Leonardo first gained attention for his work on the "Baptism of Christ", painted in conjunction with Verrocchio. Two other paintings appear to date from his time at Verrocchio's workshop, both of which are Annunciations. One is small, long and high. It is a "predella" to go at the base of a larger composition, a painting by Lorenzo di Credi from which it has become separated. The other is a much larger work, long. In both Annunciations, Leonardo used a formal arrangement, like two well-known pictures by Fra Angelico of the same subject, of the Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling to the right of the picture, approached from the left by an angel in profile, with a rich flowing garment, raised wings and bearing a lily.
Early works
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci | Early works
"Baptism of Christ" "Mona Lisa" , "The Last Supper",  "Vitruvian Man" Mona Lisa, the "Last Supper", and the "Virgin of the Rocks". "Mona Lisa" or "La Gioconda", the laughing one - his most famous painting.
what does patterns in nature refer to?
user
They are visible regularities of form found in the natural world.
assistant
what patterns does it include?
user
It includes symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes.
assistant
what is it caused by?
user
Causes can be in the mathematics that governs what patterns can physically form, and among living things in the effects of natural selection, that govern how patterns evolve.
assistant
were these indicated in any books?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
assistant
can you name anyone from history who has done such researches on this?
user
Leonardo da Vinci
assistant
where was he born?
user
In the Tuscan hill town of Vinci
assistant
was he into painting?
user
Yes his main achievement is as a painter
assistant
can you name some of his works?
user
Leonardo was accepted for apprenticeship and "soon proved himself a first class geometrician". Vasari says that during his youth Leonardo made a number of clay heads of smiling women and children from which casts were still being made and sold by the workshop some 80 years later. Among his earliest significant known paintings are the "Annunciation" in the Uffizi, the angel that he painted as a collaboration with Verrocchio in "The Baptism of Christ", and a small predella of the "Annunciation" to go beneath an altarpiece by Lorenzo di Credi. The little predella picture is probably the earliest. The diversity of Leonardo's interests, remarked on by Vasari as apparent in his early childhood, was to express itself in his journals which record his scientific observations of nature, his meticulous dissection of corpses to understand anatomy, his experiments with machines for flying, for generating power from water and for besieging cities, his studies of geometry and his architectural plans, as well as personal memos and creative writing including fables.
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Interests
Nevertheless, these few works together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.
List of works by Leonardo da Vinci | Introduction
All these qualities come together in his most famous painted works, the "Mona Lisa", the "Last Supper", and the "Virgin of the Rocks".
Leonardo da Vinci | Painting
Although previously attributed to Ghirlandaio, the larger work is now generally attributed to Leonardo. In the smaller painting, Mary averts her eyes and folds her hands in a gesture that symbolised submission to God's will. Mary is not submissive, however, in the larger piece. The girl, interrupted in her reading by this unexpected messenger, puts a finger in her bible to mark the place and raises her hand in a formal gesture of greeting or surprise. This calm young woman appears to accept 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, recognising humanity's role in God's incarnation.
Leonardo da Vinci | Early works
Leonardo da Vinci (; 14/15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. The "Mona Lisa" is the most famous of his works and the most famous portrait ever made. "The Last Supper" is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his "Vitruvian Man" drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon. He is also known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on science and invention; these involve a variety of subjects including anatomy, cartography, painting, and palaeontology.
Leonardo da Vinci | Introduction
Despite the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, for the better part of four hundred years his fame rested on his achievements as a painter. A handful of works that are either authenticated or attributed to him have been regarded as among the great masterpieces. These paintings are famous for a variety of qualities that have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. By the 1490s Leonardo had already been described as a "Divine" painter. Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique are his innovative techniques for laying on the paint; his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology; his interest in physiognomy and the way humans register emotion in expression and gesture; his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition; and his use of subtle gradation of tone.
Leonardo da Vinci | Painting
Leonardo first gained attention for his work on the "Baptism of Christ", painted in conjunction with Verrocchio. Two other paintings appear to date from his time at Verrocchio's workshop, both of which are Annunciations. One is small, long and high. It is a "predella" to go at the base of a larger composition, a painting by Lorenzo di Credi from which it has become separated. The other is a much larger work, long. In both Annunciations, Leonardo used a formal arrangement, like two well-known pictures by Fra Angelico of the same subject, of the Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling to the right of the picture, approached from the left by an angel in profile, with a rich flowing garment, raised wings and bearing a lily.
Leonardo da Vinci | Early works
Leonardo was a prolific draughtsman, keeping journals full of small sketches and 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" and "The Last Supper". His earliest dated drawing is a "Landscape of the Arno Valley", 1473, which shows the river, the mountains, Montelupo Castle and the farmlands beyond it in great detail. According to art historian Ludwig Heydenreich, this is "The first true landscape in art." Massimo Polidoro says that it was the first landscape "not to be the background of some religious scene or a portrait.
Leonardo da Vinci | Drawings
He was tall, strong and a fine athlete who could ride the wildest horse and jump over a man's head. He distinguished himself as a writer while he was still a child at school, and by the age of twenty had written a play which was successfully passed off as a genuine piece of Classical literature. In 1435, he began his first major written work, "Della pittura," which was inspired by the burgeoning pictorial art in Florence in the early 15th century. In this work he analyses the nature of painting and explores the elements of perspective, composition and colour.
Leon Battista Alberti | Early life
The "universal genius" Leonardo da Vinci was to further perfect the aspects of pictorial art (lighting, linear and atmospheric perspective, anatomy, foreshortening and characterisation) that had preoccupied artists of the Early Renaissance, in a lifetime of studying and meticulously recording his observations of the natural world. His adoption of oil paint as his primary media meant that he could depict light and its effects on the landscape and objects more naturally and with greater dramatic effect than had ever been done before, as demonstrated in the "Mona Lisa". His dissection of cadavers carried forward the understanding of skeletal and muscular anatomy, as seen in the unfinished "Saint Jerome in the Wilderness".
Renaissance art | High Renaissance in Italy, 1495–1520
He was not to see this project fully realized, but gathered the "Codex Urbinas".
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Pupils
Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance painter and polymath who achieved legendary fame and iconic status within his own lifetime. His renown primarily rests upon his brilliant achievements as a painter, the "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper", being two of the most famous artworks ever created, but also upon his diverse skills as a scientist and inventor. He became so highly valued during his lifetime that the King of France bore him home like a trophy of war, supported him in his old age and, according to legend, cradled his head as he died.
Cultural references to Leonardo da Vinci | Introduction
Nor were his designs based on particularly good science.
Early flying machines | Leonardo da Vinci
Vasari also says: In the normal course of events many men and women are born with various remarkable qualities and talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind... Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty who displayed infinite grace in everything he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied were solved with ease. While painting "The Last Supper", Leonado wrote, "Wine is good, but water is preferable at table.
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Character
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was one of the leading artists of the High Renaissance. Fifteen artworks are generally attributed either in whole or in large part to him. However, it is believed that he made many more, only for them to be lost over the years or remain unidentified. The authorship of several paintings traditionally attributed to Leonardo is disputed. Two major works are known only as copies. Works are regularly attributed to Leonardo with varying degrees of credibility. None of Leonardo's paintings are signed. The attributions here draw on the opinions of various scholars. The small number of surviving paintings is due in part to Leonardo's frequently disastrous experimentation with new techniques and his chronic procrastination.
List of works by Leonardo da Vinci | Introduction
It is commonly believed that upon Leonardo's death in 1519, Salaì inherited several paintings including the "Mona Lisa". Through his estate, many of those works, notably the "Mona Lisa", passed into the possession of Francis I of France. While Leonardo left all personal belongings, paintings, drawings and notes to Francesco Melzi in his will, it is unclear whether this included the "Mona Lisa".
Salaì | Early life
His kneeling form takes on a trapezoid shape, with one arm stretched to the outer edge of the painting and his gaze looking in the opposite direction. J. Wasserman points out the link between this painting and Leonardo's anatomical studies. Across the foreground sprawls his symbol, a great lion whose body and 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 and personal drama also appear in the great unfinished masterpiece, the "Adoration of the Magi", a commission from the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto.
Leonardo da Vinci | Paintings of the 1480s
He was "striking and handsome" and "marvellously endowed by heaven with beauty, grace [and] outstanding physical beauty", and "displayed infinite grace in everything he did".
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Physical characteristics
In the style of Leonardo he also painted a "St. John", which is now in the Zecca at Milan. Among his early paintings there is, besides the altar-piece, a "Last Supper" in the Dominican monastery, and a "Madonna" in fresco in Santa Anastasia at Verona. He died of the plague at Mantua. Another brother of Francesco, Fra Cherubino Bonsignori, excelled in miniature painting.
Girolamo Bonsignori | Life
In addition to operas, Vinci wrote a few cantatas, sonatas, a serenata, and two oratorios ("Oratorio di Maria dolorata" ca. 1723 and "Oratorio per la Santissima Vergine del Rosario" ca. 1730). His sonata in D major for flute and basso continuo is still played today. He composed two sonatas for the recorder in addition to a recorder concerto in a minor.
Leonardo Vinci | Other works
It is thought that Leonardo never made a painting from it, the closest similarity being to "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne" in the Louvre. Other drawings of interest include numerous studies generally referred to as "caricatures" because, although exaggerated, they appear to be based upon observation of live models. Vasari relates that if Leonardo saw a person with an interesting face he would follow them around all day observing them. There are numerous studies of beautiful young men, often associated with Salaì, with the rare and much admired facial feature, the so-called "Grecian profile." These faces are often contrasted with that of a warrior.
Leonardo da Vinci | Drawings
Rio who wrote in 1861: "He towered above all other artists through the strength and the nobility of his talents."
Leonardo da Vinci | Fame and reputation
Leonardo da Vinci chose only very handsome boys, as was Francesco, to be his pupils and cared for them considerably as if they were family. In addition to Francesco Melzi, some of his pupils were Cesare da Sesto, Boltraffio and Andrea Salaí. However, as they were chosen based on attractiveness rather than talent, they were not very skilled painters, and therefore it is easy to identify paintings they worked on based on their lower quality. Because of the general workshop practice where multiple artists work on one painting, it has become common practice to ascribe Leonardo's pupils to his less known (or lower quality) works.
Francesco Melzi | Selected works
https://archive.org/details/VinciOperaArtaserseLOperaDeNancy20121110
Leonardo Vinci | External links
He had already embarked on a serious attempt to teach himself how to paint when he was just twelve, and he was now inspired by the Senese countryside to resume his artistic studies through both practical endeavour and reading. Back in Florence he became a regular presence in the Gabinetto Vieusseux (library) where his energetic autodidacticism was again to the fore. He discovered the works of Gabriele D'Annunzio, a dominating presence in early twentieth century literature. He also ingested parts of the multi-volume compendium "la Storia della pittura in Italia" ("The History of Painting in Italy"), by Cavalcaselle and Crowe.
Emilio Cecchi | Provenance and early years
Vasari says of the child Leonardo "He would have been very proficient in his early lessons, if he had not been so volatile and flexible; for he was always setting himself to learn a multitude of things, most of which were shortly abandoned. When he began the study of arithmetic, he made, within a few months, such remarkable progress that he could baffle his master with the questions and problems that he raised... All the time, through all his other enterprises, Leonardo never ceased drawing..." Leonardo's father, Ser Piero, realising that his son's talents were extraordinary, took some of his drawings to show his friend, Andrea del Verrocchio, who ran one of the largest artists' workshops in Florence.
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Interests
Medusa is either of two paintings described in Giorgio Vasari's "Life" of Leonardo da Vinci as being among Leonardo's earliest works. Neither painting survived.
Medusa (Leonardo) | Introduction
Leonardo, because of the scope of his interests and the extraordinary degree of talent that he demonstrated in so many diverse areas, is regarded as the archetypal "Renaissance man". But it was first and foremost as a painter that he was admired within his own time, and as a painter, he drew on the knowledge that he gained from all his other interests. Leonardo was a scientific observer. He learned by looking at things. He studied and drew the flowers of the fields, the eddies of the river, the form of the rocks and mountains, the way light reflected from foliage and sparkled in a jewel.
Florentine painting | Leonardo da Vinci
There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations, whirlpools, war machines, flying machines and architecture. These notebooks—originally loose papers of different types and sizes, were largely entrusted to Leonardo's pupil and heir Francesco Melzi after the master's death. These were to be published, a task of overwhelming difficulty because of its scope and Leonardo's idiosyncratic writing. Some of Leonardo's drawings were copied by an anonymous Milanese artist for a planned treatise on art . After Melzi's death in 1570, the collection passed to his son, the lawyer Orazio, who initially took little interest in the journals.
Leonardo da Vinci | Journals and notes
Leonardo received an informal education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded few distinct childhood incidents. One was of a kite coming to his cradle and opening his mouth with its tail; he regarded this as an omen of his writing on the subject. The second occurred while he was exploring in the mountains: he discovered a cave and was both terrified that some great monster might lurk there and driven by curiosity to find out what was inside. He also seems to have remembered some of his childhood observations of water, writing and crossing out the name of his hometown in one of his notebooks on the formation of rivers.
Leonardo da Vinci | Early life
In particular, he studied the human form, dissecting thirty or more unclaimed cadavers from a hospital in order to understand muscles and sinews. More than any other artist, he advanced the study of "atmosphere". In his paintings such as the "Mona Lisa" and "Virgin of the Rocks", he used light and shade with such subtlety that, for want of a better word, it became known as Leonardo's "sfumato" or "smoke".
Florentine painting | Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo's collective works compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary Michelangelo. Properly named Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, Leonardo was born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci, in the region of Florence, Italy. Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Italian painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan, and he later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice. He spent his last three years in France, where he died in 1519.
Leonardo da Vinci | Introduction
Baldassare Castiglione, author of "Il Cortegiano" ("The Courtier"), wrote in 1528: "...Another of the greatest painters in this world looks down on this art in which he is unequalled..." while the biographer known as "Anonimo Gaddiano" wrote, : "His genius was so rare and universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf..." Vasari, in the enlarged edition of "Lives of the Artists" (1568) introduced his chapter on Leonardo with the following words: The 19th century brought a particular admiration for Leonardo's genius, causing Henry Fuseli to write in 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..." This is echoed by A.E.
Leonardo da Vinci | Fame and reputation
The manuscript, which now appears to be incomplete, is considered a particularly useful source for the study of the history of Italian art since it is the most comprehensive biographical source before the 1550 edition of Vasari's Lives, which was being compiled over the same period. The account of the life of Leonardo da Vinci is especially detailed, and much used by later authors. One particular point, a later addition to the manuscript, has been much discussed. This states that Leonardo painted a portrait from life of "Piero Francesco del Giocondo" (or possibly just "Francesco del Giocondo"), respectively the son and the husband of Lisa del Giocondo, usually considered the sitter for the "Mona Lisa".
Anonimo Gaddiano | Contents
This painting was to be his largest and most substantial work. Since he had a bad experience with fresco painting ("The Last Supper"; refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan), he wanted to apply oil colours on the wall. He began also to experiment with such a thick undercoat (possibly mingled with wax), that after he applied the colours, the paint began to drip. Trying to dry the painting in a hurry and save whatever he could, he hung large charcoal braziers close to the painting. Only the lower part could be saved in an intact state; the upper part couldn't dry fast enough and the colours intermingled.
The Battle of Anghiari (Leonardo) | History
Anne is a full generation older than Mary. Freud also points out that, in the painting, the outline of a vulture can be seen. This is connected to the original fantasy involving the vulture in Leonardo da Vinci's crib.
Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood | Interpretation of "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne"
In the 1480s, Leonardo received two very important commissions and commenced another work that was of ground-breaking importance in terms of composition. Two of the three were never finished, and the third took so long that it was subject to lengthy negotiations over completion and payment. One of these paintings was "Saint Jerome in the Wilderness", which Bortolon associates with a difficult period of Leonardo's life, as evidenced in his diary: "I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die." Although the painting is barely begun, the composition can be seen and is very unusual. Jerome, as a penitent, occupies the middle of the picture, set on a slight diagonal and viewed somewhat from above.
Leonardo da Vinci | Paintings of the 1480s
This image was repeated in the woodcut designed for the first edition of Vasari's "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects". In a 2008 TED talk, artist Siegfried Woldhek, based on Leonardo's features allegedly featured in Andrea del Verrocchio's bronze statue of "David", proposed that Leonardo may have done three self-portraits: "Portrait of a Musician", the "Vitruvian Man", and the aforementioned "Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk".
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Portraits
It is a complex composition, of about Leonardo did numerous drawings and preparatory studies, including a detailed one in linear perspective of the ruined classical architecture that forms part of the background. In 1482 Leonardo went to Milan at the behest of Lorenzo de' Medici in order to win favour with Ludovico il Moro, and the painting was abandoned.
Leonardo da Vinci | Paintings of the 1480s
While Leonardo's teacher, Verrocchio, largely ignored Piero's scientifically disciplined approach to painting, Leonardo and Domenico Ghirlandaio, who also worked at Verrocchio's workshop, did not. Two of Leonardo's earliest paintings, both scenes of the Annunciation show his competent understanding of the linear perspective.
Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci | Condensed biography
A list of the artist's works, published at Florence in 1810, comprised 200 compositions; the number was afterwards considerably increased. Amongst the most remarkable, besides those already mentioned, may be noticed the "Transfiguration" from Raphael, a "Magdalen" from Murillo, a "Head of the Saviour" from da Vinci, the "Car of Aurora" from Guido Reni, the "Hours and the Repose in Egypt" from Poussin, the "Prize of Diana" from Domenichino, the "Monument of Clement XIII." from Canova, "Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur", Francesco de Moncada after Van Dyck, portraits of Dante, Petrarch, Leonardo, Ariosto, Tasso, and a number of other eminent men.
Raffaello Sanzio Morghen | Works
His paintings are included in a number of public collections, including: the Museums of Brussels, Antwerp, Trieste and Bruges. While he is primarily noted for his historical works, but also painted Oriental subjects. Select list of paintings Gallery
Cesare Dell'Acqua | Work
Leonardo's fame within his own lifetime was such that the King of France carried him away like a trophy, and was claimed to have supported him in his old age and held him in his arms as he died. Interest in Leonardo and his work has never diminished. Crowds still queue to see his best-known artworks, T-shirts still bear his most famous drawing, and writers continue to hail him as a genius while speculating about his private life, as well as about what one so intelligent actually believed in. The continued admiration that Leonardo commanded from painters, critics and historians is reflected in many other written tributes.
Leonardo da Vinci | Fame and reputation
Kelly's study of the masters in the Louvre collection resulted in great admiration for the Renaissance painter Leonardo Da Vinci. His influence is evident in Kelly's notebooks of this time which are full of drawings for World War II battlements and weaponry which echo DaVinci's drawings for the mechanisms of war. He also shared Leonardo's fascination with science and the underlying dynamics of how things work. His interest of the nervous system and sensory aspects of human anatomy would later come important components of his abstract figures of the 1950s and '60s.
Leon Kelly | Philadelphia
This is a list of things named after Leonardo da Vinci.
List of things named after Leonardo da Vinci | Introduction
As an adult, Leonardo had only two childhood memories, one of which was the finding of a cave in the Apennines. Although fearing that he might be attacked by a wild beast, he ventured in driven "by the burning desire to see whether there might be any marvelous thing within." Leonardo's earliest dated drawing is a study of the Arno valley, strongly emphasizing its geological features. His notebooks contain landscapes with a wealth of geological observation from the regions of both Florence and Milan, often including atmospheric effects such as a heavy rainstorm pouring down on a town at the foot of a mountain range.
Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci | Geology
Since that date much has been written about his presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the androgyny and eroticism manifested in "Saint John the Baptist" and "Bacchus" and more explicitly in a number of erotic drawings.
Leonardo da Vinci | Personal life
His early modernist works include "Portrait of Vincent Nubiola" (1917), "Siurana (the path)", "Nord-Sud" (1917) and "Painting of Toledo". These works show the influence of Cézanne, and fill the canvas with a colorful surface and a more painterly treatment than the hard-edge style of most of his later works. In "Nord-Sud", the literary newspaper of that name appears in the still life, a compositional device common in cubist compositions, but also a reference to the literary and avant-garde interests of the painter.
Joan Miró | Early fauvist
These might be referenced to as paintings done by his pupils that Leonardo touched up as opposed to the inverse. Francesco Melzi, in contrast to his peers, actually does have a handful of completed, high quality paintings attributed to him, as well as drawings and studies. He is responsible for the red chalk portrait, from approximately 1515, of da Vinci's profile which depicts him as very classically handsome and regal. This is most likely the portrait to which Vasari and , as well as other later writers, refer to in describing Leonardo as having such "grace and beauty." There are several other drawings attributed to him in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
Francesco Melzi | Selected works
Leonardo's pupils and followers copied or closely imitated many of his pictures. Several of his important works exist only as copies by his admirers. These include: Other much much-copied works include:
Cultural references to Leonardo da Vinci | Copies
... Small rooms or dwellings set the mind in the right path, large ones cause it to go astray. ... If you want money in abundance, you will end by not enjoying it." He also wrote, "He who wishes to become rich in a day is hanged in a year."
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Character
The journals of Leonardo contain matters as mundane as grocery lists and as remarkable as diagrams for the construction of a flying machine. In 1466, Leonardo was sent to Florence to the workshop of the artist Verrocchio, in order to learn the skills of an artist. At the workshop, as well as painting and drawing, he learnt the study of topographical anatomy. He was also exposed to a very wide range of technical skills such as drafting, set construction, plasterworking, paint chemistry, and metallurgy. Among the older artists whose work stimulated Leonardo's scientific interest was Piero della Francesca, then a man in his 60s, who was one of the earliest artists to systematically employ linear perspective in his paintings, and who had a greater understanding of the science of light than any other artist of his date.
Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci | Condensed biography
Leonardo (1452–1519) spent his formative years training in the Florence workshop of Verrocchio before moving to Milan, where he worked from 1482 to 1499 before spending 1500 to 1506 back in Florence. Because of the scope of his interests and the extraordinary degree of talent that he demonstrated in so many diverse areas, he is regarded as the archetypal "Renaissance man". But it was first and foremost as a painter that he was admired in his own time, and as a painter, he drew on the knowledge he gained from his other interests. Leonardo was a scientific observer. He learned by looking at things.
Italian Renaissance painting | Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo, a famous painter and inventor, arrived with three of his paintings, namely the "Mona Lisa", "Sainte Anne", and "Saint Jean Baptiste", today owned by the Louvre museum of Paris.
French Renaissance | Art
Vasari describes how Leonardo, troubled over his ability to adequately depict the faces of Christ and the traitor Judas, told the Duke that he might be obliged to use the prior as his model. When finished, the painting was acclaimed as a masterpiece of design and characterization, but it deteriorated rapidly, so that within a hundred years it was described by one viewer as "completely ruined." Leonardo, instead of using the reliable technique of fresco, had used tempera over a ground that was mainly gesso, resulting in a surface subject to mould and to flaking. Despite this, the painting remains one of the most reproduced works of art; countless copies have been made in various mediums.
Leonardo da Vinci | Paintings of the 1490s
[...] From here four galleries stretched like a fan, that is to say a series of undergrounds which, it is said, extends under the whole surface of the garden in front of the western front of the Rusca house and which perhaps corresponds with the tower B. This construction recalls a drawing made by Leonardo da Vinci in a manuscript of the «Bibliothèque de l'Instituit» (Ravaisson Mollien, Les manuscrits de Leonardo da Vinci B & D de la bibliothèque de l'Instituit - Paris 1883 fol 37 recto ) The issue was no longer explored by Rahn or by the then head of the department of public education Eligio Pometta, remaining a de facto curiosity in itself.
Leonardo's Rivellino | Early modern studies
Within Leonardo's lifetime, his extraordinary powers of invention, his "outstanding physical beauty," "infinite grace," "great strength and generosity," "regal spirit and tremendous breadth of mind," as described by Vasari, as well as all other aspects of his life, attracted the curiosity of others. One such aspect was his love for animals, likely including vegetarianism and according to Vasari, a habit of purchasing caged birds and releasing them. Leonardo had many friends who are now renowned either in their fields or for their historical significance. They included the mathematician Luca Pacioli, with whom he collaborated on the book "Divina proportione" in the 1490s.
Leonardo da Vinci | Personal life
The rest were scattered around the world, and to this may be due the oblivion into which his very name had fallen; this, and the fact that, some believed that for all the beauty and the soulfulness of his work, he had nothing innovative to add to the history of art. Even in his best work he had only given newer variations of the art of his predecessors and contemporaries. His rank among the masters was renewed, however, when a number of his paintings were assembled at the seminal 1902 Gruuthusemuseum, Bruges exhibition of early Flemish painters.
Gerard David | Works
He studied and drew the flowers of the fields, the eddies of the river, the form of the rocks and mountains, the way light reflected from foliage and sparkled in a jewel. In particular, he studied the human form, dissecting thirty or more unclaimed cadavers from a hospital in order to understand muscles and sinews. Leonardo achieved a degree of realism in the expression of human emotion, prefigured by Giotto but unknown since Masaccio's "Adam and Eve". Leonardo's "Last Supper", painted from 1495 to 1498 in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan), became the benchmark for religious narrative painting for the next half millennium.
Italian Renaissance painting | Leonardo da Vinci
On the 10 October 1517, he was visited by the Cardinal Luigi d’Aragona, who was so impressed by his artwork that he described them in his "Itinerario", as “rare perfection”. These include his three most famous pieces of work : The Mona Lisa, The Virgin and Child, with St. Anne and St John the Baptist.
Clos Lucé | Leonardo da Vinci’s years at the Clos Lucé
In 1490 Leonardo earned recognition and a breakthrough at the court of Ludovico Sforza and because of the scale of works commissioned he was permitted to have assistants and pupils in his own studio.
Leonardeschi | Introduction
Leonardo da Vinci and A Memory of His Childhood () is a 1910 essay by Sigmund Freud about Leonardo da Vinci. It consists of a psychoanalytic study of Leonardo's life based on his paintings.
Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood | Introduction
This, his first visit to Italy, developed his interest in depicting the life of ancient Greece and Rome, especially the latter since he found new inspiration in the ruins of Pompeii, which fascinated him and would inspire much of his work in the coming decades.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema | Early works
It is the first [documented] time where a landscape was drawn just for the sake of it." 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"; and a large drawing (160×100 cm) in black chalk on coloured paper of "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and 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".
Leonardo da Vinci | Drawings
His earliest known painting is (circa 1515–1520, collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh). This early work shows the painter still struggling with his figures. The neatly painted Renaissance architectural details indicate the artist's interest in contemporary artistic developments in Italy. The result is a work rooted in the 15th century Flemish tradition of Early Netherlandish painting but with a focus on Italy and the mannerism of among others Bernard van Orley. His principal panel works are the monogrammed wings of a dismembered altarpiece on the "Conversion of Saint Paul" and "The Fall of Simon the Magus" (now in the M - Museum Leuven) which are monumental and in a classicizing style.
Jan Rombouts the Elder | Work
In 1516 at aged 64 Leonardo da Vinci left Rome and traveled through Italy, armed with his sketchbooks and 3 of his most famous paintings: "Mona Lisa", "The Virgin and Child", "with St. Anne" and "St. John the Baptist". They are now conserved in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. His disciples Francesco Melzi and Salaì followed him throughout his travels, as did his servant, Batista of Vilanis. Benvenuto Cellini wrote that king Francis I gave Leonardo da Vinci a pension of 700 gold ecus, as well as buying his artwork allowing him to live and work in the Clos Lucé.
Clos Lucé | Leonardo da Vinci’s years at the Clos Lucé
Leonardo appears to have had no close relationships with women except for his friendship with Cecilia Gallerani and the two Este sisters, Beatrice and Isabella. While on a journey that took him through Mantua, he drew a portrait of Isabella that appears to have been used to create a painted portrait, now lost. Beyond friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. His sexuality has been the subject of satire, analysis, and speculation. This trend began in the mid-16th century and was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, most notably by Sigmund Freud in his "Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood".
Leonardo da Vinci | Personal life
The drawings and notation are far ahead of their time, and if published would undoubtedly have made a major contribution to medical science.
Leonardo da Vinci | Anatomy and physiology
Leonardo started his study in the anatomy of the human body under the apprenticeship of Verrocchio, who demanded that his students develop a deep knowledge of the subject. As an artist, he quickly became master of "topographic anatomy", drawing many studies of muscles, tendons and other visible anatomical features. As a successful artist, Leonardo was given permission to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later at hospitals in Milan and Rome. From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated in his studies with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre. Leonardo made over 240 detailed drawings and wrote about 13,000 words towards a treatise on anatomy.
Leonardo da Vinci | Anatomy and physiology
Leonardo always loved nature. One of the reasons was because of his childhood environment. Near his childhood house were mountains, trees, and rivers. There were also many animals. This environment gave him the perfect chance to study the surrounding area; it also may have encouraged him to have interest in painting. Later in life he recalls his exploration of an ominous cavern in the mountains as formative.
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Love of nature
The latter Constantijn received in 1690; he mended and mounted it, believing it to be a Leonardo original, though it is more likely by either Bernardino Campi or Carlo Urbino. According to Huygens, Romeyn de Hooghe illustrated " La puttana errante", an erotic book by Pietro Aretino.
Constantijn Huygens Jr. | Drawings and paintings
The outlines of this painting are very bold compared to his other works and it features detailed drapery. His early works are generally characterized by the use of trachyte marble architecture and a particular positioning of the Virgin's hand, showing the middle and ring-finger touching and widely separated from the index and pinky finger. They also are usually distinguished by their symmetry, organization, equally distributed light, and plastic-like quality to the figures.
Bartolomeo Montagna | Early Works (1480s-1499)
He was employed by Ludovico from 1481 to 1499, during which time his most important works were the "Virgin of the Rocks", the "Last Supper" and a huge model of a horse for an equestrian monument which was never completed. Other important events during this time were the arrival in his studio of the boy Salaì in 1490, and in 1491 the marriage of Ludovico Sforza to Beatrice d'Este, for which he organized the celebrations. When Milan was invaded by the French in 1499, Leonardo left and spent some time in Venice, and possibly Rome and Naples before returning to Florence.
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Biography
Giorgio Vasari, who argued that historical progress in art reached its peak in Michelangelo, emphasized Alberti's scholarly achievements, not his artistic talents: "He spent his time finding out about the world and studying the proportions of antiquities; but above all, following his natural genius, he concentrated on writing rather than on applied work." Leonardo, who ironically called himself "an uneducated person" ("omo senza lettere"), followed Alberti in the view that painting is science. However, as a scientist Leonardo was more empirical than Alberti, who was a theorist and did not have similar interest in practice. Alberti believed in ideal beauty, but Leonardo filled his notebooks with observations on human proportions, page after page, ending with his famous drawing of the Vitruvian man, a human figure related to a square and a circle.
Leon Battista Alberti | Painting
One of the most influential artists who ever lived, Giotto changed the course of Western art by painting in a new realistic style. Florence became the center of early Renaissance art. The great Florentine masters of painting included Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Andrea Mantegna, Sandro Botticelli, and Paolo Uccello. The greatest artist of the 15th century was probably Leonardo da Vinci. His portrait "Mona Lisa" and his religious scene "The Last Supper" are among the most famous paintings in history.
Culture of Italy | Visual art
Salvator Rosa and Luca Giordano were his most distinguished followers, who may have been his pupils; others were also Giovanni Do, the Flemish painter Hendrick de Somer (known in Italy as 'Enrico Fiammingo'), Michelangelo Fracanzani, and Aniello Falcone, who was the first considerable painter of battle-pieces. Among Ribera's principal works could be named "Saint Januarius Emerging from the Furnace" in the cathedral of Naples; the "Descent from the Cross" in the Certosa, Naples; the "Adoration of the Shepherds" (a late work; 1650) in the Louvre; the "Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew" in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona; and the "Pieta" in the sacristy of San Martino, Naples.
Jusepe de Ribera | Work
The following works by da Vinci were also depicted in the story:
Chiaroscuro: The Private Lives of Leonardo da Vinci | Works of art
This was a pivotal period in his development in Rome and Florence where he studied the old masters and started forming important friendships with established painters, sculptors, and writers, during this period he produced many excellent drawings and paintings in the "Post Impressionists" style; completing his refinement in London, Paris and Madrid. He was commissioned to paint frescos in palaces and churches, some of the work was to produce new frescos, but many were to restore existing frescos by old masters from fourteenth to the eighteenth century that had been damaged in the First World War or by time. He went on to paint nudes, still life, marine, landscapes, portraits, and posters for advertising.
Giorgio Matteo Aicardi | Early adulthood
Little is known about Leonardo's intimate relationships from his own writing. Some evidence of Leonardo's personal relationships emerges both from historic records and from the writings of his many biographers.
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Personal relationships
Illustrations Select list of paintings Paintings
Cesare Biseo | Work
Vasari expressed the opinion that the manner of painting would make even "the most confident master...despair and lose heart." The perfect state of preservation and the fact that there is no sign of repair or overpainting is rare in a panel painting of this date.
Leonardo da Vinci | Paintings of the 16th century
Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci
Marcantonio della Torre | See also
There, Menn copied works by Raphael and Michelangelo, but he also started to produce extraordinary fresh small landscape paintings in the open air. In summer 1836, he visited the Campagna, Capri and Naples, where too he drew and painted landscapes directly from nature, and copied classical antiquities from Pompeii as well as Giovanni Bellini's Transfiguration in the Museo Borbonico. When back in Rome, he produced history - and genre paintings, of which in 1837, he sent 'Solomon presented to Wisdom by his Parents' (Salomon présenté à la sagesse par son père et sa mère) to the annual Salon in Geneva.
Barthélemy Menn | Early life
His early works were oil paintings, but he used acrylic paints in U.S.A.
Tsugio Hattori | Early life
Salaì was born in 1480 as son of Pietro di Giovanni, a tenant of Leonardo's vineyard near the Porta Vercellina, Milan. He joined Leonardo's household at the age of ten as an assistant. Vasari describes Salaì as "a graceful and beautiful youth with curly hair, in which Leonardo greatly delighted". Although Leonardo described him as "a liar, a thief, stubborn and a glutton" and he stole from Leonardo on at least five occasions, he kept him in his household for more than 25 years, in which he trained as an artist. Salaì became a capable, although not very impressive, painter, who created several works, including the "Monna Vanna", a nude version of the "Mona Lisa" which may be based on a charcoal sketch by Leonardo.
Salaì | Early life
Renaissance humanism recognised no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences and the arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and engineering are sometimes considered as impressive and innovative as his artistic work. These studies were recorded in 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and natural philosophy (the forerunner of modern science). They were made and maintained daily throughout Leonardo's life and travels, as he made continual observations of the world around him. Leonardo's notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on water.
Leonardo da Vinci | Journals and notes
The publishing did not take place in Melzi's lifetime, and the writings were eventually bound in different forms and dispersed. Some of his works were published as "A Treatise on Painting" 165 years after his death.
Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci | Leonardo's notes and journals
Salaì 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 Leonardo'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 Bernardo Baroncelli, hanged in connection with the murder of Giuliano, brother of Lorenzo de' Medici, in the Pazzi conspiracy. In his notes, Leonardo recorded the colours of the robes that Baroncelli was wearing when he died.
Leonardo da Vinci | Drawings
Leonardo da Vinci had a number of powerful patrons, including the King of France. He had, over the years, a large number of followers and pupils.
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Patrons, friends and colleagues
His initial works were in the idiom of his master Abraham Janssens who was one of the earliest Flemish artists to paint in a Caraveggio influenced style combined with strong Classicist tendencies. This is clear in the early composition "" (Hermitage Museum, 1610s) which was painted before the artist left for Italy. In its three-dimensionality and use of Classical forms this composition is clearly indebted to Janssens. The composition "" (Spencer Museum of Art) likely dates from the artist's Italian period. The typically Italian costumes, the rather mannered poses, the vague indication of space and stereotypical rendering of heads, hands and drapery point to a style preceding that of the genre scenes he painted after 1625.
Theodoor Rombouts | Early work
One might question Leonardo's concern for human life, given his weapon designs. Nothing came of his designs for offensive weapons. It is possible his mention of his capabilities of creating weapons helped him in his quest to find powerful patrons, or perhaps he was fond of drawing them as he was of gargoyles. He did work on fortifications, however. In his own words: He referred to war as "pazzia bestialissima", the "most bestial madness".
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Weapons and war
In an early example of ichnology, he explains that the fossils of marine shells would have been scattered in such a deluge, and not gathered in groups, which were in fact left at various times on mountains in Lombardy. He discredits pagan mythology as well, saying that gods the size of planets would appear as mere specks of light in the universe—also calling these personifications "mortal ... putrid and corrupt in their sepulchers."
Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci | Philosophy and religion
He and Yáñez produced several copies after works of Leonardo da Vinci, including:
Hernando de los Llanos | Introduction
He remained close with his father, who oversaw his working contracts until 1475, when he filed for emancipation. The emancipation was granted in 1477, according to legal records. Botticini's earliest works include the "Saint Nicholas and Four Female Saints" at the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, a "Saint Sebastian" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a "Madonna adoring the Child" at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. His earliest dated work is an altarpiece of the "Madonna and Child with Saints Sebastian, Pancras, Sebastian and Peter" (1471) at the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, which is painted under the strong influence of Verrocchio.
Francesco Botticini | Early work
Several extant works, dating circa 1615–1620, are by general scholarly consensus, collaborative efforts by both father and son: they include the "Faun Teased by Putti" (c. 1615, Metropolitan Museum, NYC), "Boy with a Dragon" (c. 1616–17, Getty Museum, Los Angeles), the Aldobrandini "Four Seasons" (c. 1620, private collection), and the recently discovered "Bust of the Savior" (1615–16, New York, private collection). Sometime after the arrival of the Bernini family in Rome, word about the great talent of the boy Gian Lorenzo got around and he soon caught the attention of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew to the reigning pope, Paul V, who spoke of the boy genius to his uncle.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini | Early life
Since then he has traveled around Europe, Asia and South America where he further cultivated his art skills. He began painting at a very young age after his grandmother taught him the technical aspects of drawing and painting. His main sources of inspiration are traveling, famous people who have changed the world, music, american culture, photography, history and the magic of everyday life and people.
Leonardo Hidalgo | Introduction
While Don Doe's work covers a range of subjects, his earliest work seemed to have a focus on the production of art. The uses of figures such as the artist's muse, dealer, studio assistance, and an over abundance of canvases portray the various moments within the completion of an artist's work. Alongside these pieces were male figures being engulfed in floods, on the remains of their former lives personified by the cars or houses they floated on. There is a collection of these works in the Deutsche Bank New York City, as well as the Piergoi Flat Files in Brooklyn.
Donald Gerrard Doe | Early work
Although he had no formal academic training, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the "Renaissance Man" or "Universal Genius", an individual of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination." He is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote." Scholars interpret his view of the world as being based in logic, though the empirical methods he used were unorthodox for his time.
Leonardo da Vinci | Introduction
At first he was impressed by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh, but then he soon turned to Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, etc.
Victor Koulbak | At school with the Masters
Owing to advancing age, his activities were restricted to giving lessons in the mansions of the cosmopolitan circle in which he lived and moved, and holding one-man shows at the Italian-run ‘Societa Operaia’ and ‘Casa d’Italia’. He also made large-scale paintings of the saints commissioned by the city's several Italian churches.
Leonardo de Mango | Istanbul dreamscapes