Leonardo DaVinci

Leonardo da Vinci


Introduction

I wrote about Leonardo da Vinci because I was interested in him.
I had heard a few things about him, but I wanted to know more.
I only knew that he was an inventor, a painter, a scientist, That he had painted the Mona Lisa and I thought that his
life had been very interesting. I wanted to know whether he had
a wife, children, whether he had a Rich life, where he lived
and much more.

I think he was one of the most brilliant people in the
whole world. He was very smart and he did a lot of things that
weren’t done before, like going deeply into flying. I saw his designs for flying machines, helicopters and parachutes in a few books and I noticed that his ideas were very intelligent for that time.
He also could paint very good. I heard a lot of things about
the Mona Lisa but I was never interested in it. But then I read
something about it on the internet. They said that she had a mysterious smile on her face and that they would never find out whether Leonardo did it on purpose. After I had read that I decided to do my assignment about one of the most interesting people that had ever lived: Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo’s work in General

Leonardo as an inventor and scientist
Leonardo was not only a good painter, but also a genius inventor and scientist. He said once that he had only one purpose in his life: getting knowledge. He used this knowledge to invent all kinds of things. It is a pity that only a few of his inventions could be used in his time. Leonardo was very clever, because in the 15th century the Italian cities were a chaotic accumulation of thousands houses in alleyways, it was very dirty, and diseases could spread very quickly. Leonardo designed, what he called, an ideal city: there were broad streets, comfortable houses and sewerage. To save space he made houses with floors. His streets also existed out of to layers: the upper layer for pedestrians, and the lower layer for vehicles. He drew hundreds of plans for houses, castles, churches, gardens and channels.
Leonardo was also busy thinking about military provisions. He designed once a covered machine in which people could attack the enemy.
The machine was covered with metal scales and on the outside there were two weapons, which could shoot to everywhere. It could be moved by men and by horses. There was only one mistake in his design. The way he made the design, the wheels would turn the opposite direction. We’ll never know whether he had mistaken or that he made it on purpose to prevent abuse.
He also designed all kinds of vehicles, which mostly look like a car, but only without a motor. Leonardo also designed a bike.
His bike had 2 wheels, a chain, pedals and a saddle. The frame is only formed in another way so that steering would be very difficult.

During his stay in Venetia Leonardo became very interested in water. He designed a mud-male and a radar boat. He also made designs for Diving suits and ‘water shoes’. Leonardo’s most famous designs are those of airplanes and helicopters. He was the first person who went deeply into flying. He studied birds and insects to find out how they were able to fly.

Leonardo as a writer
Leonardo’s writing talents, sometimes, were very peculiar. You can note that by reading his fairy-tales. Sometimes they are bombastic, then spontaneous and another time very short, like this one about a crab. The crab found a nice place under the rocks to sit there and catch fish.
Then, the tide came and took the stones with it and the crab got covered with stones.
In all of his fairy-tales the moral is about people not knowing the nature. He said once: ‘O, paltry mortals, open your eyes!’
Another fairy-tale: There was a lily standing at the bank of the river Trinico. Then, the stream came and took the bank and the lily with it.

Leonardo as a painter
During the Renaissance, Leonardo trained as a painter, and he became a master-painter. He had amazing powers of observation, and this helped him to recreate the things he saw. If he saw a sheep, he would paint the sheep exactly how the sheep would have looked like in Real life. Leonardo was very curious and observant, and he always tried to explain what he saw, and to test whether his ideas where good or not, he described many experiments he did.

Leonardo hasn’t painted a lot of paintings. Instead, he made a lot of notes and sketches, of which most are kept save. Leonardo made his first painting at Verrocchio: ‘The christening of Christ’. Not long after that he made his first drawing. Some painters call it: ‘The first real landscape in art’.
In 1478 Leonardo made a sketch of a man, Bernardo Baroncelli. This man had killed Giuliano de Medici, while he was visiting the cathedral. This sketch is a good example of Leonardo making notes with his paintings.
His notes say: “A yellow-
Brown hat, a black nonsense
With stripes, with a collar of
Black and red dotted velvet.
A blue coat, with fox-fur.
Black stockings. Bernardo
Di Bandino Baroncelli.

When Leonardo made his first painting, people could see immediately that he was much better than his master.
Before Leonardo started to paint a painting, he made notes and sketches. They are kept save and they are in very good conditions. He has made hundreds sketches of horses, dragons and cats in all kinds of different positions.

Leonardo’s Paintings and inventions

The last supper
The Last Supper is a wall painting.
In 1495, Ludovico Sforza gave Leonardo the assignment to paint the Last Supper. In 1498 the painting was finished. People say that the painting must have looked amazingly beautiful, but the convent where the painting was painted in, has flooded several times, and incompetent painters have tried to restore the painting after that and have ruined it only more.
Although Leonardo stayed strict to the story from the bible, (Matthias 26: 20-30) where is told of the treasure of Judas, he was inspired by the things that happened in daily life, by painting the people as though they were sitting here together by coincidence. Before Leonardo started to paint The Last Supper, he made 4 drawings of Judas, Philippus Jacobus and Bartholomew, which show us that he has studied them very closely. He wanted to make sure that the viewer would recognize every person on the painting, and that they would see how amazed the followers when Jesus said: ‘One of you will betray me’.


Leonardo’s Paintings and inventions

The last supper
The Last Supper is a wall painting.
In 1495, Ludovico Sforza gave Leonardo the assignment to paint the Last Supper. In 1498 the painting was finished. People say that the painting must have looked amazingly beautiful, but the convent where the painting was painted in, has flooded several times, and incompetent painters have tried to restore the painting after that and have ruined it only more.
Although Leonardo stayed strict to the story from the bible, (Matthias 26: 20-30) where is told of the treasure of Judas, he was inspired by the things that happened in daily life, by painting the people as though they were sitting here together by coincidence. Before Leonardo started to paint The Last Supper, he made 4 drawings of Judas, Philippus Jacobus and Bartholomew, which show us that he has studied them very closely. He wanted to make sure that the viewer would recognize every person on the painting, and that they would see how amazed the followers when Jesus said: ‘One of you will betray me’.


Leonardo’s life

Leonardo is born more than 500 years ago, but we still haven’t forgot him.
Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, biologist, engineer, scientist and an inventor.
Nobody from Leonardo’s time studied so much different subjects and nobody had so much Brilliant ideas.

Leonardo da Vinci is born on the 15th of April, in 1452 in Anchiano, near Florence, is an illegitimate child of ser Piere da Vinci and a peasant woman, called Caterina. His father was a rich man, and he took Leonardo with him because Caterina married to someone else. When Leonardo was a little boy, he was
interested in nature, and he often neglected his school to hang about on the countryside. When he was there he always
made drawings of everything that he saw. At one day, ser Piere’s brother asked whether he could bring a wooden
shield with him to Florence to make a painting of it. Ser Piere said that Leonardo could make a drawing on the shield, and gave it to him. Leonardo decided to draw a monster on the shield, and to find some examples he collected butterflies, snakes, salamanders and other insects. When his father came into his room to look what kind of painting Leonardo had made, the smell was terrible and he was frightened but when he got over the shock he saw that his son had talent.

In 1466 Leonardo’s family moved to Florence, and he was aloud to work in the studio of the artist Verrocchio.
For 6 years Leonardo was a student of Verrocchio, who taught him how to treat silver and bronze and also how to paint.

Leonardo’s first painting was on a picture of Verrocchio: “the christening of Christ”. He painted an angel. Verrocchio didn’t know what he saw, Leonardo could paint better than himself. He quitted painting, let Leonardo do all the assignments, and started to do sculpture.

In 1472 Leonardo joined the guild of the saint Lucas (a society of painters), and his father hired a studio for him.
He was now a good-looking young man, he was slender, had curled blonde hair and he always was well dressed.
Leonardo had a warm character and he spent a lot of time studying. He was very interested in maths and geography and
In everything that had to with nature.

Leonardo settled in Florence to become a successful painter. Lorenzo de Medici helped Leonardo by giving him a recommendation
Letter for the duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moor. In 1482 Leonardo went to Milan. He knew that the duke was in was most of the time, so before he went to visit him, he wrote a long letter where he described what he had made and designed as an engineer.
The royal household of Milan was very rich and powerful, although they didn’t support painters. They saw Leonardo more like a party organiser and a musician than like a painter. But Leonardo wanted the duke to be interested in his ideas. He made sketches of designs of machines. He wrote from back to front in mirror writing, probably to keep his notes a secret, but also because he was left-handed and it was easier for him to write like this.

During his stay in the Royal Household of Ludovico, Leonardo worked on a lot of different projects, which would make him famous
Throughout Italy. Ludovico wanted to set up a horseman-statue for one of his forefathers, Francisco Sforza. He made a special studio for
Leonardo to work on the statue, and Leonardo started to study the movements and the build of horses.
In 1493 his clay statue was displayed in front of the palace. (They would make a bronze statue of it later)
But Ludovico was in war with France, and the bronze had to be melted to make cannons of it. Later on the Frenchmen had ruined the Clay model by practicing shooting on it.
Leonardo was very sad about the loss of his bronze, and he had a very hard time because he didn’t have any money. He didn’t need much for himself, but he had to pay his assistants.

In 1500 Leonardo went back to Florence. (The 1st time after 20 years in Milan) He was 48 years old and very famous.
In this period he started to paint the Mona Lisa. He met Michelangelo and painted together with him the wall paintings in the council chamber of the Palazzo Vecchio (the city hall)
In 1506 he was invited to come back to Milan to be the engineer of Lodewijk XII of France, who ruled the state.
Leonardo went to Milan.
In 1513 Leonardo moved to Rome.
In 1516 he left Rome and went to France. The new king, Francois I aloud him to live in the small castle in Amboise. Leonardo took an Italian artist, Francesco da Melzi, with him as a companion.

The French king Francois I admired Leonardo. Leonardo worked for him and he made all kinds of new and exiting projects for the king.
But after 3 years living in France he got a cerebral haemorrhage, and he became paralysed in his right arm.
He made the plans for his funeral by himself and asked for 60 poor men, who had to carry a torch in a procession.
He died on the 2nd of May 1519 in Cloux in France.
People say that he died in the arms of the French kind.
Whole Europe mourned about his death, because on the 2nd of May 1519 one of the most inventive and creative persons had died.

The Mona Lisa

The name of the painting is Mona Lisa and it is painted between 1503 and 1506.
Sometimes the painting is called ‘Madonna Lisa’ or ‘La Gioconda’.
It does not really have a theme or a goal where it is painted for.
The painting is not only the masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci, but also the most famous painting in the whole world. You can see the painting in Louvre, where it is place behind bulletproof glass. Every year, about 5 million people from around the world come to France to see the painting.
On the painting you can see a woman. This is probably the 3rd wife of Bartholomew di Zambini del Gioconda. On the painting you can see that she is quite heavy and not the youngest anymore. She is about 30 years. She had an unlucky marriage but she had a peaceful life. She distinguishes
herself from the style in that time: girls with small shoulders and elegant faces. That is also one of the reasons why the painting is so special.
She is actually so perfect, that people admire her physical authenticity, because Leonardo painted her so precisely that we cannot distinguish the brush lines. Her eyes are beautiful and shiny, her nose is pretty, her mouth is beautiful also and of course her mysterious smile that made the painting so special.

Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa with oil paint on canvas. The colors are quite dark, but because they are so old they are discolored. The color used is not really restricted, but there is a lot of dark and black. Mona Lisa is sitting or standing in the center of the painting.
Leonardo used a few different paintbrushes. The lines and forms in the painting are painted very precisely and because of this the painting is very detailed.
The woman is lightened up from the front. You can see that by looking at her face and her chest.
Those are lightened up.
In this painting Leonardo used his technique ‘sfumato’ (Which means ‘misty’, or ‘smoky’)
The gradual change between light and shadow makes the contours blurred, and because of this the painting gives a blurred and mysterious impression.
The woman on the painting has no eyebrows, and that is why her forehead looks so high.
Leonardo used perspective in this painting, and in his time that was quite special because they just started to use it then. There is also depth in this painting. You can see the depth in the landscape.
In the book ‘Leonardo’ the writer says that the smile of Mona Lisa the smile of Leonardo himself is: ‘In a lot of paintings we find similarities with the painter and in this case too’.

The painting does not make me feel tranquil, active, mad, tired, etc. It makes me think. If I see this painting I want to know why Leonardo painted it like this. I want to know why the woman has such a mysterious smile, whether it is just her smile or whether he did something to make her smile. Because is some books it says that maybe he build a fountain covered with her favorite flowers, in another book it says that he hired a circus for her. I want to know what he did.
I can say 2 things about the space. First, if I look at the painting I don’t feel a vast open panorama. I think that the woman is sitting in just one room. But when I look at the landscape behind her, I see a lot of space. I see mountains and rivers. I think this is because the woman is painted so big. When Leonardo made the painting it didn’t really have a function. I think he just painted it because it was his job. But nowadays millions of people a year come to look at it.
I do think the artist is trying to say something. I think he is trying to say something with the woman’s smile and her look. She looks very odd. Her eyes aren’t concentrated on something, but she still looks another way. But when I look at her I see something sad. But on the other hand, when I look at her smile I see a happy person. Maybe the sad look is about her unlucky marriage, and her happy look about her peaceful life.