Leonardo DaVinci

Leonardo da Vinci

From April 15, 1452, to May 2, 1519, the world was graced by the genius that was Leonardo da Vinci. He is recognized as one of the most brilliant artists in history, having made considerable accomplishments both for science and art, each impacting his mastery of the other. Among his contemporaries, who comprised artists like Raphael and Michaelangelo, Da Vinci lived during a period when creativity was at its zenith. He applied his exceptional genius to essentially everything he did. Italy during the Renaissance is a peak in human history, equivalent to Athens during the Pericles epoch. No name now seems to symbolize the Renaissance epoch more than Leonardo da Vinci.

Early Years

Leonardo da Vinci was born in the small Tuscan town near Vinci. At 14, he entered a nine-year apprenticeship with Andrea del Verrocchio, a very good goldsmith, artist, and sculptor who was a significant figure in the art world of the times. The young Leonardo met painters like Sandro Botticelli while cooperating with other apprentices, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino, and Lorenzo di Credi at Verrocchio's busy Florence studio.

Verrocchio was the permitted sculptor for the Medici family, who reigned Italy during the period and had learned his art from the master Donatello. Da Vinci presumably advanced under Verrocchio's guidance, from doing various menial duties around the workplace to preparing surfaces and mixing paint. Then after, he would have progressed to learning and replicating the works of his instructor. Lastly, he would have supported Verrocchio and the other apprentices in making the master's artworks.

During his apprenticeship, Leonardo da Vinci not only developed drawing, painting, and sculptural skills but also gained knowledge in a broad range of subjects, notably carpentry, mechanics, and chemistry, from those who worked in and around the studio. His pen-and-ink rendition of the Arno River valley, Landscape Drawing for Santa Maria della Neve, was completed in 1473 after he had completed more than half of his studies with Verrocchio. It is Leonardo da Vinci's earliest picture that can be specifically identified as his.

Drawings with Leonardo da Vinci would play a major role in his legacy. Besides creating inventions, researching human anatomy, painting landscapes, and blocking out patterns for paintings like With the Virgin of the Rocks and The Last Supper, his major mural that has endured, Da Vinci sketched a lot.

Although he joined the Florence Painters' Order in 1472, the artist served as Verrocchio's assistant until 1476 to forward his studies. The exceptional dynamism and anatomical perfection of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings and drawings are good evidence of his master's influence.

Leonardo da Vinci started to set the ground for his artistic legacy as soon as he left the Verrocchio studio and started his own. He specialized in religious themes, like his contemporaries, but he also took portrait contracts as they revealed himself. The Madonna of the Carnation, Ginevra de' Benci, the Benois Madonna, the Adoration of the Magi, and St. Jerome in the Wilderness are just a handful of the popular works he painted over the collection of the following five years. The last two sections require a varnish.

His other surviving artwork from his period in Milan, The Last Supper, may have degenerated rapidly because of his ambition to develop this style. Because his normal water-based fresco paints were difficult to blend for the sfumato effect he intended, Leonardo da Vinci substituted oil-based paint on plaster for this portrayal of Jesus and his apostles at the table. Many paintings at the Santa Maria del Grazie convent have already flaked away from the wall within a few decades. The canvas of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper," which is presently displayed in the Louvre, is a replica of the botched fresco.

Later Years

The artist returned to Florence from home via Venice and Mantua after the French invasion of Milan. His reputation preceded him, and lifelong friends applauded him and contemporary artists captivated by his artistic innovation. Leonardo da Vinci completed more paintings during this final period of his life than before. The artist began work on his painting of the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne when he arrived in Florence in 1500; however, he would place it aside unfinished and not finish it for a further decade.

Later, when Francesco del Giocondo invited Leonardo to paint his wife the Mona Lisa, he began to work on what would eventually become his most famed and regularly replicated picture. But it is still unclear when exactly the "Mona Lisa" was finished; most historians assume that Leonardo da Vinci completed the masterpiece in 1503.

Leonardo da Vinci also accepted a proposal for a mural to be installed in the Hall of 500 in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. The painting's subject was a battle scene at Anghiari, which displayed a tangle of muscular horses and warriors. But it was always supposed to be unfinished. On the opposite wall, a commission for the Battle of Cascina, another unfinished work by contemporary master Michelangelo, was provided. The only vestiges of Leonardo da Vinci's battle scene are a facsimile by artist Peter Paul Rubens and the artist's preliminary sketches.

The second version of the artwork, "Virgin of the Rocks," was made by the artist in roughly the same period and was authorized for installation in a chapel at Milan's San Francesco Maggiore church. Color palettes, lighting, and structural elements are the main variations between the two versions.

To secure an actual contract for an equestrian statue, Leonardo da Vinci came back to Milan in 1506. The artist would create a body of drawings while his seven-year residency in the city on matters that ranged from human anatomy to botany, as well as designs for armaments and studies of birds in flight. His true experiments of a human flight machine would evolve from the latter. Da Vinci's obsession with how things are formed and function is clear across every drawing he made during this time.

Leonardo spent a while in Rome after leaving Milan in 1513. France's King Francis I took back Milan in October 1515. The king had conferred upon him the honors of a good artist, architect, and mechanic. He joined Francis' service in 1516 and later traveled to his final resting place near Francis I of France's Fontainebleau court. According to various historians, Leonardo painted St. John the Baptist, his final painting, in his rural Cloux, France house. His expertise in the sfumato technique is obvious in this masterpiece. At the age of 67, Leonardo died at Clos Lucé on May 2, 1519. Recurrent stroke is generally indicated as the cause. Francis and I had gotten close. The king is said to have carried Leonardo's head in his arms as he passed away, but this story, which the French admire and Ingres glorified in his paintings, might well be a fantasy. In Amboise, France's Chapel of Saint Hubert, he was placed to rest.

Influence

Leonardo da Vinci's works are strongly inspired by those produced by his group of collaborators in the artworks they produced. Raphael and even Michaelangelo, a previous rival, used the same of da Vinci's particular techniques to create similarly dynamic and anatomically realistic figures.

His audacious diversions from the standard inventive ideals of his day would serve as an example for the next generations of artists. Leonardo da Vinci painted the traditional religious pictures of his time, such as the Magi and the Madonna and child. However, his unique framing of key figures, characteristic techniques, and breakthroughs in perspective were all previously unheard of. He rendered each apostle into a distinctive element while yet unifying them all at the moment in The Last Supper, which is a stroke of genius that other artists throughout history would want to replicate. He likewise isolated Christ at the center of the picture.

The famous "Mona Lisa" is still considered one of history's biggest paintings by creative types. The truth that her image is still readily available on items like T-shirts and refrigerator magnets helps to canonize Leonardo da Vinci's artwork rather than reducing the value of the work. They continue to control people's hearts and imaginations several centuries after his demise.

Leonardo's imprint on art is significant, like that of William Shakespeare on literature and Sigmund Freud on psychology. Leonardo da Vinci stayed away from the dalliances of worldly pursuits and vanity throughout his life. He was a modest, unpretentious man who was uninterested in popularity but was fully convinced of the quality of his capabilities. Leonardo da Vinci became the central focus of an artistic movement that substantially enriched western society with a small band of concurrent Renaissance figures.

Artwork created by Leonardo da Vinci

The Mona Lisa

The Last Supper

The Vitruvian Man

Salvator Mundi

The Virgin and Child with St Anne

Self Portrait

The Baptism of Christ

The Adoration of the Magi

Madonna of the Yarnwinder

Lady with an Ermine

The Annunciation

Bacchus

Litta Madonna

Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci

Head of a Woman

The embryo in the Womb

The Battle of Anghiari

St. John the Baptist