as the Golden Horn. It was never built, but Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway. An armoured tank designed by Leonardo at the Château d'Amboise (see also the interior)Owing to his sometime employment as a military engineer, his notebooks also contain several designs for military machines: machine guns, an armoured tank powered by humans or horses, cluster bombs, etc. even though he later held war to be the worst of human activities. Other inventions include a submarine, a cog-wheeled device that has been interpreted as the first mechanical calculator, and a car powered by a spring mechanism. In his years in the Vatican, he planned an industrial use of solar power, by employing concave mirrors to heat water. His notebooks While most of Leonardo's inventions were not realized, many were technologically feasible as it was demonstrated recently, e.g. his tank. In fiction In the Star Trek: Original Series episode "Requiem for Methuselah",
Leonardo da Vinci is revealed to be one of many aliases to "Flint",
an immortal man born in the year 3834 BC. Leonardo's abilities and
knowledge are thus attributed to centuries of scientific and artistic
study. Leonardo appears again in the Star Trek universe, in the
series Star Trek Voyager, where his workshop is created as a holographic
simulation. Actor James Daly played Flint / Leonardo in Star Trek:
The Original Series, while John Rhys-Davies portrayed Leonardo in
Star Trek Voyager. Also, in the S.C.E. (Starfleet Corps of Engineers)
novels, the main starship of the series is called the U.S.S. Da
Vinci (NCC-81623), a Saber-class vessel, named for the artist. |
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