Leonardo da Vinci - a brief overview

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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519), born in Vinci, Florence, is without doubt one of the greatest innovators of the Renaissance era, with his influence stretching forward into this day and age, some 600 years later. This cultural period in history began in Italy, moved out into other areas of Europe and spanned the centuries from the 14th to the 17th. It may have been born out of the ashes of the devastation of the Black Plague, when people perhaps needed to know there was more to life than just religion, to take ownership of their own destiny and start tapping into their own genius instead of relying solely on God. Scholars returned to the intellectual teachings of ancient texts, artists looked to more humanist approaches in their art – wanting to depict realism and human emotion. Instead of painting only religious scenes, artists were now turning to other subjects, like capturing the life of a patron and scenes of nature. This period of renaissance became known as the time that “sought God in nature”¹, and Leonardo da Vinci certainly seems to have embraced this philosophy wholeheartedly.

one of his drawings, of flowers and diagrams
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Although born illegitimately, and little is known of his younger years, when Leonardo was 14 he was apprenticed to the successful artist, Verrocchio (Andrea di Cione), in Florence. He was given the opportunity to learn many skills there, including drafting, metallurgy, carpentry, plaster casting, and of course drawing and painting techniques. His unquenchable thirst for knowledge led him to study many things in detail – anatomy, movement, physics, hydraulic engineering, musical instruments, optics, botany, water, and anything else which took his curiosity. As well as being an artist, he was also a musician, an inventor, engineer, teacher, sculptor, architect, and more. One of the ways he influenced art, in particular, was by the technique of painting he invented – sfumato - "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane"³. This helped bring life to the subject, and yet left parts to the imagination. This is what helps make Leonardo’s famous painting, Mona Lisa, so mysterious and compelling to both view and study.

an example of the sfumato technique
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He once wrote “No human investigation can be called true science without going through mathematical tests … the sciences which begin and end in the mind cannot be considered to contain truth, because such discourses lack experience, without which nothing reveals itself with certainty.”² This way of thinking has certainly been shown by his many mathematical studies and diagrams, from the physics of liquids, to photometry, and the reflection of light on concave surfaces. He dissected and drew human corpses to understand how the inner layers affected the look of the outer appearance of a person, so that he may more accurately capture the realism in his art. He left many plans and notes – although not all of his work has survived - which contemporary scholars have translated and analysed. He was left-handed, and wrote backwards, so one had to hold the page up to a mirror to be able to read it – perhaps from those who would ridicule or worse.

He "studied the Flower of Life's form and its mathematical properties. He drew the Flower of Life itself, as well as various components such as the Seed of Life. He drew geometric figures representing shapes such as the platonic solids, a sphere, a torus, etc., and also used the golden ratio of phi in his artwork; all of which may be derived from the Flower of Life design."
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His high standards of both workmanship and accomplishment no doubt have inspired future artists to do at least as well as himself. The foresight he showed with the many inventions he noted down amazes people to this day. His way of dissecting a problem and coming at it from every possible angle to find a solution was different than many of his peers, or previous fellow artists. One can see this in action throughout the notes he had taken for the bronze horse statue ordered by the Duke of Milan, the Sforza horse. This is just one project he worked on with such relentless dedication to the task, striving for perfection. Not only did he break down and study all the parts of the horse so he got the body proportions correct, and aesthetically balanced, he also invented a new casting method for the statue. Unfortunately for Leonardo, he never got to complete the statue, as the Duke was called to war and subsequently captured.

"This is Leonardo's graphic vision of the casting pit for the Sforza horse. In the center, is the assembled outer mold of the horse. It is flanked on four sides by multiple furnaces - two rectangular and two circular- of the type he had designed for casting cannon to melt the bronze before it flowed into the mold. He could calculate how much bronze would be needed because he knew bow much wax or potters' clay -which was used for the "thickness" - already had occupied the space between the outer and the inner molds. "
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Leonardo da Vinci’s influence is still felt today, which surely shows how great an innovator he truly was. His passion for art, his inventions, and his quest for knowledge are easily seen and appreciated. His anatomical drawings are used in medical textbooks; his paintings are still admired and studied; his methods of drafting plans used by architects; some of his most famous work displayed today on merchandise and used in marketing. No other artist has had such a wide-ranging influence on the world.

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This essay was one I wrote as an assignment, while obtaining my University degree. I have included the reference list and bibliography - reference materials I used while writing - just as I’d had to for its submission. It has never before been published anywhere public, though. Images have been added for visual interest.

References
1 Brizio, et el., Leonardo the Artist, London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., 1981, pp. 14

2 ibid., pp. 16

3 Irene Earls, Renaissance Art: A Topical Dictionary, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1987, pp. 263

Bibliography
Brizio, et el., Leonardo the Artist, London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1981

David Alan Brown, Leonardo Da Vinci, Origins of a Genius, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998

Irene Earls, Renaissance Art: A Topical Dictionary, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1987

E H Gombrich, The Story of Art, London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1995

John Hale, Italian Renaissance Painting, from Masaccio to Titian, Oxford: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1977

South Bank Centre, Leonardo Da Vinci, Hayward Gallery, London 26 January to 16 April 1989, Yale University Press, 1989

Retrieved 6 April 2009, from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance

Retrieved 4 April 2009, from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

Kenneth Clark, Civilisation, A Personal View By Lord Clark, United Kingdom, BBC, DVD series, 1969, Chapter V

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(extra tags: #geopolis #art #culture #minnowsupport)