Leonardo Da Vinci is if not the most popular artist in the world, one of the most popular artists in the world. He was one of the greatest masters of the High Renaissance he was most known as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. He helped people with scientific research and artistic revival, his scientific studies in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulic helped us exceed in many of the developments of modern science. Even at a young age Leonardo was showing his profound strength and talent for painting.
It is said that the first time his father (Ser Piero), saw his talent was when Leonardo decorated a shield with a painting of a dragon. His father got frightened of the realistic paintings that Leonardo was making. At age of 15, Leonardo was sent to train as a partner and sculptor with one of the best artists in Florence at the time, Andrea del Verrocchio in his amazing studio with other young artists. He was taught the skills of drawing, painting, and sculpture. Around the year 1472, Leonardo painted The angel from Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ.
Leonardo also painted The Annunciation around the year 1473 when he was in his early 20’s. It showed the scene from the New Testament when the Virgin Mary is told by the Angel Gabriel that she will give birth to Jesus. Leonardo used oil paint and tempera on a wooden panel. After Leonardo completed his training with Verrocchio’s studio, he became an amazing professional artist. But Leonardo had one big problem; he would abandon many projects that were uncomplete because he got very bored quickly. Leonardo soon had his own studio to do his work in Florence.
Leonardo put all his effort and energy into his beautiful artwork which caused him to never marry. The Adoration of the Magi, was a painting that Leonardo unfinished that he started in 1481. Leonardo loved to paint religious artwork, especially Virgin Mary and Jesus. He painted the Benois Madonna at the estimated year of 1480. At the year of 1842 Leonardo’s reputation started to rise which caused him to move to Milan. The new duke Ludovico Sforza, gave Leonardo the chance to work as a painter, architect, and engineer for him!
His many jobs there included painting portraits, designing sets and costumes for festivals and shows, working on sculptures for the city and many others included. He painted a portrait of Ginevra de Benci in either 1474 or 1481. He stayed in Milan for 17 years; this was where his painting skills are at their peak. Leonardo painted The Virgin of the Rocks in 1483-1485 which was one of his various popular paintings. It portrayed the life of Jesus and him as a baby with Mary and St. John the Baptist with an angel. Leonardo painted another version of this in 1494-1508.
Leonardo had to portray people that he saw as his job. this made him realize and make theories that careful observation let to understanding. He started to make sketches of everything around him and used light and shadow to make figures look solid and lifelike, this was called “chiaroscuro” which is “lightdark” in Italian. Leonardo painted the Portrait of a Musician in 1845, and Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani painted between 1495 and 1496. Leonardo was becoming proficient at making everything look solid and three-dimensional. At this point, Leonardo was already 50 years ahead of his time!
During Leonardo’s 17 years in Milan he produced an enormous amount of drawings of architecture, plants, people, anatomy, mechanics, and mathematics. He did a study of grotesque heads for a play between 1485 and 1490 and The structure and proportion of the human skull in 1489. Leonardo was left handed which was bad at that time because it would mess up your writing, so he started to right from right to left, which was called “mirror writing. ” In 1495 Leonardo began on his biggest and one of his most famous paintings, The Last Supper” which was painted on he wall of the monk’s refectory at the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
He spent long periods of time on it and was frustrated at his patrons because they thought he was wasting his time. It was one of Italy’s most celebrated paintings during Leonardo’s lifetime. In 1503 Leonardo da Vinci was going to change the world, he was asked by a wealthy Florentine named Francesco del Giocondo to paint a picture of his 26 year old wife, Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is if not the most famous painting in the world, one of the most famous paintings in the world.
He studied the shape and structure of hands closely, so he could paint them greatly, he spent an extreme, countless amount of time on this painting which caused it to become one of the famous in the world today. After completing the amazing Mona Lisa, Leonardo kept on making many sketches and studies in his notebook. After 1503 he spent an enormous amount of designs fir different kinds of flying machines. He was absolutely positive that humans would be able to fly at one point in life. Leonardo was asked to paint a large mural in the Palazzo Vecchio but he never finished his project.
In 1510 he completed his painting Virgin and Child with St. Anne. Leonardo da Vinci was coming close to the end of his life, but he kept going he crated the Self-portrait by Leonardo at the age of 60 in 1512. He then painted the St. John the Baptist, which he begun in about 1509 and completed at about 1515. Leonardo da Vinci died at Amboise in 1519 at the age of 67 and will be remembered for his discoveries and amazing artwork that he made. He only completed about 25 paintings during his life , and only ten have survived out of these. .
