Leonardo da Vinci: the life and work of the artist

BIOGRAPHY OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

Born in 1452 near the city of Vinci (where the prefix of his surname came from). His artistic interests are not limited to painting, architecture and sculpture. Despite his enormous achievements in the field of exact sciences (mathematics, physics) and natural science, Leonardo did not find sufficient support and understanding. Only many years later his work was truly appreciated.

Fascinated by the idea of creating an aircraft, Leonardo da Vinci first developed the simplest aircraft (Daedalus and Icarus) based on wings. His new idea was an airplane with full control. However, it was not possible to implement it due to the lack of a motor. The scientist’s also famous idea is a vertical take-off and landing device.

Studying the laws of fluid and hydraulics in general, Leonardo made significant contributions to the theory of locks and sewer ports, testing ideas in practice.

Famous paintings by Leonardo da Vinci are “La Gioconda”, “The Last Supper”, “Madonna with an Ermine”, and many others. Leonardo was demanding and precise in all his affairs. Even when he became interested in painting, he insisted on fully studying the object before starting to draw.

Giaconda

last supper

Madonna with an ermine

Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts are priceless. They were published in full only in the 19th and 20th centuries, although even during his lifetime the author dreamed of publishing Part 3. In his notes, Leonardo noted not just thoughts, but supplemented them with drawings, drawings, and descriptions.

Being talented in many fields, Leonardo da Vinci made significant contributions to the history of architecture, art, and physics. The great scientist died in France in 1519.

Paintings

Two images of the Holy Virgin by Leonardo, Madonna Benois and Madonna Litta, painted 10 years apart, are in the State Hermitage.
The drawing "Vitruvian Man" (Homo vitruviano), depicting a man of "ideal proportions", is kept in the collection of the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.
The Last Supper fresco, depicting Christ’s last meal, began to collapse during the author’s lifetime . Francis I wanted to transport the wall of the monastery refectory to France to save the masterpiece.

La Gioconda is Leonardo's most talked about work. The main mystery is who posed for the artist? They call Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a noble populan, Costanza d'Avalos, the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici...

The most non-trivial versions say that “La Gioconda” is da Vinci himself or his student Salai, dressed in a woman’s outfit. There are many speculations, there are even more copies of the painting, but the immortal “Mona Lisa” continues to captivate with her unique smile.

THE WORK OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

Among Leonardo’s early works is the “Madonna with a Flower” (the so-called “Benois Madonna,” circa 1478), kept in the Hermitage, which is decidedly different from the numerous Madonnas of the 15th century. Refusing the genre and careful detailing inherent in the works of the early Renaissance masters, Leonardo deepens the characteristics and generalizes the forms.

In 1480, Leonardo already had his own workshop and received orders. However, his passion for science often distracted him from his studies in art. The large altar composition “Adoration of the Magi” (Florence, Uffizi) and “Saint Jerome” (Rome, Vatican Pinacoteca) remained unfinished.

The Milanese period includes paintings of a mature style - “Madonna in the Grotto” and “The Last Supper”. “Madonna in the Grotto” (1483-1494, Paris, Louvre) is the first monumental altar composition of the High Renaissance. Her characters Mary, John, Christ and the angel acquired features of greatness, poetic spirituality and fullness of life expressiveness.

The most significant of Leonardo’s monumental paintings, “The Last Supper,” executed in 1495-1497 for the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan, takes you into the world of real passions and dramatic feelings. Departing from the traditional interpretation of the Gospel episode, Leonardo gives an innovative solution to the theme, a composition that deeply reveals human feelings and experiences.

After Milan was captured by French troops, Leonardo left the city. Years of wandering began. Commissioned by the Florentine Republic, he made cardboard for the fresco “The Battle of Anghiari”, which was to decorate one of the walls of the Council Chamber in the Palazzo Vecchio (city government building). When creating this cardboard, Leonardo entered into competition with the young Michelangelo, who was executing an order for the fresco “The Battle of Cascina” for another wall of the same hall.

In Leonardo’s composition, full of drama and dynamics, the episode of the battle for the banner, the moment of the highest tension of the forces of the combatants is given, the cruel truth of the war is revealed. The creation of a portrait of Mona Lisa (“La Gioconda”, circa 1504, Paris, Louvre), one of the most famous works of world painting, dates back to this time.

The depth and significance of the created image is extraordinary, in which individual features are combined with great generalization.

Death and grave

The great Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519 at the age of 67, at the castle of Clos Lucé. He bequeathed to bury his body in the Saint-Florentin temple.

Researchers suggest that the probable cause of his death could have been a stroke. To this day, the memories of his contemporaries have been preserved, claiming that Leonardo da Vinci was partially paralyzed. For example, 2 years before his death, he could not move his right arm due to a stroke.

In the last years of his life he continued to create with the help of his student Francesco Melzi. However, every day his health deteriorated, as a result of which he could no longer move without assistance.

The life of the Florentine genius ended after a second stroke in 1519.

It is worth emphasizing that all assumptions about how the last years of the biography of Leonardo da Vinci went are not confirmed by reliable facts, but are only guesses.

Monument to Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, Italy

At the height of the Huguenot Wars, Leonardo da Vinci's tomb was destroyed. Only after three hundred years did scientists make attempts to identify his remains.

Today, on the site of the destroyed church in which he was buried, there is a granite monument with a bust of the great Leonardo.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo was born into the family of a wealthy notary and landowner Piero da Vinci; his mother was a simple peasant woman, Katerina. He received a good education at home, but he lacked systematic studies in Greek and Latin.

He played the lyre masterfully. When Leonardo's case was heard in the Milan court, he appeared there precisely as a musician, and not as an artist or inventor.

There is reason to believe that Leonardo was homosexual. While the artist was studying in Verrocchio's studio, he was accused of molesting a boy who posed for him in his work. The court acquitted him.

According to one theory, Mona Lisa smiles from the realization of her secret pregnancy.

According to another version, Gioconda was entertained by musicians and clowns while she posed for the artist.

There is another theory according to which the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait of Leonardo.

Leonardo, apparently, did not leave a single self-portrait that could be unambiguously attributed to him. Scientists have doubted that the famous self-portrait of Leonardo's sanguine (traditionally dated 1512-1515), depicting him in old age, is such. It is believed that perhaps this is just a study of the head of the apostle for the Last Supper. Doubts that this is a self-portrait of the artist have been expressed since the 19th century, the latest to be expressed recently by one of the leading experts on Leonardo, Professor Pietro Marani.

Scientists at the University of Amsterdam and specialists from the United States, having studied the mysterious smile of Gioconda using a new computer program, unraveled its composition: according to them, it contains 83% happiness, 9% disdain, 6% fear and 2% anger.

Bill Gates bought Codex Leicester, a collection of works by Leonardo da Vinci, for $30 million in 1994. Since 2003 it has been on display at the Seattle Art Museum.

Leonardo loved water: he developed instructions for underwater diving, invented and described a device for underwater diving, and a breathing apparatus for scuba diving. All of Leonardo's inventions formed the basis of modern underwater equipment.

Leonardo was the first to explain why the sky is blue. In the book “On Painting” he wrote: “The blueness of the sky is due to the thickness of illuminated air particles, which is located between the Earth and the blackness above.”

Observations of the moon in the waxing crescent phase led Leonardo to one of the important scientific discoveries - the researcher found that sunlight is reflected from the Earth and returns to the moon in the form of secondary illumination.

Leonardo was ambidextrous - he was equally good with his right and left hands. He suffered from dyslexia (impaired reading ability) - this ailment, called “word blindness,” is associated with reduced brain activity in a certain area of the left hemisphere. As you know, Leonardo wrote in a mirror way.

The Louvre recently spent $5.5 million to move the artist's famous masterpiece, La Gioconda, from the general public to a room specially equipped for it. Two-thirds of the State Hall, occupying a total area of 840 square meters, was allocated for La Gioconda. The huge room was rebuilt into a gallery, on the far wall of which Leonardo’s famous creation now hangs. The reconstruction, which was carried out according to the design of the Peruvian architect Lorenzo Piqueras, lasted about four years. The decision to move the “Mona Lisa” to a separate room was made by the administration of the Louvre due to the fact that in its original place, surrounded by other paintings by Italian painters, this masterpiece was lost, and the public had to stand in line to see the famous painting.

In August 2003, a painting by the great Leonardo da Vinci worth $50 million, “Madonna of the Spindle,” was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland. The masterpiece disappeared from the home of one of Scotland's richest landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch. Last November, the FBI released a list of the 10 most notorious art crimes, which included this robbery.

Leonardo left designs for a submarine, a propeller, a tank, a loom, a ball bearing and flying cars.

In December 2000, British parachutist Adrian Nicholas in South Africa descended from a height of 3 thousand meters from a hot air balloon using a parachute made according to a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. The Discover website writes about this fact.

Leonardo was the first painter to dismember corpses in order to understand the location and structure of muscles.

A great fan of word games, Leonardo left in the Codex Arundel a long list of synonyms for the male penis.

While building canals, Leonardo da Vinci made an observation, which later entered geology under his name as a theoretical principle for recognizing the time of formation of the earth's layers. He came to the conclusion that the Earth is much older than the Bible believed.

It is believed that da Vinci was a vegetarian (Andrea Corsali, in a letter to Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, compares Leonardo to an Indian who did not eat meat). The phrase often attributed to da Vinci: “If a person strives for freedom, why does he keep birds and animals in cages? .. man is truly the king of animals, because he cruelly exterminates them. We live by killing others. We are walking cemeteries! Even at an early age, I gave up meat” is taken from the English translation of Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s novel “Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci."

Leonardo wrote in his famous diaries from right to left in mirror image. Many people think that in this way he wanted to make his research secret. Perhaps this is true. According to another version, mirror handwriting was his individual feature (there is even evidence that it was easier for him to write this way than in a normal way); There is even a concept of “Leonardo’s handwriting.”

Leonardo's hobbies even included cooking and the art of serving. In Milan, for 13 years he was the manager of court feasts. He invented several culinary devices to make the work of cooks easier. Leonardo's original dish - thinly sliced stewed meat with vegetables placed on top - was very popular at court feasts.

Italian scientists announced a sensational discovery. They claim that an early self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered. The discovery belongs to the journalist Piero Angela.

In Terry Pratchett's books, there is a character named Leonard, whose prototype was Leonardo da Vinci. Pratchett's Leonard writes from right to left, invents various machines, practices alchemy, paints pictures (the most famous is the portrait of Mona Ogg)

Leonardo is a minor character in the game Assassin's Creed 2. Here he is shown as still a young but talented artist, as well as an inventor.

A considerable number of Leonardo's manuscripts were first published by the curator of the Ambrosian Library, Carlo Amoretti.

Bibliography

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Interesting Facts

At the age of 24, together with three Florentine youths, he was accused of sodomy . The company was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
The maestro was a vegetarian . People who consume animal food were called “walking cemeteries.”
He shocked his contemporaries with his habit of carefully examining and sketching the hanged in detail. He considered studying the structure of the human body to be the most important activity.
It is believed that the maestro developed tasteless and odorless poisons and wiretapping devices made of glass tubes for Cesare Borgia.
The television miniseries “The Life of Leonardo da Vinci” (La vita di Leonardo da Vinci), directed by Renato Castellani, received a Golden Globe award .
Rome's Fiumicino Airport is named after Leonardo da Vinci and features a huge statue depicting the master holding a model helicopter.

KONSPEKTY.NET

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in Anchiato, a village near the city of Vinci, which is why he received his nickname.

Father is a notary.
Mother is a lover.

Leonardo da Vinci's parents did not have an official relationship. After the birth of his son, the father took the child into his family. Leonardo da Vinci received his first training in Verrocchio's workshop. The father saw his son's inclination towards art and subtly assessed the future prospects for the child.

Leonardo da Vinci studied : geometry, modeling, drawing, chemistry, drawing, working with materials (metal, leather, plaster). In 1473 he improved his qualifications, receiving the title of master in the Guild of St. Luke.