Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci:

Leonardo da Vinci, Artist, scientist and inventor. A very intriguing and, perhaps, baffling individual. Most famously known for his work The Mona Lisa. I have decided to take a look into this great man.

Leonardo d Vinci lived to the end of one of the greatest ages of artistic history. The Italian Renaissance. Leonardo, though he was born in a time where Italy had produced one genius after another for near three centuries, was recognised as an exceptional man... a genius among geniuses.

There were only two others to rival Da Vinci, Michaelangelo and Raphael, during the period between 1500 and 1527 known as the High Renaissance.

Artists of the Renaissance were not looked upon as specialists. Though they were expected to tackle all sorts of problems. From designing a stage set to designing an inn-sign or even a building. It is known, through his many works and diagrams, that Leonardo was capable of the above and so much more. Da Vinci's notebooks are of his most amazing productions. Why? Because they were jam packed with many observations and drawings. Peculiarly his works were all written backwards. Though this could be because he was a very private person or that it was more comfortable for him to write this way because he was a left hander.

Born on the 15^th April 1452 in Leonardo took his name simply from the place he was born. Leonardo da Vinici, simply put, means Leonardo of Vinci. This small town is situated near to Florentine, one of the great centres of Italian art and culture. It was here that he would be apprenticed to Florentine master Andrea del Verrocchio.

Leonardo's earliest known work is one of two angels in a painting that was created by Verocchio, The baptism of Christ.

When Da Vinci was 20 he qualified as a master and was accepted as a full member of the painters' guild, the company of St Luke.

It was in 1483 that he moved on taking service with Lodovico Sforza (The Duke of Milan). His first known masterpiece was The Virgin of the Rocks. For reasons unknown Leonardo never delivered it to the chapel that had commissioned it. Later he would fulfil his contract by delivering a different painting on the same subject.

In Milan Leonardo would work as designer-in-chief. He organised court entertainments and painted a number of portraits. Sadly both of his greatest projects were destroyed. A life-size clay model of a horse (considered one of the marvels of the age) was never cast in bronze and in 1499 it was destroyed by French soldiers in the taking of Milan. The world famous wall painting of The Last Supper was his pinnacle of his fame. Again sad to see that its oil-based colours had began to flake from the wall and has been a ruin for centuries.

Leonardo would leave would leave Milan and spent much of his next few years mostly in Florence. It is known that Leonardo would struggle to complete his work but his full scale preliminary drawing for Madonna and Child with St Anne was of such beauty that it was put on display and would draw huge crowds.

Around about 1503 Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa. This was an example of his gift for conveying the mysteries of personality and his skill in rendering subtly changing, melting tones. Leonardo fell in love with this painting so much that he would not part with it. Though it is said that Mona Lisa was the wife of a merchant who had ordered a portrait from Leonardo Da Vinci.

Much of his last years were restless. Spent flitting between Florence, Milan and Rome. Leonardo would look to cut through the secrets of nature. He went on to make important discoveries in anatomy.

In 1516 he would become First painter and engineer and architect to new king Francis I. The legend is that on May 2^nd 1519 Leonardo would die in the arms of the King himself.