Leonardo Da Vinci
| Leonardo da Vinci | |||
Vinci on 15 April 1452 and died at Amboise on 2 May 1519 , is a painter Italian and a man of universal mind , both artist , scientist , engineer , inventor , anatomist , painter , sculptor , architect , planner , botanist , musician , poet , philosopher and writer. After his childhood in Vinci, Leonardo was a student at the famous Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. His first major work done in the service of Duke Ludovico Sforza in Milan. It works then Rome , Bologna and Venice and spent the last years of his life in France at the invitation of King Francis I. Leonardo da Vinci is often described as the archetype and the symbol of the man of the Renaissance , a universal genius and a philosopher, humanist whose infinite curiosity was equaled only by the force of invention . He is considered one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most talented person in many different fields who ever lived . It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo da Vinci is recognized. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper , the paintings are very famous, often copied and parodied , and his drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also included in many derivative works. Only a dozen works have survived, this small number is due to his constant experimentation and sometimes disastrous new techniques and his procrastination chronic . Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks , which contain drawings, scientific diagrams and reflections on the nature of painting, are a legacy to succeeding generations of artists only matched by Michelangelo. As an engineer and inventor, Leonardo developed ideas far ahead of his time since the helicopter , the battle tank , the submarine up the car. Very few of his projects are built, or even feasible during his lifetime only , but some of his smaller inventions such as a machine for measuring the elastic limit of a cable entering the world of the factory . As a scientist, Leonardo da Vinci has been instrumental in advancing knowledge in the fields of anatomy , from civil engineering , the optical and the hydrodynamics. castle of Vinci near Florence , an illegitimate love affair between his father, Messer Piero di Antonio da Vinci Fruosino, notary , chancellor and ambassador of the Florentine Republic and scion of a wealthy family of notable Italian and his mother, Caterina, a humble peasant girl in the small village Tuscan of Anchiano , a village two kilometers from Da Vinci on the territory of Florence in Italy , . A study in 2006 noted that it seems likely that Caterina was a slave came from the Middle East .Leonardo, Leonardo, or rather by his baptismal name , is baptized and then spent his first five years with his father in Vinci , where it is treated as a legitimate child . He has five mentors and five sponsors, all from the village . It receives an instruction and thus acquires the reading, writing and arithmetic. Nevertheless, studies are not seriously Latin , the basis of traditional teaching, and spelling chaotic shows that this statement is not without flaw: in any case, it was not that of a university . At that time, the modern naming conventions have not yet developed in Europe. Only large families make use of the name of their surnames. The common man is identified by his first name which is added any useful detail: the father's name, place of origin, a nickname, the name of a master craftsman, etc.. Therefore, the name of the artist is Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, which means Leonardo, son of Master Piero da Vinci, however, the "Da" is capitalized to distinguish it as a surname . Leonardo himself simply signed his work or Io Leonardo, Leonardo ("I, Leonardo"). Most authorities therefore refer to his work without Leonardo da Vinci. Presumably he does not use the name of his father because he is an illegitimate child. "Vinci" from the name of "vincha, plants treated as rods , used in crafts and Tuscan growing near the creek Vincio . In 1457 , he was 5 years old when her mother marries Antonio di Piero del Vacca da Vinci Buti, a farmer of the town, with whom she had five children . He is then admitted into the family home of his father, the village of Vinci , who, meanwhile, has married a girl from a wealthy family of Florence , aged 16, Albiez degli Amadori . The latter, without children, referring all his affection on Leonard, but she died very young in childbirth in 1464 . Considered from its birth as a son full of his father, he was however never legitimized. His father was married four times and gave her ten brothers and two sisters came after Leonard legitimate. He has a good relationship with his father's last wife, Lucrezia Cortigiani Guglielmo, and leave a note calling him "dear, sweet mother" . His paternal grandmother, Lucia di Ser Piero di Zoso, ceramist and close to Leonardo, is perhaps the person who initiated the arts . An omen known reports that Milan would have come from the sky hovering over his cradle, the bird's tail touching the face , . Giorgio Vasari , the biographer of the sixteenth century painters of the Renaissance, relates in The Quick (1568), the story of a local farmer who asked Ser Piero that his talented son a comb image on a plate. Leonardo painted a picture of a dragon breathing fire, so successful that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who in turn 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, he gave the farmer . Training workshop of Verrocchio Related article: Andrea del Verrocchio.   The young Leonardo is close to nature, he observed with great curiosity and interest in everything. It already draws caricatures and practice the writing mirror in dialect Tuscan. Giorgio Vasari , in his biography of Leonardo, tells a story about the first step in the artistic career of the man who would become one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance. One day, Leonard's father, Ser Piero, "took several of his drawings and submitted them to his friend Andrea del Verrocchio he begged him to say whether Leonardo had to devote to the art of drawing and if he could achieve something in this matter. Andrea wondered very extraordinary debut of Leonardo and urged Ser Piero to enable him to choose this profession, what, Ser Piero, Leonardo decided to enter the workshop of Andrea. Leonard did not need to pray, not content with this job, then he exercised all those connected to the art of drawing. That's how Leonard is placed as a student apprentice from 1469 in one of the most prestigious art workshops of Renaissance Florence under the patronage of Andrea del Verrocchio , to whom he owes his multidisciplinary training of excellence, where it alongside other artists such as Sandro Botticelli , Perugino and Ghirlandaio , . Indeed, until 1468 , Leonard is listed as a resident of the town of Vinci, but it is very often to Florence where his father works . Verrocchio was a renowned artist very eclectic goldsmith and blacksmith training , painter , sculptor and founder who works especially for the wealthy patron Lorenzo de Medici. The main controls are altarpieces and commemorative statues for churches. However, larger orders are frescoes in the chapels , such as those created by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop for the Tornabuoni Chapel and statues such as the equestrian statues of Gattamelata by Donatello and Bartolomeo Colleoni by Verrocchio .  After a year spent cleaning brushes and other odd jobs as an apprentice, Leonardo was initiated by Verrocchio to the techniques practiced in a traditional workshop, although some are craftsmen who specialize in tasks such as the framing , gilding and work of bronze. He therefore had the opportunity to learn the basics of particular chemistry , the metallurgy , the work of the leather and plaster , the mechanics and carpentry and artistic techniques of drawing , of painting and sculpture on marble and bronze , . He also initiated the preparation of colors, engraving and painting frescoes. Subsequently, Verrocchio says to his pupil, he is exceptionally special care to finish his paintings. But the training received during his apprenticeship in Verrocchio's workshop seem even wider. Leonard acquires knowledge of computing algorithms and cites both abaci most prominent Florentine, Paolo Toscanelli del Pazzo and Leonardo Chernionese . Later, Leonardo seems to allude to the many Nobel opera of Arithmetic, Piero Borgi printed in Venice in 1484 , and represents good science in these schools of charts . There is no known work of Leonardo during this period but, according to Vasari, he collaborated on a painting called The Baptism of Christ (1472-1475) . It also, according to legend, because of the quality of the little angel painted by da Vinci to the table that Verrocchio, feeling outdone by his young assistant, decides not to paint . According to the tradition that it is the apprentice who takes the pose , Leonard would have been the model for the bronze statue of David by Verrocchio. It is also assumed that the Archangel Raphael's work in Tobias and the Angel of Verrocchio is the portrait of Leonardo . In 1472 , at age 20, he is saved in the "Red Book" of the Guild of St. Luke , the famous guild of painters and doctors of medicine of Florence , the Campagnia of Pittori. There are few traces of this period of life of Leonardo, whose date of one of his early work, a drawing done in pen and ink, Landscape of Santa Maria della neve ( 1473 ). Subsequently, his painting career began by immediately remarkable works such as The Annunciation ( 1472 - 1475 ). It improves the technique of sfumato (printing mist) to a point of refinement before it ever reached. It is always mentioned in 1476 as assistant to Verrocchio, for even after his father had established his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to work with him . During this period, he received personal orders and painted his first painting, The Madonna of the Carnation (1476). Leonard asserts almost immediately as a professional engineer in 1478 , it has raised, without causing the ruin, the church octagon of St. John of Florence , the Baptistery present, to add a base . Court records from 1476 show that, with three other men, he was charged with sodomy , a practice illegal at the time in Florence, but all were acquitted of the charges , probably through the intervention of Lorenzo de ' Medici. Two years later, at age 26, he left his master after having successfully passed in all subjects. Leonardo da Vinci becomes independent master painter. Serving Ludovico Sforza In 1481 , the monastery of San Donato commissioned Adoration of the Magi (1481), but Leonard never finish this painting, probably disappointed or annoyed at not being chosen by Pope Sixtus IV to decorate the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican to Rome , where he is competing with several painters . The Neoplatonism in vogue at the time in Florence may play a role in his departure to a more academic and pragmatic city as Milan . This is probably more in tune with his mind, based on an empirical development, through its many experiences. Vinci painted The Virgin of the Rocks ( 1483 - 1486 ) for the confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in the chapel of San Francesco Grande in Milan, but this table will be the center of a conflict between the author and sponsors for several years . Indeed, Leonard agrees with the right to copy the work but this is denied then he is forced to halt its work, causing the delay. The problem will be solved only by court decisions and interventions of friends. In Florence , Leonardo's work does not go unnoticed. Lorenzo de Medici learns that Leonard has created a lyre -shaped silver head horse. Impressed by his work, he sends Leonard Milan as an emissary and he works for the patron and the Duke of Milan , Ludovico Sforza. The purpose of this maneuver is to keep good relations with this important rival . It is very likely accompanied by musician Migliorotti Atalanta . He also wrote a letter to Ludovico, letter contained in the Codex Atlantico , which describes the many different wonderful things he could do in the field of engineering and informed the master that he can also paint , . This text is in the tradition of engineers who preceded him, he repeats the same program, the same curiosities and the same research: now, it's an engineer that Leonard will live and work . Sforza employed in various tasks in the mythical title of " Florentine Apelles ", reserved for great artists . The artist is "officer of festivals and shows with lavish sets" of the palace and invented machines theater that amaze the audience, he painted several portraits of the Milanese court. Leonardo da Vinci is worn on the list of engineers Sforza and when sent to Pavia , he is described as "ingeniarius Ducal . But contacts with the enlightened circles of Milan also showed him all the gaps in his training . It also deals with the study for the dome of the cathedral of Milan and a version in clay to make a mold for the "Gran Cavallo" ("Il Cavallo", the horse Leonard ), an imposing equestrian statue in honor of Francesco Sforza , father and predecessor Ludovic made of seventy tons of bronze, which is a technical marvel for its time. The statue remained unfinished for several years, Michelangelo himself acknowledging that he is incapable of melting . When Leonardo finished the clay version for the mold and its plans for the melting process, the bronze statue is planned for use in the creation of guns to defend the city from the invasion of Charles VIII of France .  In 1490 / A>, so he participated in a conference of architects and engineers, gathered for the completion of the Duomo in Milan and met another engineer whose fame is well established, Francesco di Giorgio Martini. The latter took him to Parma , with Giovanni Antonio Amadeo and Luca Fancelli , where he was asked another consultation for the construction of the Cathedral , . Around 1490 , he founded an academy bearing his name where he taught for several years his knowledge while noting his research in small treaties. The fresco The Last Supper (1494-1498) was painted for the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie . In 1496 , Luca Pacioli arrives in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci binds immediately friendship for him and realizes the engravings of the Divina proportione . In 1499 , when the troops of Louis XII of France took the Duchy of Milan and overthrew Lodovico Sforza , who fled Germany with his nephew Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor , his equestrian statue in clay is destroyed by the French , who use it as target practice . Louis XII claimed his rights to succession of Visconti . Louis XII is considering cutting the wall depicting the Last Supper to win in France , as well imagine Napoleon centuries later . With the fall of Sforza, Leonardo entered the service of the Comte de Ligny , Louis of Luxembourg , who asked him to prepare a report on the status of the military defense of Tuscany , by the Venetians , who seek to protect their city. It develops methods to defend the city from naval attack of Turks , notably with the invention of a diving helmet to rudimentary. The Turks do not attack, the invention will never be used, and in late April, he returned to Florence. He studied streams of Friuli and proposes an increase in the course of the Isonzo by locks , so as to flood the entire region covering the approaches of Venice . Thus, Leonardo pursued many wider research , . He made a brief stay in Rome at Hadrian's villa at Tivoli . He works Madonna bobbin for Florimond Robertet , Secretary of State of Louis XII of France . In 1502 , he was called by Prince Cesare Borgia , Duke Valentino , and son of Pope Alexander VI , with the title "engineer and captain general" . He stayed in the Marches and the Romagna to inspect the fortresses and the newly conquered territories, filling his notebooks of his many observations, maps, working drawings and copies of works consulted in the libraries of the cities he passes through seven yards on seventeen , with Michelangelo making The Battle of Cascina on the opposite wall . Both works will be lost , painting by Michelangelo is known from a copy of Aristotole da Sangallo in 1542 and painting of Leonardo is known only from preparatory sketches and several Copies of the central section, the most famous is probably that of Peter Paul Rubens . A fire used to dry paint faster or quality of material seem to be the cause of the alteration of the work, which subsequently may have been covered by a fresco by Giorgio Vasari . Leonard is consulted on several occasions as an expert, especially study the stability of the tower of San Miniato al Monte and in the choice of the location of the David of Michelangelo where its opinion is opposed to that of Michelangelo. During this period he presented to the City of Florence's project to divert the Arno intended to create a waterway capable of connecting Florence to the sea with a terrible flood control including Bernardino Luini , Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco d'Oggiono . His father died on July 9 , and Leonardo is moved away from the legacy because of his illegitimacy, but his uncle would later him his sole heir . The same year, achieves Vinci anatomical studies and attempts to classify its innumerable notes. Leonardo began work on the Mona Lisa ( 1503 - 1506 and one thousand five hundred and ten - 1 515 ), which is usually considered a portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo, born Lisa Gherardini Maria. However, many interpretations on this table are also discussed.  In 1505 , he studied the flight of birds and wrote the codex of Turin. Now, observations, experiences and subsequent successive reconstructions . The painter becomes the sole heir of his uncle Francesco in 1507 , but the brothers Leonardo initiate a procedure to break the will . Leonard appealed to Charles d'Amboise and Florimond Robertet to intervene on his behalf . Louis XII of France is at Milan , and Leonardo is again the officer of festivities in the capital of Lombardy. In 1508 , he lives in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli with the sculptor Giovanni Francesco Rustici in Florence but leaves to live in Milan, at the east gate in the parish of Santa Babila . Louis XII and soon returned to Italy from Milan in May 1509. Almost immediately, he led his army against Venice, and Leonard followed the king as a military engineer, he attends the Battle of Agnadello . Following the success of Sangallo , Leonardo only entrusted only modest missions and seems to have not participated in the construction of many Roman forts that mark the evolution of poliorcetics or to beautify the capital. Worse, his painting itself seems out of place, and he took refuge in another specialty, perhaps his favorite . In November 1515 , Leonard looks at a new development district Medici Florence. On 19 December he was present at Bologna for the meeting between Francis I and Pope Leo X , , . Francois I. Leonard charge of designing a lion mechanics can walk and whose chest opens to reveal lily . We do not know for what occasion this lion was designed, but it may have been related to the king's arrival in Lyon or in peace talks between the King and Pope . He goes to work in France in 1516 with his assistant painter Francesco Melzi and Salai where its new patron and protector, the King of France Francis I install it at the mansion of her childhood, the closed Luce , near the castle d'Amboise , the house at the time of the king, as "first painter, engineer and first chief architect of the King" with an annual pension of a thousand crowns . Perhaps the court of France, we more interested in painting, the artist as the engineer and, so far, only the French had committed the illustrious Florentine artist as: Italy had never been hired as an engineer . Francis I was fascinated by Leonardo da Vinci and considers him a father. The manor and castle of Amboise were also connected by a tunnel allowing the sovereign to visit the scientist in discreetly. Leonard plans to build a new palace at Romorantin with the diversion of a river in the Sauldre. It outlines a proposed canal between the Loire and the Saone and organizes parties, like the king gave the castle of Argenton in October 1517 in honor of his sister . He died of illness on 2 May 1519 , the Clos Luce , at the age of 67. The tradition that he died in the arms of Francis I may lie on a literal interpretation of an epitaph erroneously reported by Giorgio Vasari in the 1550 edition of the Vite, but no longer in that of 1568 . The epitaph, which has never been seen on any monument, contains the words "Sinu Regio, which can mean, literally on the chest of a king, but also in a metaphorical sense, in the affection of a king, and can only be an allusion to the death of Leonardo in the royal castle . Moreover, at that time, the court is at the castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye , where the queen gives birth of King Henry II of France , on March 31 , and the royal ordinances data May 1 are dated from this place. The diary of Francis I no reports of any other king's journey through July. Finally, a student of Leonardo da Vinci, Francesco Melzi , whom he bequeathed his books and brushes and is custodian of his testament, written in big brother of the painter a letter in which he recounts the death of his master. Not a word there refers to the fact mentioned earlier that if it were proven, would certainly not been forgotten . According to his last wishes, sixty beggars followed his motorcade and is buried in the chapel of St. Hubert , which is inside the castle of Amboise and overlooking the city. Leonardo da Vinci, his life unmarried and never having had neither wife nor children, bequeathed all of his considerable work to do to publish his favorite disciple and student since her 10 years, Francesco Melzi. He offers particular manuscripts, books, documents and instruments. After being accompanied to France, he remains close to Leonardo da Vinci until his death and his legacy runs during the fifty years following the death of his master. However, it does not publish the work of Leonardo and many paintings, the Mona Lisa , were still in his possession in his studio. The vineyards are divided between Leonardo Salai , another student and disciple loved by Leonard and entered his service at the age of 15, and his servant Battista di Vilussis. The land will be bequeathed to brothers Leonard and her maid got a black coat with fur edges . This is the beginning of the dispersion and the loss of two thirds of the fifty thousand original documents written in old Tuscan multidisciplinary and encrypted by Leonardo da Vinci. Each book, manuscript page, sketches, drawings, text and notes is considered a work of art in itself. It would be only about thirteen thousand documents. Twenty years after Leonardo's death, Francis I tell the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini : Relations and influencesLeonard Florence and contemporary masters To view a more general article, see Renaissance art.  Leonardo began his apprenticeship with Andrea del Verrocchio in 1466 , when the master Verrocchio, the great sculptor Donatello , died. The painter Paolo Uccello whose early experiments with perspective influenced the development of landscape painting is so very old. Similarly, the painters Piero della Francesca and Fra Filippo Lippi , sculptor Luca della Robbia , and architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti had about 60 years. The most renowned artists of the next generation are the master of Leonardo: Andrea del Verrocchio, Antonio Pollaiuolo and the sculptor Mino da Fiesole. Youth Leonard takes place in a house in Florence decorated with the works of these artists and the contemporary of Donatello, Masaccio whose figurative and realistic paintings are imbued with emotion, and Lorenzo Ghiberti , whose Gates of Paradise show the complexity of compositions, combining architectural work and attention to detail. Piero della Francesca has done a detailed study of perspective and be the first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies and treatises Leone Battista Alberti must have a profound effect on young artists, and especially on own observations of Leonardo and his works of art , , . The representation of the naked of Masaccio showing Adam and Eve leaving paradise, with Adam without his genitals hidden by a fig leaf, creates a very expressive image of human forms that influence many paintings, particularly because they are expressed in three dimensions through the innovative use of light and shade, Leonardo developed in his own works. The humanism of the Renaissance influence of Donatello's David can be seen in the later paintings of Leonardo, in particular St. John the Baptist . Florence was then headed by Lorenzo de 'Medici and his younger brother Julian , who was killed by the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478. Ludovico Sforza , who governs Milan between 1479 and 1499 and with whom Leonardo was sent as ambassador from the Medici court , is also his contemporary , . It is also through the Medicis, Leonardo made the acquaintance of ancient philosophers whose humanist Marsilio Ficino , proponent of Neo-Platonism and Cristoforo Landino , writer comments on the classical texts. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola is also associated with Academy of the Medici , . Leonardo later wrote in the margin of a journal "The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me," but the meaning of this commentary remains controversial . Although it cites all three "giants" of the High Renaissance , Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael are not of the same generation. Leonard is 23 years old when Michelangelo was born and 31 years at birth of Raphael. Raphael died in 1520 , a year after da Vinci and Michelangelo lived another forty-five , . Assistants and students Related Articles: Salai and Francesco Melzi.  Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno , said "it Salaino" ("little devil") or Salai , was described by Giorgio Vasari as "a graceful and beautiful young man with thin hair and curly, in which Leonardo was greatly delighted " . Salai Leonard enters service in 1490 at the age of 10 years. Their relationship is not easy. A year later Leonardo made a list of crimes of the boy, calling him a "thief," "liar," "stubborn" and "greedy." The "little devil" had stolen money and valuables at least five times, and had spent a fortune on clothing, twenty-four pairs of shoes . However, the notebooks of Leonardo in the early years of their relationship contains many pictures of the teenager. Salai remained his servant and his assistant during the next thirty years . In 1506 , Leonardo took as a pupil Francesco Melzi , aged 15, son of a Lombard aristocrat. Melzi became the life partner of Le onard and is regarded as his favorite pupil. He went to France with Leonardo and Salai, and stay with him until his death . Salai performs a number of paintings under the name "Andrea Salai, but, as Giorgio Vasari claims that Leonardo" taught him many things about the painting " , his work is generally regarded as less artistic value than other students of Leonardo, as Marco d'Oggiono or Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio. In 1515 , he painted a nude version of the Mona Lisa, called "Monna Vanna" . At his death in 1525 , the Mona Lisa Salai owned was valued at five hundred and five lire , which is exceptionally high for a portrait of small size . Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco Oggiono to join the workshop of Leonardo when he is back in Milan, but many other lesser-known students such as Ambrogio Predis , Bernardino dei Conti , Francesco Napoletano or Andrea Solario are also present. Life Leonardo had many friends who are recognized in their respective areas or have had an important influence on history. These included the mathematician Luca Pacioli , with whom he collaborated on a book, Caesar Borgia , in whose service he spent two years, Lorenzo de 'Medici and the doctor Marcantonio della Torre. He met Nicolas Machiavelli , with whom he later developed a close friendship, and Michelangelo , with whom he was a rival. Among his friends are also Franchini Gaffurio and Isabella d'Este. Leonard seems to have had close relations with women except with Isabelle. He did a portrait of herself during a trip that took him to Mantua , which seems to have been used to create a painting, now lost . Beyond friendship, Leonardo keeps his private life secret. During his lifetime, his extraordinary capacity for invention, his "outstanding physical beauty", its "infinite grace," his "great strength and generosity", the "tremendous breadth of his mind," as described by Vasari , fanned curiosity. Many authors have speculated on different aspects of the personality of Leonardo. His sexuality has often been the object of study, analysis and speculation. This trend began in the mid- sixteenth century and was revived during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries , notably by Sigmund Freud . The closest relationships are with Leonardo his pupils Salai and Melzi Francesco. Melzi wrote that Leonardo's feelings were a mixture of love and passion. It has been described since the sixteenth century that these relationships were of an erotic nature. Since that date, . Leonard has a passion for nature and animals to the point of becoming a vegetarian and buy caged birds to release them . It is also very good musician. It is recognized that Leonardo was left-handed and ambidextrous , which would explain his use of mirror writing . Paintings Despite the relatively recent awareness and admiration dedicated to Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, his immense fame of most of these last four hundred years has rested on his achievements as a painter and a handful of works, authenticated or being awarded that were considered part of the finest masterpieces ever created . These paintings are famous for many reasons and qualities that have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique pieces are often cited innovative techniques he used in applying the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy and animal, botany and geology but also his use of light, his interest in physiognomy and the way humans use the registry and expressions of emotion gestures , his sense of composition and his subtle sense of color gradients. He especially mastered the technique of " sfumato "and the rendering of shadows and lights. All these qualities are combined in his most famous paintings, Mona Lisa , Last Supper and The Virgin of the Rocks . Leonard has made many portraits of women, but a single portrait of a man, that of a musician, was found to date. He often lends the following sentence: "The person most worthy of praise is that which, by its movement, best expresses the passions of the soul," explains his thought as a painter. However, he also drew caricature sketches of his contemporaries in the fashion of the grotesque. Leonard is famous for his drawings and paintings in which he introduces an innovative design the prospect. Da Vinci believed that the visual arts are a science . But the use, often supposed, the golden ratio in his works is not proven . His work on proportions , like the Vitruvian Man , is limited to the use of fractions of integers. Early work Related Articles: The Baptism of Christ and The Annunciation.  The early work of Leonardo da Vinci begins with The Baptism of Christ painted with Andrea del Verrocchio , to whom it is assigned, and other students. Two other paintings appear to date from this period at the workshop, which are both of the " Annunciation. " One is small, large fifty-nine centimeters to only fourteen high. This is a predella placing himself at the base of a larger composition, and in this case, for an array of Lorenzo di Credi which it was separated. The other work is much more important, two hundred and seventeen inches wide . In both these Annunciations, Leonardo has depicted the Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling to the right of the image and profile of an angel approaching her from the left. Much work is done on the movement of clothing and wings of an angel. Although previously attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio , the work is now almost universally attributed to da Vinci . In the table the smallest, Mary averts his eyes and folds her hands in a gesture that symbolized the submission to the will of God. In the table the largest however, Mary does not seem as docile. The young woman, interrupted in her reading by this unexpected messenger what the angel puts his finger in the holy book to locate the page interrupted his reading and raises his hand in a gesture of greeting or surprise . His calm seems to show that it accepts its role as mother of God , not with resignation but with confidence. In this table, the young Leonardo presents the Humanist face of the Virgin Mary, recognizing the role of humanity in the incarnation of God . This picture has obviously been worked by several people, since some discontinuities are noticeable style as a "mistake" of perspective on the right hand of Mary, the flowery meadow as embroidery or the wings of prey of the angel . The style of the lectern table could be a nod to the style of the tomb of Piero made by Verrocchio in 1472 . Paintings of the 1480s In the 1480s, Vinci receives two very large orders and began work on another work which is also of great importance in terms of composition. Unfortunately, two of the three works were never completed and the third took so long to create it was subject to lengthy negotiations over completion and payment. One of these tables is Saint Jerome. Liana Bortoloni in his book The Life and Times of Leonardo (1967), this table combines a difficult period in the life of Leonardo. The signs of melancholy can be read in his diary: "I thought I was learning to live, I learned only to die. " . The painting depicts the penance of Stridon Jerome in the desert. Penitent Jerome occupies the middle of the image, the body slightly diagonally. Kneeling posture takes on a trapezoid , with an arm outstretched toward the outer edge of the painting and his gaze from the opposite direction. Jack Wasserman emphasizes the link between this painting and Leonardo's anatomical studies . In the foreground of all stretches its symbol, a great lion whose body and tail make a double curve through the base of the image. Another interesting feature is the surface appearance of the landscape of craggy rocks where the character. The display of daring and innovative composition with the landscape elements and personal drama, also appears in the great unfinished masterpiece that is The Adoration of the Magi , an order of monks of San Donato Scopeto. It is a painting very complex composition, and Leonardo made numerous drawings and preparatory studies, including a very detailed linear perspective of a ruin of classical architecture which serves as a backdrop to the scene. But in 1482 , Leonardo moved to Milan, at the request of Lorenzo de 'Medici , to ingratiate himself to Ludovico Sforza. He abandons his picture , . The third important work of this period was The Virgin of the Rocks which was commissioned in Milan for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. The painting, done with the assistance of the brothers, was to fill a large altarpiece , already constructed . Leonardo chose to paint a portion of the childhood of Christ from the gospels apocryphal , when the little John the Baptist , under the protection of an angel, met the Holy Family on the road of Egypt. In this scene, as painted by Leonardo da Vinci, John recognizes and worships Jesus as the Christ. The table shows graceful figures kneeling in adoration before Christ in a wild and rocky landscape . The picture is almost as complex as the painting commissioned by the monks of San Donato, although only four characters and if not fifty depicts a landscape rather than architectural background. The painting was completed but, in fact, two versions of the painting were made, one that remained in the chapel of the brotherhood, and the other has swept Leonardo in France. But the brothers did not paint them before the next century , . A second version of this table, with the addition of rings and the stick of John the Baptist was made some years later. Paintings of the 1490s Related article: The Last Supper.  The most famous painting by Leonardo for the period of the 1490s is The Last Supper. It is painted directly on a wall of the convent Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The painting depicts the last meal shared by Jesus and his disciples before his capture and death. It shows precisely the moment when Jesus says: "One of you will betray me." Leonardo painted the consternation that this statement has caused to all the twelve disciples of Jesus . Matteo Bandello observed Leonardo at work and he writes in his novel, that some days he painted from the dawn to dusk without stopping to eat, and then stopped painting three or four days . According to Vasari, it causes misunderstanding of the abbot, the prior , who hunts the painter, until Leonard asked the Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza to intervene. Vasari also describes how Vinci doubts his ability to properly paint the faces of Jesus and Judas , telling the Duke that he may have used the model to monk . When the mural is complete, it is hailed as a masterpiece of design and characterization , even later getting the admiration of Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt . The work was ever restored, the painting plaster off the support . The paint has deteriorated rapidly, so that even before the hundredth anniversary of its inception, it has been described by one witness as "totally devastated" . Leonard, instead of using the proven technique of fresco , had used the "technique of tempera , a painting method using egg yolk as a medium to bind the pigments , while the support is mostly " gesso " , a type of chalk made of calcium carbonate mineral, which has produced an area prone to mildew and peeling . Despite these setbacks, the Last Supper has remained one of the most works of art reproduced. Paintings from the 1500s Related Articles: The Mona Lisa and The Virgin and Child Jesus and St. Anne.  Among the works created by Leonardo in the 1500s is a little known portrait of the Mona Lisa (1503-1506) or, particularly for English, "Mona Lisa". The painting is known in particular for the elusive smile on the face of the woman, whose experts agree that it is Lisa Gherardini. The quality of the paint may be related to the fact that the artist has subtly shadowed the corners of the mouth and eyes, so that the exact nature of the smile could not be determined. The quality of the shadows to which the work is deemed to have been called " sfumato "or" the smoke of Leonardo. " Giorgio Vasari wrote that "the smile is so nice it seems divine rather than human, those who saw it were very surprised that it seems as lively as the original" . However, for long, the experts generally agreed that Vasari could never have known the painting other than through his fame as he described it as having your eyebrows. An analysis of spectroscopic high resolution confirmed the hypothesis that Arasse Daniel, in his book Leonardo da Vinci (1997), discussed the possibility that Leonardo may have had painted their faces with eyebrows, but they then been removed, mainly because they were not in vogue in the mid- sixteenth century. Indeed, the Mona Lisa would have had eyebrows and eyelashes, which have subsequently been removed . Other features of this work are the severity dress, leaving the eyes and hands not in competition with other details, the dramatic landscape background, the work of color and nature of the technique of painting using oils, very gentle, but asked a little like tempera and blended on the surface so that the brush strokes seem inseparable. Vasari expressed the opinion that the manner of painting would make even "the most confident masters . The remarkable state of preservation and the fact that there is no visible sign of repairs or repainting overlays are extremely rare for a painting of that period . In The Virgin and Child Jesus and St. Anne , the composition takes the theme of new characters in a landscape that Jack Wasserman, in his book Leonardo da Vinci (1975) describes as "breathtakingly beautiful" and refers to the unfinished painting of St. Jerome with the character making an oblique angle with one of his arms. What makes the Virgin, the Infant Jesus and St. Anne's so rare is the presence of two sets in a different perspective but overlapping. Mary is sitting on the lap of his mother, St. Anne. She leans forward to hug the baby Jesus playing with a lamb, a sign of the imminence of his own sacrifice . This table, which was copied several times, influenced Michelangelo , Raphael and Andrea del Sarto , and through them Pontormo and Correggio. The style of composition has been adopted especially by painters Venetians Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. Drawings and sketches Related Articles: Landscape of the Arno Valley (Leonardo) , Vitruvian Man and The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist.  Vinci was not a prolific painter, but he was as a draftsman, filling his newspapers small sketches and detailed drawings to keep track of everything that had attracted his attention. In addition to his notes, there are many studies for his paintings, some of which may be considered as preparatory work such as The Adoration of the Magi , The Virgin of the Rocks and The Last Supper . His first dated drawing is a Landscape, Landscape of the Arno Valley (1473), which shows the river, the mountains, Montelupo Castle and farms beyond it in great detail . Among his famous drawings, there is the Vitruvian Man , a study of human body proportions, the head of the angel, the Virgin of the Rocks and The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist , which is a large carton (160 x 100 cm) in chalk white and black on a colored paper of St. Anne . This theme of St. Anne will be with the Holy Family , the dominance of the work of Leonardo 1500 to 1517 . This drawing employs the subtle technique of sfumato , like the Mona Lisa. Leonardo apparently never made a painting from this drawing, but a picture is fairly similar in the Virgin, the Infant Jesus and St. Anne . Other drawings of interest include numerous studies generally referred to as " caricatures "because, if exaggerated, they appear to be based on observation of live models. Giorgio Vasari relates that if Leonardo saw someone who had an interesting face, he followed her all day to observe . There are numerous studies of beautiful young men, often associated with Salai , with the face rare and much admired feature called the "Greek profile" . These faces are often contrasted with those of a warrior . Salai is often depicted in costumes and disguises. Leonardo is known to have designed sets for traditional processions. Other drawings, often meticulous, studies show drapes. The Muse Lon Bonnat in Bayonne keeps a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci di Bernardo Bandino Baronchelli representative (one of the murderers of Giuliano de Medici during the Pazzi conspiracy ), after his hanging in a window of the Palazzo del Capitano di Giustizia to Florence , December 29, 1479 . Leonardo as observer, scientist and inventorJournals and Notes The humanism of the Renaissance does not bind the sciences and arts. However, studies of Vinci in science and engineering are as impressive and innovative as his artistic work, recorded in notebooks comprising some thirteen notes of thousand pages of writing and drawings which combine art and natural philosophy (the basis of modern science). These notes have been produced and updated daily throughout the life and travels of Leonardo. Continually strives to make observations of the world around him , conscious and proud of being, as it was defined, a "man without letters, lucid and self-taught on natural phenomena often far removed from what was learned in school . These papers are mostly written in mirror writing , more commonly known as mirroring. The reason may have been more of a practical need to be faster than for reasons of encryption as is often suggested. As Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it should be easier for him to write from right to left. His notes and drawings, the oldest of which date from 1475 , show a wide variety of interests and concerns, but also some lists of groceries or any of its debtors. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and tapestries , studies of faces and emotions, animals, babies, dissections, studies botanical and geological , war machines, flying machines and architectural works . These notebooks - originally loose papers of different sizes and types, given by his friends after his death - have found their way into major collections such as those set out in Windsor Castle , the Louvre , the National Library Spain , the Ambrosian Library in Milan, the Victoria and Albert Museum and British Library in London. The British Library has a selection from his notes (BL Arundel MS 263) on the Internet in the pages of its website dealing with this chapter . The Codex Leicester is the only major scientific work of da Vinci, who is in the hands of a private owner ( Bill Gates ). The newspapers seem to have been Leonard for publication, because many leaves have a shape and an order that would facilitate editing. In many cases, a single theme, for example, heart or the human fetus is treated in detail in both words and images on a single sheet . This mode of organization also minimizes data loss in case the pages are mixed or destroyed. The reason why these newspapers were not published while Leonardo was still alive is unknown , but some believe that society was not ready for this, including the Church vis--vis its anatomical studies. Scientific studies The approach to science by Leonardo is related to the observation : If "Science is the captain, practice is the Soldier . His knowledge, his scientific research does focus exclusively on the parts he has practiced as a technician . Leonard da Vinci tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and illustrating in greater detail, by not insisting too much on theoretical explanations. His studies on the flight or the movement of water is probably what is most remarkable about this. A shortage of initial instruction in Latin and mathematics , contemporary scholars have largely ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he himself learned Latin. In the 1490s, he studied mathematics as a result of Luca Pacioli and made a series of drawings of regular solids in a skeletal form to make them burn for his book Divina Proportione (1509) . However, his mathematics is that of a practitioner: it has the limited objectives of abaci of his time, he enters with just the geometry of the Greeks , his perspective is that of all the theorists of his time. However, beyond the simple geometric aspect of the representation of perspective, he proposes in his Treatise on Painting, a threefold definition of perspective: 1st: linear perspective (reduced size of objects in proportion to their distance from the observer perspective geometric ss) , 2 : Perspectives of the color (color smoothing proportion to their distance from the observer) , 3: Intentions Clear (decrease the amount of detail in proportion to their distance from the observer) . Also, Leonard has designed an instrument with articulated system for constructing a mechanical solution to the problem of Alhazen , essentially technical problem, which demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the properties of conic . Similarly, the mechanics of Leonardo is that of his contemporaries, with its weaknesses, uncertainties, mistakes and it does not appear that he made many discoveries in this field. Its physics is rather confusing and vague. It was certainly never gunner and has no theory of the ballistic. Yet, as evidenced by some of his drawings, Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the intuition as to what was seen on a jet of water, there was no linear part in the trajectory of an artillery projectile in contrast to what was prevailing at the time. But he stopped very quickly on a path that Tartaglia and Benedetti were to follow and which led to Galileo If Alberti and Francesco di Giorgio Martini were concerned the strength of the beams, they had never looked for mathematical formulations. Leonardo is interested in the problem of bending , probably through experience, and can establish laws, yet imperfect , the elastic line for beams of different sections, free or embedded including the problem of Galilee (the problem of the balcony). In so doing, it eliminates the modulus and the time which had yet alluded Jordanus Nemorarius Its chemistry is limited to the development of a still and some research of alchemy that he practiced in Rome . Paul Valery highlights how Leonardo discovered intuitively by observing "the first germ of the theory of waves of light", without however being able to validate experimentally: "The air is filled with infinite straight lines and radiating intertwined and woven without one never borrows the term from another, and represent each object's true shape of the reason (their explanation). " . Leonardo da Vinci also studied a lot of light and optics ; in hydrology, the only true law is that it has made the flow of rivers. It seems that from the contents of his notebooks, he had planned to publish a series of treaties on a wide variety of topics. On several occasions he mentions a draft treaty of the water, but that seems to have been so large in his mind it seemed impossible . A treatise on anatomy was observed during a visit by the secretary of Cardinal Louis d'Aragon in 1517 . His pupil Francesco Melzi , sought to reconstruct the Treatise on Painting, Leonardo da Vinci had planned his whole life to write. He compiled for this aspect of his work on anatomy, light and shadows, draped landscapes. A partial and incomplete edition of the work of Francesco Melzi appeared in 1651, Italian and French. Charles Le Brun presented the French edition of the Treatise on Painting to members of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture as the book now was to be their reference (despite the criticism of Abraham Bosse and the skepticism of Flibien ). Thus Leonardo da Vinci was transformed "into a precursor of academic thought," according to the formula Arasse Daniel , it has never caught a glimpse of such blood flow . It was one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus in the uterus and the first scientific recording of arterial stiffness after a heart attack. As an artist, Leonardo observed closely the effects of age and of human emotion on the physiology, studying in particular the effects of rabies. He also designed numerous models, some with significant facial deformities or visible signs of disease . He also studied and drew the anatomy of many animals. He dissected cows , the birds , the monkeys , the bears and frogs , comparing the anatomical structure of these animals with that of man. He also studied the horses. Engineering and invention
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