The Art of the Renaissance of Da Vinci - Essay Example

Order 452091 Topic: History Essay (5) Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 a modern man? Introduction:For a man born in the year 1452 to have such extraordinary ideas and to express those in the medium of art— no-- he can’t be a modern man; he is the most modern man. His artwork is full of imagination and it is predictive as well. He was born in the small village of Vinci. The man, who created the immortal paints like ‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘The Last Supper,’ has been hailed by the art world as one of the greatest painters ever born on this Planet Earth. His time heralded “the inception of a new artistic culture—the Renaissance—that flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy….artists more assertively attempted to break away from these conventions.”(Kleiner at el.2000, p.535) His paintings, sketches in his notebook writings and drawings, are the topics of research not only for the artists, but for the heterogeneous sections of the society like doctors, engineers and experts of many other branches of knowledge. Leonardo Da Vinci is, therefore, eminently suited to be hailed as the modern man in the complete sense of the term. For many hundreds of years his notebook was an enigma wrapped in mystery. None took care to read or decipher it. They were part of different collections in many European countries. Leonardo wrote backward, from right to left and the dialect he used was outmoded Tuscan. The manuscript remained in the nature’s womb, unread and unappreciated. As these manuscripts began to see the light of the day and the contents were transliterated in to modern Italian and other European languages, the scholars and think-tanks of the critical world of art and science began to investigate their contents par-excellence. John Herman Randall Jr. writes, “He could see with great clarity and insight certain features of what it is in his case especially appropriate to call “the anatomy of nature”—for he accepted the Renaissance view that nature is man writ large, and man is a little world, so that the “anatomy” of both is fundamentally alike.” (p.192) The immediate note that strikes in one’s mind is, is it the artist at work with the strokes of his brush? Or is it the scientist, with absolute scientific approach, explaining what is nature in reality? Randall Jr. further writes, “As everyone who has ever seen copies of Leonardo’s drawings knows, this talent for scientific illustration is indeed impressive.”(p.192) To understand the job of an incredible artist is in itself an incredible job. Leonardo tackled varied subject matters and the flights of his imaginative mind baffled the researchers. He could see the intricacies of functioning of nature and his power of observation and penetration was matchless. It could not have been the outcome of research and study of art. It was just spontaneous. He was a versatile genius, a scientist-artist, and an individual who truly possessed the broadest approach and therefore he can be rightly called as a universal man. The notebook writings and drawings consist of over 7,000 folios. What do they contain? Are they the possessions of a scientist or an artist? That it could be the creation of an individual who belonged to the medieval era (15th century) is mind-boggling. They contain mechanical inventions, looms, printing press, roller bearings, textile and spinning machines, designs for the military armaments capable of most modern applications, tanks, guns, designs for fortifications, poison gas, under-water diving equipments, battleships—this man was Nostradamus of the art world. Randall Jr. points out, “He could see, and with his draughtsman ship depicts clearly, the bony skeleton of the world—the geological strata and their indicated past. He could also see everywhere nature’s simple mechanics in operation—in man and in the non-human world alike—the fundamental identity between the microcosm of man and the macrocosm of nature, which Leonardo found essential.”(p.202) Leonard dissected the human body not like a surgeon, but like a scientist of the mind. Not exclusively as a psychologist, not as a philosopher. He was a scientist, psychologist and philosopher clubbed into one and the strokes of the art brush possessed the power of universality. His visual diagrams were the yardsticks for communicating the knowledge of the body and self. His lively observation of the body was from various angles and aspects like level, perspective and motion. The transformation and growth that he depicted was the philosophical part of it. He pierced the body, without actually piercing it, and showed the balancing act of his mind to create anatomical designs. His sketches depict the internal struggle within an individual. His versatility and genius of the extraordinary level baffled all sections of the fraternity of science. Eugen Oberhummer writes, “ I place in the forefront a personality, known to the general public only as one of the great Italian masters of painting and the plastic arts, because hardly any other represents the wonderful versatility of the leading minds of that age as Leonardo Da Vinci does, and because several recent publications have made known to us Leonardo’s life-work from our standpoint as geographers, though the influence of the great Italian on our science is not yet fully known to the friends of geography.”(p.541)The paintings and sketches that he created on various subjects make one wonder whether he was an artist or an expert scientist on all subjects. Human ingenuity and enterprise cannot create marvels of such dimensions. Anything his stroke touched became a masterpiece on the subject. Jean Paul Richter (1977) writes, “The study of Leonardo’s anatomical manuscripts has progressed enormously in recent years, and nearly every Leonardo Text on the subject is now available in English translation.”(87) His sketches record over thirty dissections of human body and separate sketches for male and female bodies. The details provided and the measurements were accurate. He knew the relationships between the various parts perfectly well. Their functions were correctly comprehended by him. He had thorough knowledge about the circulation of blood. He was versatile in describing the place of the heart in the body, its valves and chambers. Bones, muscles, human brain and all other parts of the human anatomy surrendered to the artistry of his strokes. Richter writes, “…. of all his scientific writings, Leonardo’s studies of the flight of birds are probably those which come closest to his views as a painter, in that they deal with wind currents, animal motion, and even anatomy….Leonardo’s observations on the spiral lines along which birds ascend in the sky taken in conjunction with his studies of military architecture carried out at about the same time and his studies on water as part of his canalization projects….” (215) are great. His love for nature and thirst for knowledge was matchless. What is Nature? It is the sum total of various processes that are in motion without intermission. Leonard was able to catch those processes in his sketches. As for the human personality, he knew the relationship between the outside and inside of a person at a given time, and how they are mutually interrelated. Conclusion: H. Anna Suh writes, “ In addition to his dozen or so enigmatic and beautiful paintings, Leonardo left an extensive body of sketches, notes and writing which resonates with a modern audience no less than with his admiring contemporaries.”(Introduction) Modernity and scientific approach are seen in his every work and approach to the subjects. He drew inspiration by observing nature, how systematically it functions and at the same time how benevolently it is disposed of to humankind. He was not for confrontation with the nature, and believed in conciliation. His sketches are the mute testimony for his all-embracing love and admiration for Nature. He never missed the minutest details in his sketches to highlight the greatness of Nature. He emphasized through his drawings how the human spirit and the human anatomy have to work in tandem to chisel a total personality. He was not superstitious in any area and remained attached to the realities. This is his credential to be hailed as a truly modern man. The power of the painted canvas is much more than the power contained in the printed words. The harmony Leonardo was able to build between literature and science through his sketches/notes was a marvel. Many of his notes are ideal examples of his literary style. But the details contained in the notes are significant and they are adequate raw material for the syllabus of theoretical and applied mechanics. Works Cited Kleiner, Fred S(Author), Mamiya Christian J(Author), Tansey, Richard G(Author);Gardners Art Through The Ages, Volume II, Harcourt College Pub; 11th edition, July 10, 2000. Oberhummer, Eugen. Leonardo Da Vinci and the Art of the Renaissance in Its Relations to Geography;The Geographical Journal, Vol. 33, No. 5 (May, 1909), p.541, Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Randall,Jr. John Hermann. The Place of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Emergence of Modern Science; Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Apr., 1953), p.192; University of Pennsylvania Press. Vinci, Leonardo da, Richter, Jean Paul. The literary works of Leonardo da Vinci-Volume 2. 1977.books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0520033299... Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci (Author), Suh, H. Anna (Editor).Notebooks-Leonardo da Vinci; Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers; 1 edition, August 1, 2005. Read More