Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) - Essay Example

? Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Leonardo da Vinci was the most popular artist of the Renaissance Age. His range of interests and talents were multidimensional and unprecedented. He was born in the small town of Vinci, near Florence in Italy. He was a “painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, inventor and scientist” (“Leonardo da Vinci: A Man of Both Worlds”). Through his talents Leonardo epitomized the humanist ideals of the Renaissance Age. He is considered as a classic example among the Renaissance artists. With his “extraordinarily inventive mind” (Kleiner, 580) Leonardo paved numerous routes that were to be followed by many artists and scientists of future generations. His “unquenchable curiosity” is reflected in his numerous notes based on myriad subjects ranging from “botany, geology, geography, cartography, zoology, military engineering, animal lore, anatomy, and aspects of physical science, including hydraulics and mechanics” (Kleiner, 580). Leonardo was a highly enigmatic person and gives rise to many speculations regarding his personality, psychology and sexual orientation. However, his scientific and artistic visions were pragmatic rather than uncanny, and the empirical methods that he adopted were advanced for his time. His interests and knowledge included the mysteries of nature and the human mind. Leonardo da Vinci is primarily known for his paintings and is the most revered artist of all ages. Some of his most popular paintings were Mona Lisa, Madonna of the Rocks and The Last Supper (“Leonardo da Vinci: 1452-1519”, [8]) This paper explores the life of the great painter Leonardo da Vinci with emphasis on his artistic facet. His early years Leonardo da Vinci was born out of wedlock to a wealthy Florentine notary, Ser Peiro, and a peasant girl Caterina. He grew up in his father’s Vinci home where he was deeply engrossed in scholarly texts that belonged to his family and friends. He was introduced to the world of painting by his father. At the age of 15 he was apprenticed to the renowned workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. Leonardo displayed immense talent even as an apprentice. His genius can be seen in various items produced by the workshop of Verrocchio between the years 1470 and 1475. For instance, one of Leonardo’s first big opportunity was to paint the face of an angel in Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ, and his final product was so much superior to his master’s work that Verrocchio allegedly made a resolution never to paint again (“Leonardo da Vinci: Scientist, Inventor, Artist”). During his lifetime he came in touch with some of the prominent personalities of “European art, science and politics, including two kings of France, a Pope, and the rulers of Florence and Milan”. He enjoyed the artistic patronage of many of them (Romei, 4). Multitalented personality Although Leonardo is primarily known for his paintings most of which are remarkable and talked-about paintings of all time, he is also a scientist who innovated and designed various models like a “prototype helicopter, an enormous equestrian statue and an amazing armoured tank” (Priwer, 2). Although his inventions were never built, they have laid the foundation for many modern scientists leading them to attempt to replicate them (Priwer, 2). Leonardo maintained amazingly detailed notebooks and journals many of which are still available. Thus it is convenient to know about Leonardo as many facts of his life can be collected from his own notes. One important feature of his writings was that he used “mirror script” to maintain secrecy of his writings. Such text can be read only when held up to a mirror. For the convenience of the readers his writings have been converted into regular text and translated into diverse languages (“Leonardo da Vinci’s life”). Although his remarkable paintings have been widely acclaimed all over the world, his surviving notebooks containing thousands of pages reveal a genius and the most diverse mind. His notebooks contain texts and drawings of various subjects including anatomy, flight, gravity and optics. He specifically studied anatomy so that he could paint the human body flawlessly. He was a left-handed person and wrote in mirror script. He made many innovations much ahead of their time like the “bicycle, airplane, helicopter, and parachute” (“Leonardo da Vinci: 1452-1519”, [7]). Many of his manuscripts got scattered after his death because they were not duly organized. This is because his notes contained thousands of drawings including rough sketches. Printing at that time was not technologically advanced to cope with the complex scientific drawings (Veltman, 381). Leonardo da Vinci was admired as the greatest personality by his contemporaries of the Italian Renaissance. In spite of this immense admiration among his peers, he was considered as an enigma, just as he is perceived today. His genius mind can “only be surmised – never defined” (Freud, 8). His most influential works have been his paintings, and his innovations and discoveries combined with the artist in him. Although many of his remarkable paintings exist even today, his scientific discoveries were never published or used. However, his investigating prowess often surpassed the artist in him. His diverse talents and wide range of knowledge enabled him to perform on a lute invented by himself. Once he also wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan where he “boasted of his achievements as architecture and military engineer” (Freud, 9). Renaissance artist Renaissance era comprises the entire period between the 14th and 17th centuries. During this time artists used new mediums to reflect a better sense of light and color in their paintings than their ancestral artists. Some of the important artistic innovations of this time were creating a sense of space, and also a three-dimensional perspective which makes a viewer to see the picture in three dimensions. In the Renaissance era art was mostly made for commissions or religious purposes. Leonardo’s painting The Last Supper reflected his understanding of “linear perspective as well as the importance of light as the unified light source” (“Renaissance Art”). His biography can be divided into three periods: The Florentine period from 1469 to 1482, the Milanese period from 1483 to 1499 and the Nomadic period from 1500-1519. In the Florentine period he got his artistic training under the patronage of Verrocchio, who although was an important personality in the history of art was nevertheless not an outstanding artist of highest talent. Leonardo’s painting of the face of one of the angels holding the garments of Jesus in Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ shines with a divine life and exceeds the brilliance of Verrocchio. During this time Leonardo was also admitted to the celebrated garden of the Medicis, which was a place of a collection of antiquities. Leonardo, however, maintained his own stamp of ingenuity in his paintings and did not take inspirations from the past. In a sense, he is the pioneer among the modern artists. In the Milanese period he had established himself as an accomplished gentleman with a sharp mind for invention of fables. He was a musician who wrote his own verses and played them on a lute that he himself designed. He was unparalleled in the fields of ballets and amusements, which were prominent activities of the Renaissance era. In Milan, Leonardo’s most famous painting was Last Supper. This masterpiece is now almost in a ruin mainly because of the methods used by Leonardo. He painted the art in oil on the wall and as a result the painting got ruined when dampness soaked into the wall. Although in recent years precautions have been taken to preserve the painting, but it will more probably crumble to dust (Knight). The Last Supper portrays the moment at which Christ announces that there is a person present in the company who will prove to be a traitor. The effect of the speech on the twelve apostles was a visible emotional wave. Each of the apostles has a distinct reaction on the face, expressing what Leonardo called the “motions of the mind” (Bombach). Traditionally, Judas is placed on the opposite side of the table but in this painting he is seated separate from the other apostles by his shadowed face (Bambach). Leonardo’s another great Milanese work was the renowned bronze horse on which he worked for more than fifteen years. However, the plaster model of the statue was broken by the French when they came in 1499. There are sketches remaining of the statue and Leonardo’s books that focus on the “anatomy and the science of the horse” (Knight). In the nomadic period Leonardo was more of a wanderer as he was left unemployed. Most of his scientific inventions belonged to this period. He traveled from Milan to Mantua in 1500 where he painted the portrait of Marchesa Isabella d'Este. After that he traveled several times between Florence and Milan. The final three years of his life was spent in France after being invited by King Francis I. Many of his renowned works from this period are now unfortunately lost and destroyed. He worked on a subject commemorating the victory of Anghiari Maria Visconti. He used some process of “encaustic” which was his sole inspiration from ancient art. The process failed to succeed and the colors merged as the coat did not dry. The painting did not exist beyond the eighteenth century. One of his most famous and controversial paintings The Mona Lisa belonged to this period. Unlike many of his incomplete works, this one was a completed picture of a woman’s face that represented the seductive nature of Leonardo (Knight). This painting raised the standard of the Renaissance paintings. This painting marked the importance of geometry in art with “the use of perspective, with all lines converging on a single vanishing point behind Mona Lisa’s head, and triangular composition” (Strickland, 34). Leonardo has played a major role in the field of artistic anatomy. He could establish geometrically what he termed as “divine proportions” by sketching faces and figures with accurate measurements. This has been the basis of the modern day cosmetic surgery (Bhattacharya & Cathrine, 285). Many of his paintings are incomplete or have been destroyed for various reasons. In fact, Leonardo was famous for his inability to finish his paintings. Considering his long life and immense talent as an artist, his collection of completed paintings is unbelievably small in number. One reason behind this is that he was “more interested in the conception than in the completion of works of art”. For this reason he has been the subject of attraction for many modern artists (Carrier, 37). The Sfumato technique Although Leonardo belonged in the era of Renaissance, he held an “anachronistic skeptimism” of the artistic concept of that era. He invented the technique of sfumato in his paintings centuries before the advent of digital technology which has literalized this formal technique. This technique changed the ideas of space and boundary depicted in paintings and challenged the “traditional goal to aptly represent the physical world via linear perspective” (Nelson, 259). Leonardo in his time focused on developing linear perspective as he did not believe that it had the ultimate ability to make art to be perceived as reality as precisely as possible. He developed sfumato which is “presentation of objects without lines or borders” (Nelson, 259). Leonardo’s sfumato technique in his paintings “utters nonrhetorical forebodings to which the density of shadows lends symbolic depth” (Maiorino, 51). This technique delicately merges the formal outlines to bring out the effect of thickening of the atmosphere (Maiorino, 51). Leonardo’s sfumato paintings have very fine optical effects that give the shadows a hazy look like smoke. With meticulous observations and optical measurements it has been possible to define the technique of sfumato (“New Light On Leonardo Da Vinci’s Faces”). Leonardo held an extreme interest in the natural phenomenon of shadows which can be seen from his earliest paintings. His mastery in the art of oil painting made him possible to translate the effects of ever-changing shadows in his paintings (Fiorani, 277). Conclusion If all the writings of Leonardo da Vinci could have been published in conceivable manner then he could be renowned as the pioneering scientist beyond any doubt. Yet his true outstanding ability did not lie in his artistry, but rather in the combination of being an artist-engineer. His paintings were done with scientific accuracy based on his intelligence of human anatomy and the workings of light and shade. His scientific knowledge was reflected in all his renowned art and drawings. His fascination with the relationship of art and science has paved the way for understanding by the modern day artists and sculptors. References Bambach, Carmen. “Leonardo da Vinci: 1452-1519”. Metmuseum. n.d., October 2, 2012 from: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/leon/hd_leon.htm Bhattacharya, Kaushik & Neela A. Cathrine. “Da Vinci’s code for surgeons”, Indian Journal of Surgery, 68.5, (2006), 283-285 Carrier, David. “Leonardo and Leonardo da Vinci”, Leonardo, 41.1, (2008), 36-38 Fiorani, Francesca. “The Colors of Leonardo’s Shadows”, Leonardo, 41.3, (2008), 271-278 Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: A Global History, Boston: Cengage Learning, 2010 Knight, Kevin. “Leonardo da Vinci”. Newadvent. 2009, October 2, 2012 from: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15440a.htm “Leonardo da Vinci: 1452-1519”, BBC, n.d., October 1, 2012 from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/da_vinci_leonardo.shtml “Leonardo da Vinci: 1452-1519”, UCMP, n.d., October 1, 2012 from: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/vinci.html “Leonardo da Vinci: A Man of Both Worlds”, thinkquest, n.d., October 1, 2012 from: http://library.thinkquest.org/3044/ “Leonardo da Vinci: Scientist, Inventor, Artist”, MOS, n.d., October 1, 2012 from: http://www.mos.org/LEONARDO/ “Leonardo da Vinci’s life”, davincilife, n.d., October 1, 2012 from: http://www.davincilife.com/ Maiorino, Giancarlo. Leonardo Da Vinci: The Daedalian Mythmaker, USA: Penn State Press, 1992 Nelson, Cami. “From Sfumato to Transarchitectures and Osmose: Leonardo da Vinci’s Virtual Reality”, Leonardo, 42.3, (2009), 259-264 “New Light On Leonardo Da Vinci’s Faces”, ScienceDaily, July 15, 2010, October 2, 2012 from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100715090917.htm Priwer, Shana. Leonardo da Vinci: Amazing and Extraordinary Facts, David & Charles, 2011 “Renaissance Art”, SBC, n.d., October 2, 2012 from: http://www.students.sbc.edu/kitchin04/artandexpression/renaissance%20art.html Romei, Francesca. Leonardo da Vinci, Oliver Press Inc., 2008 Sigmund, Freud. Leonardo da Vinci, Great Britain: Routledge, 2005 Strickland, Carol. The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern, Connecticut: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2007 Veltman, Kim H. “Leonardo da Vinci: A Review”, Leonardo, 41.4, (2008), 381-388 Read More