leonardo da vinci essay

Leonardo Da Vinci Essay

Struggles and challenges, his contributions, works cited.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci or better known as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a renowned Italian genius and perhaps a man of immeasurable curiosity and an inventive mind. His multiple talents enabled him to do many things in different fields including painting, writing, architecture, engineering, geology, anatomy, and botany among others (Veltman 381).

Despite his diverse talents, Leonardo is well known for his works in art, particularly painting whereby he produced some of the most famous paintings such as the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper , and the Vitruvian Man among many more (Emmer 449; Mills 39). On the other hand, being an illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant woman did little to undermine Leonardo’s quest to excel in different fields, which ranged from painting to science and technology. Arguably, Leonardo was perhaps the greatest mind of the Renaissance era.

Youth and Early Years

Leonardo was born and raised in Italy under the protection of his father and stepmothers. He spent most of his youth working at Verrocchio’s workshop and learning the laws of science and nature after he had been informally educated in geometry and mathematics. His stay at Verrocchio’s workshop gave him the necessary exposure and experience in painting, which saw him becoming one of the painting masters at the age of 20, and he received recognition by the Guild of St Luke (Budd 13; Emmer 450).

His Greatest Works

Some of Leonardo’s greatest works to date have been in painting more than in science and technology. One of Leonardo’s most famous works include The Last Supper , which was done in the 1490s. The painting captures Jesus’ last moments with the 12 disciples, specifically at the moment where he reminded them that one among the disciples would betray him.

The other great work by Leonardo is the Mona Lisa , which he painted in the 1500s, and it is arguably one of the most famous paintings in the world to date. Apart from painting, Leonardo created several drawings in science and technology such as the Vitruvian Man and the picture of a fetus in the womb (Clayton and Philo 8-12).

A Renaissance Man

Leonardo was a genius and a true Renaissance man owing to his extensive talents that extended far beyond painting and drawing. Following in the footsteps of other Renaissance humanists of his time, Leonardo had developed a keen interest in establishing the relationship between art and science.

Accordingly, he had varied interests in science and technology, particularly in anatomy, optics, and hydraulics whereby he came up with some original pieces of inventions. This interest in science and technology had a great influence on Leonardo’s paintings and drawings (Mills 39).

Level of Acclaim Acquired

Leonardo commands admiration and respect from other painters, critics, and fans in equal measure. His fame and reputation increases by the day, especially considering the number of people who travel long distances and pay a lot of money just to have a glimpse at his famous pieces of art.

The young generation is also keeping up with the pace by purchasing merchandises that contain Leonardo’s most famous paintings and drawings. On the other hand, writers around the globe have written extensively on Leonardo’s talent, and his private life is at the center of numerous speculations (Emmer 449-453).

Attention-Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Dyslexia

Many writers have observed that Leonardo was suffering from ADD owing to his inability to finish all the projects that he started. Actually, there are about 15 paintings created by Leonardo, which survive to date while most of his works produced disastrous results because of his constant desire to experiment with new painting techniques.

This is a typical symptom of ADD, which causes one to get distracted so easily. Other writers have noted that Leonardo was dyslexic because he used to write from right-to-left without being consciously aware (Emmer 449-453).

Struggles with the Church

As noted earlier, Leonardo was a true Renaissance humanist. The proponents of Renaissance humanism focused on art and science as well as other human concerns that were not relevant in the church. Hence, Leonardo and his colleagues pursued different interests concerning humanity such as the Greek and Roman philosophy and historiography, which contradicted the teachings of the Medieval Christian Church of their time.

For instance, instead of being pre-occupied with worldly issues, most Renaissance humanists tended to promote human interests that improved human life. Moreover, Renaissance humanists were the major promoters of anti-church and anti-clerical sentiments during Leonardo’s era. Hence, Renaissance humanism and its ideologies were in stark contrast with the medieval ideals (Veltman 385).

Keeping his Work Private

Leonardo tried to keep his works private using his notebooks, which he wrote in mirror-image handwritings. Most people belief that Leonardo preferred the “backwards” handwriting as a way of ensuring that he maintained secrecy. However, there are those who view his actions as an unconscious form of left-handedness whereby an individual writes from right-to-left without being aware of it.

This is a typical feature of most dyslexics whose left-handedness is not considered as a problem, but a gift. In Leonardo’s case, his dyslexic gift was used to conceal details in his pieces of artwork including sketches, painting ideas, and even scientific inventions (Mills 39-42; Veltman 383). However, after his death, some of Leonardo’s private notes have found their way into the hands of third parties.

Leonardo was the most talented artist of his time. He produced the most famous paintings and drawings, and introduced different painting techniques such as the Chiaroscuro , which is a technique he used to create a contrast between light and dark colors. Moreover, Leonardo introduced the sfumato painting technique, which promoted the use of smoky effects in paintings.

The other painting techniques introduced by Leonardo include linear perspective and the use of light and shadow in paintings. Linear perspective is a technique used by Leonardo to give his paintings life and a three-dimensional look. Furthermore, his knowledge of human anatomy enabled him to create graphic, proportionate, and real paintings (Mills 39; Veltman 383).

Apart from painting, drawing, and sculpture, Leonardo was also talented in science, engineering, and technology. Leonardo’s most famous contributions arose from his attempt to create a connection between science and art. He attempted to understand science from an observational perspective, and in so doing, he developed an understanding of the anatomy of humans and various animals.

This is evidenced in his drawings of human embryos, the human skeleton, the human backbone, the human circulatory system, and the muscles among other anatomical structures. His understanding of the human anatomy helped him to develop the first robot. He also drew several diagrams regarding his engineering inventions such as the self-pumping waterwheel, the overbalancing hammer wheel, and the rolling ball wheel among others (Mills 39-42).

Why Study Leonardo Today

After examining Leonardo’s early life, his struggles and challenges as well as his contributions to art and science, it is important to look at his worth in the contemporary fields of art and science. In the modern society, science and technology plays a huge role in almost every aspect of human life starting with communication, transportation, and even medicine.

Leonardo’s early attempts to create a connection between art and science are useful for the modern artist who is looking for ways to use the dynamic advances in science and technology for the benefit of visual art. Hence, Leonardo da Vinci deserves attention because of his ideas on the fusion between art and science (Veltman 384-385).

Leonardo da Vinci was the most multi-talented individual to have graced the Renaissance era and even the contemporary society. Leonardo’s long-lasting fame and reputation arose from his talents in painting and drawing. He managed to produce several paintings and drawings, which were famous and influential during his time.

He was also a true Renaissance humanist having championed human interests that produced the greatest good for all. His contributions in art and science are also worth mentioning considering that he was the first to use some of the well-known painting techniques besides conceiving some of the greatest scientific and engineering inventions of his time. Lastly, Leonardo’s attempt to relate art and science earned him the honors of being studied today because his ideas are quite fascinating.

Budd, Denise A. “Leonardo da Vinci and Workshop Practice: The Role of the Dated Notation.” The Journal of the History of Art 10.1(2009): 13-39. Print.

Clayton, Martin C., and Ronald Philo. Leonardo Da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man . Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications, 2010. Print.

Emmer, Michelle. “A Film on Leonardo da Vinci by Luciano Emmer.” Leonardo 42.5(2009): 449-453. Print.

Mills, Allan A. “Leonardo da Vinci and Perpetual Motion.” Leonardo 41.1(2008): 39-42. Print.

Veltman, Kim H. “Leonardo da Vinci: A Review.” Leonardo 41.4(2008): 381-388. Print.

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Leonardo da Vinci

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 13, 2022 | Original: December 2, 2009

Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, engineer, architect, inventor, and student of all things scientific. His natural genius crossed so many disciplines that he epitomized the term “ Renaissance man.” Today he remains best known for two of his paintings, " Mona Lisa " and "The Last Supper." Largely self-educated, he filled dozens of secret notebooks with inventions, observations and theories about pursuits from aeronautics to human anatomy. His combination of intellect and imagination allowed him to create, at least on paper, such inventions as the bicycle, the helicopter and an airplane based on the physiology and flying ability of a bat.

When Was Leonardo da Vinci Born?

Da Vinci was born in Anchiano, Tuscany (now Italy), in 1452, close to the town of Vinci that provided the surname we associate with him today. In his own time he was known just as Leonardo or as “Il Florentine,” since he lived near Florence—and was famed as an artist, inventor and thinker.

Did you know? Leonardo da Vinci’s father, an attorney and notary, and his peasant mother were never married to one another, and Leonardo was the only child they had together. With other partners, they had a total of 17 other children, da Vinci’s half-siblings.

Da Vinci’s parents weren’t married, and his mother, Caterina, a peasant, wed another man while da Vinci was very young and began a new family. Beginning around age 5, he lived on the estate in Vinci that belonged to the family of his father, Ser Peiro, an attorney and notary. Da Vinci’s uncle, who had a particular appreciation for nature that da Vinci grew to share, also helped raise him.

Early Career

Da Vinci received no formal education beyond basic reading, writing and math, but his father appreciated his artistic talent and apprenticed him at around age 15 to the noted sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio of Florence. For about a decade, da Vinci refined his painting and sculpting techniques and trained in mechanical arts.

When he was 20, in 1472, the painters’ guild of Florence offered da Vinci membership, but he remained with Verrocchio until he became an independent master in 1478. Around 1482, he began to paint his first commissioned work, The Adoration of the Magi, for Florence’s San Donato, a Scopeto monastery.

However, da Vinci never completed that piece, because shortly thereafter he relocated to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza clan, serving as an engineer, painter, architect, designer of court festivals and, most notably, a sculptor.

The family asked da Vinci to create a magnificent 16-foot-tall equestrian statue, in bronze, to honor dynasty founder Francesco Sforza. Da Vinci worked on the project on and off for 12 years, and in 1493 a clay model was ready to display. Imminent war, however, meant repurposing the bronze earmarked for the sculpture into cannons, and the clay model was destroyed in the conflict after the ruling Sforza duke fell from power in 1499.

'The Last Supper' 

Although relatively few of da Vinci’s paintings and sculptures survive—in part because his total output was quite small—two of his extant works are among the world’s most well-known and admired paintings.

The first is da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” painted during his time in Milan, from about 1495 to 1498. A tempera and oil mural on plaster, “The Last Supper” was created for the refectory of the city’s Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Also known as “The Cenacle,” this work measures about 15 by 29 feet and is the artist’s only surviving fresco. It depicts the Passover dinner during which Jesus Christ addresses the Apostles and says, “One of you shall betray me.”

One of the painting’s stellar features is each Apostle’s distinct emotive expression and body language. Its composition, in which Jesus is centered among yet isolated from the Apostles, has influenced generations of painters.

'Mona Lisa'

When Milan was invaded by the French in 1499 and the Sforza family fled, da Vinci escaped as well, possibly first to Venice and then to Florence. There, he painted a series of portraits that included “La Gioconda,” a 21-by-31-inch work that’s best known today as “Mona Lisa.” Painted between approximately 1503 and 1506, the woman depicted—especially because of her mysterious slight smile—has been the subject of speculation for centuries.

In the past she was often thought to be Mona Lisa Gherardini, a courtesan, but current scholarship indicates that she was Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Florentine merchant Francisco del Giocondo. Today, the portrait—the only da Vinci portrait from this period that survives—is housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, where it attracts millions of visitors each year.

Around 1506, da Vinci returned to Milan, along with a group of his students and disciples, including young aristocrat Francesco Melzi, who would be Leonardo’s closest companion until the artist’s death. Ironically, the victor over the Duke Ludovico Sforza, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, commissioned da Vinci to sculpt his grand equestrian-statue tomb. It, too, was never completed (this time because Trivulzio scaled back his plan). Da Vinci spent seven years in Milan, followed by three more in Rome after Milan once again became inhospitable because of political strife.

Inventions and Philosophy 

Da Vinci’s interests ranged far beyond fine art. He studied nature, mechanics, anatomy, physics, architecture, weaponry and more, often creating accurate, workable designs for machines like the bicycle, helicopter, submarine and military tank that would not come to fruition for centuries. He was, wrote Sigmund Freud, “like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep.”

Several themes could be said to unite da Vinci’s eclectic interests. Most notably, he believed that sight was mankind’s most important sense and that “saper vedere” (“knowing how to see”) was crucial to living all aspects of life fully. He saw science and art as complementary rather than distinct disciplines, and thought that ideas formulated in one realm could—and should—inform the other.

Probably because of his abundance of diverse interests, da Vinci failed to complete a significant number of his paintings and projects. He spent a great deal of time immersing himself in nature, testing scientific laws, dissecting bodies (human and animal) and thinking and writing about his observations. 

Da Vinci’s Notebooks

At some point in the early 1490s, da Vinci began filling notebooks related to four broad themes—painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy—creating thousands of pages of neatly drawn illustrations and densely penned commentary, some of which (thanks to left-handed “mirror script”) was indecipherable to others.

The notebooks—often referred to as da Vinci’s manuscripts and “codices”—are housed today in museum collections after having been scattered after his death. The Codex Atlanticus, for instance, includes a plan for a 65-foot mechanical bat, essentially a flying machine based on the physiology of the bat and on the principles of aeronautics and physics.

Other notebooks contained da Vinci’s anatomical studies of the human skeleton, muscles, brain, and digestive and reproductive systems, which brought new understanding of the human body to a wider audience. However, because they weren’t published in the 1500s, da Vinci’s notebooks had little influence on scientific advancement in the Renaissance period.

How Did Leonardo da Vinci Die?

Da Vinci left Italy for good in 1516, when French ruler Francis I generously offered him the title of “Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King,” which afforded him the opportunity to paint and draw at his leisure while living in a country manor house, the Château of Cloux, near Amboise in France.

Although accompanied by Melzi, to whom he would leave his estate, the bitter tone in drafts of some of his correspondence from this period indicate that da Vinci’s final years may not have been very happy ones. (Melzi would go on to marry and have a son, whose heirs, upon his death, sold da Vinci’s estate.)

Da Vinci died at Cloux (now Clos-Lucé) in 1519 at age 67. He was buried nearby in the palace church of Saint-Florentin. The French Revolution nearly obliterated the church, and its remains were completely demolished in the early 1800s, making it impossible to identify da Vinci’s exact gravesite.

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Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance artist and engineer, known for paintings like "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa,” and for inventions like a flying machine.

(1452-1519)

Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?

Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman — the epitome of a true Renaissance man. Gifted with a curious mind and a brilliant intellect, da Vinci studied the laws of science and nature, which greatly informed his work. His drawings, paintings and other works have influenced countless artists and engineers over the centuries.

Da Vinci was born in a farmhouse outside the village of Anchiano in Tuscany, Italy (about 18 miles west of Florence) on April 15, 1452.

Born out of wedlock to respected Florentine notary Ser Piero and a young peasant woman named Caterina, da Vinci was raised by his father and his stepmother.

At the age of five, he moved to his father’s estate in nearby Vinci (the town from which his surname derives), where he lived with his uncle and grandparents.

Young da Vinci received little formal education beyond basic reading, writing and mathematics instruction, but his artistic talents were evident from an early age.

Around the age of 14, da Vinci began a lengthy apprenticeship with the noted artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. He learned a wide breadth of technical skills including metalworking, leather arts, carpentry, drawing, painting and sculpting.

His earliest known dated work — a pen-and-ink drawing of a landscape in the Arno valley — was sketched in 1473.

Early Works

At the age of 20, da Vinci qualified for membership as a master artist in Florence’s Guild of Saint Luke and established his own workshop. However, he continued to collaborate with del Verrocchio for an additional five years.

It is thought that del Verrocchio completed his “Baptism of Christ” around 1475 with the help of his student, who painted part of the background and the young angel holding the robe of Jesus.

According to Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects , written around 1550 by artist Giorgio Vasari, del Verrocchio was so humbled by the superior talent of his pupil that he never picked up a paintbrush again. (Most scholars, however, dismiss Vasari’s account as apocryphal.)

In 1478, after leaving del Verrocchio’s studio, da Vinci received his first independent commission for an altarpiece to reside in a chapel inside Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.

Three years later the Augustinian monks of Florence’s San Donato a Scopeto tasked him to paint “Adoration of the Magi.” The young artist, however, would leave the city and abandon both commissions without ever completing them.

Was Leonardo da Vinci Gay?

Many historians believe that da Vinci was a homosexual: Florentine court records from 1476 show that da Vinci and four other young men were charged with sodomy, a crime punishable by exile or death.

After no witnesses showed up to testify against 24-year-old da Vinci, the charges were dropped, but his whereabouts went entirely undocumented for the following two years.

Leonardo da Vinci: Paintings

Although da Vinci is known for his artistic abilities, fewer than two dozen paintings attributed to him exist. One reason is that his interests were so varied that he wasn’t a prolific painter. Da Vinci’s most famous works include the “Vitruvian Man,” “The Last Supper” and the “ Mona Lisa .”

Vitruvian Man

Art and science intersected perfectly in da Vinci’s sketch of “Vitruvian Man,” drawn in 1490, which depicted a nude male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart inside both a square and a circle.

The now-famous sketch represents da Vinci's study of proportion and symmetry, as well as his desire to relate man to the natural world.

The Last Supper

Around 1495, Ludovico Sforza, then the Duke of Milan, commissioned da Vinci to paint “The Last Supper” on the back wall of the dining hall inside the monastery of Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie.

The masterpiece, which took approximately three years to complete, captures the drama of the moment when Jesus informs the Twelve Apostles gathered for Passover dinner that one of them would soon betray him. The range of facial expressions and the body language of the figures around the table bring the masterful composition to life.

The decision by da Vinci to paint with tempera and oil on dried plaster instead of painting a fresco on fresh plaster led to the quick deterioration and flaking of “The Last Supper.” Although an improper restoration caused further damage to the mural, it has now been stabilized using modern conservation techniques.

In 1503, da Vinci started working on what would become his most well-known painting — and arguably the most famous painting in the world —the “Mona Lisa.” The privately commissioned work is characterized by the enigmatic smile of the woman in the half-portrait, which derives from da Vinci’s sfumato technique.

Adding to the allure of the “Mona Lisa” is the mystery surrounding the identity of the subject. Princess Isabella of Naples, an unnamed courtesan and da Vinci’s own mother have all been put forth as potential sitters for the masterpiece. It has even been speculated that the subject wasn’t a female at all but da Vinci’s longtime apprentice Salai dressed in women’s clothing.

Based on accounts from an early biographer, however, the "Mona Lisa" is a picture of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant. The painting’s original Italian name — “La Gioconda” — supports the theory, but it’s far from certain. Some art historians believe the merchant commissioned the portrait to celebrate the pending birth of the couple’s next child, which means the subject could have been pregnant at the time of the painting.

If the Giocondo family did indeed commission the painting, they never received it. For da Vinci, the "Mona Lisa" was forever a work in progress, as it was his attempt at perfection, and he never parted with the painting. Today, the "Mona Lisa" hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, secured behind bulletproof glass and regarded as a priceless national treasure seen by millions of visitors each year.

Battle of Anghiari

In 1503, da Vinci also started work on the "Battle of Anghiari," a mural commissioned for the council hall in the Palazzo Vecchio that was to be twice as large as "The Last Supper."

He abandoned the "Battle of Anghiari" project after two years when the mural began to deteriorate before he had a chance to finish it.

In 1482, Florentine ruler Lorenzo de' Medici commissioned da Vinci to create a silver lyre and bring it as a peace gesture to Ludovico Sforza. After doing so, da Vinci lobbied Ludovico for a job and sent the future Duke of Milan a letter that barely mentioned his considerable talents as an artist and instead touted his more marketable skills as a military engineer.

Using his inventive mind, da Vinci sketched war machines such as a war chariot with scythe blades mounted on the sides, an armored tank propelled by two men cranking a shaft and even an enormous crossbow that required a small army of men to operate.

The letter worked, and Ludovico brought da Vinci to Milan for a tenure that would last 17 years. During his time in Milan, da Vinci was commissioned to work on numerous artistic projects as well, including “The Last Supper.”

Da Vinci’s ability to be employed by the Sforza clan as an architecture and military engineering advisor as well as a painter and sculptor spoke to da Vinci’s keen intellect and curiosity about a wide variety of subjects.

Flying Machine

Always a man ahead of his time, da Vinci appeared to prophesy the future with his sketches of devices that resemble a modern-day bicycle and a type of helicopter.

Perhaps his most well-known invention is a flying machine, which is based on the physiology of a bat. These and other explorations into the mechanics of flight are found in da Vinci's Codex on the Flight of Birds, a study of avian aeronautics, which he began in 1505.

Like many leaders of Renaissance humanism, da Vinci did not see a divide between science and art. He viewed the two as intertwined disciplines rather than separate ones. He believed studying science made him a better artist.

In 1502 and 1503, da Vinci also briefly worked in Florence as a military engineer for Cesare Borgia, the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI and commander of the papal army. He traveled outside of Florence to survey military construction projects and sketch city plans and topographical maps.

He designed plans, possibly with noted diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli , to divert the Arno River away from rival Pisa in order to deny its wartime enemy access to the sea.

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Da Vinci’s Study of Anatomy and Science

Da Vinci thought sight was humankind’s most important sense and eyes the most important organ, and he stressed the importance of saper vedere, or “knowing how to see.” He believed in the accumulation of direct knowledge and facts through observation.

“A good painter has two chief objects to paint — man and the intention of his soul,” da Vinci wrote. “The former is easy, the latter hard, for it must be expressed by gestures and the movement of the limbs.”

To more accurately depict those gestures and movements, da Vinci began to study anatomy seriously and dissect human and animal bodies during the 1480s. His drawings of a fetus in utero, the heart and vascular system, sex organs and other bone and muscular structures are some of the first on human record.

In addition to his anatomical investigations, da Vinci studied botany, geology, zoology, hydraulics, aeronautics and physics. He sketched his observations on loose sheets of papers and pads that he tucked inside his belt.

Da Vinci placed the papers in notebooks and arranged them around four broad themes—painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy. He filled dozens of notebooks with finely drawn illustrations and scientific observations.

Ludovico Sforza also tasked da Vinci with sculpting a 16-foot-tall bronze equestrian statue of his father and founder of the family dynasty, Francesco Sforza. With the help of apprentices and students in his workshop, da Vinci worked on the project on and off for more than a dozen years.

Da Vinci sculpted a life-size clay model of the statue, but the project was put on hold when war with France required bronze to be used for casting cannons, not sculptures. After French forces overran Milan in 1499 — and shot the clay model to pieces — da Vinci fled the city along with the duke and the Sforza family.

Ironically, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, who led the French forces that conquered Ludovico in 1499, followed in his foe’s footsteps and commissioned da Vinci to sculpt a grand equestrian statue, one that could be mounted on his tomb. After years of work and numerous sketches by da Vinci, Trivulzio decided to scale back the size of the statue, which was ultimately never finished.

Final Years

Da Vinci returned to Milan in 1506 to work for the very French rulers who had overtaken the city seven years earlier and forced him to flee.

Among the students who joined his studio was young Milanese aristocrat Francesco Melzi, who would become da Vinci’s closest companion for the rest of his life. He did little painting during his second stint in Milan, however, and most of his time was instead dedicated to scientific studies.

Amid political strife and the temporary expulsion of the French from Milan, da Vinci left the city and moved to Rome in 1513 along with Salai, Melzi and two studio assistants. Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of newly installed Pope Leo X and son of his former patron, gave da Vinci a monthly stipend along with a suite of rooms at his residence inside the Vatican.

His new patron, however, also gave da Vinci little work. Lacking large commissions, he devoted most of his time in Rome to mathematical studies and scientific exploration.

After being present at a 1515 meeting between France’s King Francis I and Pope Leo X in Bologna, the new French monarch offered da Vinci the title “Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King.”

Along with Melzi, da Vinci departed for France, never to return. He lived in the Chateau de Cloux (now Clos Luce) near the king’s summer palace along the Loire River in Amboise. As in Rome, da Vinci did little painting during his time in France. One of his last commissioned works was a mechanical lion that could walk and open its chest to reveal a bouquet of lilies.

How Did Leonardo da Vinci Die?

Da Vinci died of a probable stroke on May 2, 1519, at the age of 67. He continued work on his scientific studies until his death; his assistant, Melzi, became the principal heir and executor of his estate. The “Mona Lisa” was bequeathed to Salai.

For centuries after his death, thousands of pages from his private journals with notes, drawings, observations and scientific theories have surfaced and provided a fuller measure of the true "Renaissance man."

Book and Movie

Although much has been written about da Vinci over the years, Walter Isaacson explored new territory with an acclaimed 2017 biography, Leonardo da Vinci , which offers up details on what drove the artist's creations and inventions.

The buzz surrounding the book carried into 2018, with the announcement that it had been optioned for a big-screen adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio .

Salvator Mundi

In 2017, the art world was sent buzzing with the news that the da Vinci painting "Salvator Mundi" had been sold at a Christie's auction to an undisclosed buyer for a whopping $450.3 million. That amount dwarfed the previous record for an art work sold at an auction, the $179.4 million paid for “Women of Algiers" by Pablo Picasso in 2015.

The sales figure was stunning in part because of the damaged condition of the oil-on-panel, which features Jesus Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left holding a crystal orb, and because not all experts believe it was rendered by da Vinci.

However, Christie's had launched what one dealer called a "brilliant marketing campaign," which promoted the work as "the holy grail of our business" and "the last da Vinci." Prior to the sale, it was the only known painting by the old master still in a private collection.

The Saudi Embassy stated that Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud of Saudi Arabia had acted as an agent for the ministry of culture of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Around that time, the newly-opened Louvre Abu Dhabi announced that the record-breaking artwork would be exhibited in its collection.

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QUICK FACTS

• Name: Leonardo da Vinci
• Birth Year: 1452
• Birth date: April 15, 1452
• Birth City: Vinci
• Birth Country: Italy
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance artist and engineer, known for paintings like "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa,” and for inventions like a flying machine.
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• Interesting Facts
• Leonardo da Vinci was born out of wedlock to a respected Florentine notary and a young peasant woman.
• Da Vinci used tempera and oil on dried plaster to paint "The Last Supper," which led to its quick deterioration and flaking.
• For da Vinci, the "Mona Lisa" was forever a work in progress, as it was his attempt at perfection, and he never parted with the painting.
• Death Year: 1519
• Death date: May 2, 1519
• Death City: Amboise
• Death Country: France

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Leonardo da Vinci Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/leonardo-da-vincii
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: August 28, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
• Nothing is hidden beneath the sun.
• Obstacles cannot bend me. Every obstacle yields to effort.
• We make our life by the death of others.
• Necessity is the mistress and guardian of nature.
• One ought not to desire the impossible.
• He who neglects to punish evil sanctions the doing thereof.
• Darkness is the absence of light. Shadow is the diminution of light.
• The painter who draws by practice and judgment of the eye without the use of reason, is like the mirror that reproduces within itself all the objects which are set opposite to it without knowledge of the same.
• He who does not value life does not deserve it.
• Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
• Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

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Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452–May 2, 1519) was an artist, humanist, scientist, philosopher, inventor, and naturalist during the Italian Renaissance . His genius, says his biographer Walter Isaacson, was his ability to marry observation with imagination and to apply that imagination to intellect and its universal nature.

Fast Facts: Leonardo da Vinci

• Known For : Renaissance-era painter, inventor, naturalist, philosopher, and writer
• Born : April 15, 1452 in Vinci in Tuscany, Italy
• Parents : Piero da Vinci and Caterina Lippi
• Died : May 2, 1519 in Cloux, France
• Education : Formal training limited to "abacus school" in commercial math, an apprenticeship at the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio; otherwise self-taught

Leonardo da Vinci was born in the village of Vinci in Tuscany, Italy, on April 15, 1452, the only child of Piero da Vinci, a notary and eventually chancellor of Florence, and Caterina Lippi, an unmarried peasant girl. He is properly known as "Leonardo" rather than "da Vinci," although that is a common form of his name today. Da Vinci means "from Vinci" and most people of the day who required a last name were given it based on their place of residence.

Leonardo was illegitimate, which, according to biographer Isaacson, may well have assisted his skill and education. He was not required to go to formal school, and he passed his youth in experimentation and exploration, keeping careful notes in a series of journals that have survived. Piero was a well-to-do man, descended from at least two generations of important notaries, and he settled in the town of Florence. He married Albierra, the daughter of another notary, within eight months of Leonardo's birth. Leonardo was raised in the da Vinci family home by his grandfather Antonio and his wife, along with Francesco, Piero's youngest brother only 15 years older than his nephew, Leonardo himself.

Florence (1467–1482)

In 1464, Albierra died in childbirth—she had no other children, and Piero brought Leonardo to live with him in Florence . There, Leonardo was exposed to the architecture and writings of the artists Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472); and it was there that his father got him an apprenticeship to the artist and engineer Andrea del Verrocchio. Verrocchio's workshop was part art studio and part art shop, and Leonardo was exposed to a rigorous training program that included painting, sculpture, pottery, and metalworking. He learned the beauty of geometry and the mathematical harmony that art can leverage. He also learned chiarroscuro and developed the sfumato technique for which he would become famous.

When his apprenticeship ended in 1472, Leonardo registered in the Florentine painter's confraternity, the Compagnia di San Luca. Many of the works he did in Verocchio's workshop were often completed by several of the students and/or the teacher, and it is clear that by the end of his tenure, Leonardo had surpassed his master.

Verocchio's workshop was sponsored by the duke of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici  (1469–1492), also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. Some of the works painted by Leonardo in his 20s include the "Annunciation" and the "Adoration of the Magi," and the portrait of "Ginevra di Benci."

Milan (1482–1499)

When Leonardo turned 30, he was sent by Lorenzo on a diplomatic mission to bring a lute in the shape of a horse's head that he himself had crafted to be given to Ludovico Sforza, the powerful duke of Milan. With him was Atalante Migliorotti (1466–1532), the first of his long-term companions who acted as a friend, assistant, secretary, and romantic partner.

When Leonardo arrived in Milan, he sent a letter to Ludovico, a letter that was more or less a job application, laying out in detail the type of job he envisioned being useful to the duke: military and civil engineering. Instead, Leonardo ended up an impresario, producing elaborate pageants for the royal court such as the "Masque of the Planets." He designed scenery and costumes and developed fantastic mechanical elements for the plays that would fly, descend, or animate for the audience. In this role, he was part court jester: he sang and played the lute, told stories and fables, played pranks. His friends described him as gentle and entertaining, handsome, precise, and generous, a valued and beloved companion.

The Genius in the Notebook

It was also during this period that Leonardo began keeping regular notebooks. More than 7,200 single pages exist today, estimated to be one-quarter of his total output. They are filled with expressions of sheer genius: flights of fancy, precognitive sketches of impossible technologies (scuba gear, flying machines, helicopters); careful, analytical anatomical studies of dissections he performed on humans and animals; and visual puns. In his notebooks and his canvases, he played with shadow and light, perspective, motion, and color. His drawings of humans at the time are fascinating: an old warrior with a nutcracker nose and an enormous chin; grotesquely old men and women; and a thin, muscular, curly-haired androgynous figure, the opposite avatar of the old warrior who would provide centuries of delight and speculation for art historians.

Of course, he painted while he was in Milan: portraits included several of Ludovico's mistresses, "The Lady with the Ermine and La Belle Ferronnière," and religious works such as "Virgin of the Rocks" and the astonishing "Last Supper." He also made the famous drawing "Vitruvian Man," the best of numerous attempts of the day to illustrate what the Roman architect Vitrivius (c. 80–15 BCE) meant when he said the layout of a temple should reflect the proportions of a human body. Leonardo ditched most of Vitrivius' measurements and calculated his own ideal of perfection.

In 1489, Leonardo finally earned the job he had wanted in 1482: he received an official court appointment, complete with rooms (albeit not at Ludovico's castle). His first commission was to make an immense sculpture of the duke of Milan's father Francesco sitting on a horse. He made the model of clay and worked for years planning the casting, but never completed the bronze sculpture. In July 1490, he met the second companion of his life, Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, known as Salai (1480–1524).

By 1499, the duke of Milan was running out of money and no longer consistently paying Leonardo, and when Louis XII of France (1462–1515) invaded Milan, Ludovico fled the city. Leonardo stayed in Milan briefly—the French knew him and protected his studio from the mobs—but when he heard rumors that Ludovico was planning to return, he fled home to Florence.

Italy and France (1500–1519)

When Leonardo returned to Florence, he found the city still shaken from the after-effects of the brief and bloody rule of Savonarola (1452–1498), who in 1497 had led the "Bonfire of the Vanities"—the priest and his followers collected and burned thousands of objects such as artworks, books, cosmetics, dresses, mirrors, and musical instruments as forms of evil temptations. In 1498, Savonarola was hanged and burned in the public square. Leonardo was a different man when he returned: he dressed like a dandy, spending almost as much on clothing as he did on books. His first patron was the notorious military ruler Cesare Borgia (1475–1507), who conquered Florence in 1502: Borgia gave Leonardo a passport to travel wherever he needed, as his personal engineer and innovator.

The job only lasted about eight months, but during that time Leonardo built a bridge supporting a garrison of troops out of a pile of lumber and nothing more. He also perfected the art of maps, drawing villages as they would be seen from the air, accurate, detailed birds-eye views of cities measured with a compass. He also established a friendship with Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), who would base his classic "The Prince" on Borgia. By 1503, though, Borgia was running amok, requiring mass executions in the towns he occupied. At first, Leonardo seemed oblivious, but when Machiavelli left, so did Leonardo: back to Florence.

In Florence, Leonardo and Machiavelli worked on an astonishing project: they planted to divert the Arno river from Pisa to Florence. The project got started, but the engineer changed the specs and it was a spectacular failure. Leonardo and Machiavelli also worked on a way to drain the Piombino Marshes: the movement and force of water was a fascination for Leonardo throughout his life, but the marsh project was also not completed.

Michelangelo

Artistically, Florence had a huge drawback: Leonardo had acquired a nemesis, Michelangelo . Twenty years younger, Michelangelo was a pious Christian convulsed by agony over his nature. The two artists' communication devolved into a bitter feud. The two men were each commissioned to do battle scenes: hung in separate galleries, the paintings were depictions of frenzied faces, monstrous armor, and mad horses. Isaacson suggests that the upshot of the war of the battle scene was useful to both artists because they were now both luminaries, rather than interchangeable parts.

From 1506–1516, Leonardo wandered back and forth between Rome and Milan; another one of his patrons was the Medici Pope Leo X (1475–1521). In 1506, Leonardo adopted Francesco Melzi, the 14-year-old son of a friend and civil engineer, as his heir. Between 1510 and 1511, Leonardo worked with anatomy professor Marcantonio della Torre, whose students dissected humans while Leonardo made 240 meticulous drawings and wrote 13,000 words of description—and probably more, but those are what survived. The professor died of the plague, ending the project before it could be published.

And of course, he painted. His masterpieces during this period in his life include the "Mona Lisa" ("La Gioconda"); "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne," and a series of images of Salai as St. John the Baptist and Bacchus.

In 1516, Francis I of France commissioned Leonardo for another astounding, impossible task : design a town and palace complex for the royal court at Romorantin. Francis, arguably one of the best patrons Leonardo ever had, gave him the Chateau de Cloux (now the Clos Luce). Leonardo was by now an old man, but he was still productive—he made 16 drawings over the next three years, even if the city project was not completed—but he was visibly ill and had likely suffered a stroke. He died on May 2, 1519, at the Chateau.

• Clark, Kenneth and Martin Kemp. "Leonardo da Vinci: Revised Edition." London, Penguin Books, 1989.
• Isaacson, Walter. "Leonardo Da Vinci." New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017. 
• Farago, Claire. "Biography and Early Art Criticism of Leonardo da Vinci." New York: Garland Publishing, 1999.
• Nicholl, Charles. "Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind." London, Penguin Books, 2005.
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Life and Paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci: Essay Example

Leonardo da vinci essay introduction, a great artist and a true legend, painting of a life time – mona lisa, the last supper (1495-1499), illustrations of leonardo – vitruvian man, leonardo’s life, essay on leonardo da vinci: conclusion, works cited.

There are certain individuals in the world that have transformed the word success. They have reached the heights of it and they are known as a legend. Leonardo Da Vinci was among those individuals that are claimed to be the greats of the world. He was a sculptor, a painter, an architect.

His numerous skills have earned him the name of “renaissance master”. In this paper we will highlight the greatness of this legend and we will focus on the masterpieces he has produced. The life of Leonardo and his achievements are discussed in detail.

Leonardo was an epic individual and he was born on April 15, 1452. The place of his birth was Vinci and he was a member of the Tuscan hill town which was located near the Amoco River and was included in the territory of Florence.

His father’s name was Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci. It was quite astonishing that Leonardo doesn’t have any surname and Da Vinci means from Vinci. He was living with his father at the at the age of 5 and his father married a sixteen year old girl who was interested in Leonardo but unfortunately she died in an early age.

Leonardo started training at a very early age and he was apprenticed to one of the best artist of his times Andrea di Cione, who was also known as “Verrocchio” (Phillps, 2008). He slowly and gradually become very experienced and earned a reputation of a legend.

Pablo Picasso was known as the biggest rival of Leonardo Da Vinci in the 15 th century. Leonardo was known as the master of all the fields and arts and science. He is known as one of the most famous painters ever lived in this world. His diversity and his sense of seeing things in an artistic manner was the beauty of this man.

He was primarily known as a painter and his most famous works are “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper”. These two painting are occupy a seniority among all the other paintings of the world and these two paintings are treated as the most parodied and the most reproduced paintings of all times.

His drawing of the Vitruvius Man is also of iconic nature. Leonardo Da Vince developed a huge number of paintings but about 15 (fifteen) of his paintings survived because of his experimentation with new techniques.

The most famous painting of Leonardo is known as the “The Last Supper” and it was actually painted in Milan. The idea that was described in the painting was the last meal shared by the Jesus Christ with all his disciples before his capture and his actual death.

The moment when Jesus said “one of you will betray me.” was displayed beautifully in that monument. The story of consternation was displayed in an effective manner by Leonardo.

He lived for 67 years and experienced a career which was filled with success and fame. At certain times he was also humiliated and casted away. His life experiences affected his work and often his paintings were partially completed.

Although a hefty amount paintings were developed by Leonardo but very few of them remained because some of them weren’t completed and the others were destroyed. A total of 20 notebooks of Leonardo are found which easily depict the quality centered work of Leonardo. These note books are preserved and all of his work in scattered in different areas of the globe.

Mona Lisa of Leonardo di Vinci is the most famous and the most celebrated paintings of all times. The greatness and the mastery of this painting are depicted by its subtle details. The faint smile is the most noticed thing of this painting and this painting at the time of its creation till now is one of the masterpieces of all times.

This work of Leonardo is said to be commissioned by a gentlemen who requested Leonardo to paint the picture of his wife. That’s why the painting of Leonardo da Vinci is also known as the paining of La Giaconda. However, many scholars are not agreeing on this point and they are rejecting this theory.

Besides being the most renowned painting in the world, Mona Lisa is considered to be one of the widely reproduced paintings of all the times. There are many posters, paintings and reproduction available in different hues and different sizes. Many great artists like Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Botero reproduced the work of Mona Lisa in the form of oil paintings, self portraits etc (Heaton, 2001).

The use of this epic painting doesn’t end there and Mona Lisa is used in items like jewelry, clothing and even in the modern day advertising Mona Lisa is used. It is also used as the sign of mockery that Mona Lisa having marijuana, Mona Lisa having braces etc.

Thus, the beauty of this painting will always remain and it can easily be predicted that the epical paintings of Leonardo di Vinci will be reproduced.

The last Super is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Leonardo’s work and historians suggest that it took 3 years of dedicated work of Leonardo to produce this epic painting. About, 500 years are passed yet this painting remains the most studied painting of all times.

The concept of the painting is quite clear and Leonardo beautifies it with his elegant brush work. Leonardo was asked to paint the supper of Christ with his disciples. Leonardo was immensely talented and therefore he chooses to paint the moment when the Christ declared the name of traitor.

The 12 disciples of Leonardo were very cleverly divided into three groups and they were surrounded by Christ. Christ arms were open and they were divided and he was depicting a triangular shape. This triangular shape was expressing the “Divine Trinity” which was quite beautifully displayed by Leonardo. Geometric shapes are used quite effectively in this painting in order to create groups.

Judas was included in the rest of the disciples and in most of the paintings of other artists Judas was separated from the group. This inclusion of Judas in the group makes the painting attractive and people called it a masterpiece because of this. The crystal clear display of the painting and portraying the notion of disciples was quite extraordinary.

This painting of Da Vinci is found in most of the holy institutions and homes around the world. Similarly, the reproduction of these paintings is an effective way to bring Leonardo at home. Although, many paintings of Leonardo are long lasting and they are timeless too, but this painting is chipping way and although people are making efforts to save this real painting and restorations have taken place to conserve this painting.

Besides other paintings and sculptors, Vitruvian Man is considered as the best illustration of Leonardo Di Vinci. He used both the text and the image to present his ideas. This illustration of this great artist praises the divine by properly creating the proportions and measurements of the human body. Different artists prior to Di Vinci have tried a lot to explain this theory but most of them have failed to express the right ideas of Vitruvian Man.

This illustration is a beautiful combination of pen ink drawing of a male whose figure is outstretched and it’s touching the circumference of the circle and the edges of the square. The naval of this individual falls exactly in the centre of the circle. The text surrounds the entire figure and the figure is static in nature but the dynamism of Da Vinci’s art portrays it as a living being.

This illustration depicts the clearness of words and image. The core idea of this illustration is to gather the ideas of architecture, art, anatomy in a single image. The importance of this illustration lies in its clear reflection of ideas.

Leonardo Di Vinci in his early times was asked by his father to paint a round shield. He gathered his thoughts and started to paint a really creepy head. He brought all sorts of lizards, bats etc and started to paint a really disgusting monster that was exhaling poisoned gases. After seeing the painting his father was so astonished that he predicted that his son would definitely be an artist.

He was himself an example of his quote which was “art is never finished, only abandoned (Stanley, 2000).”He was considered to be a castle of knowledge and his realistic attitude was quite evident in every walks of life. He moved from one topic to another and keeps on changing his interests.

Usually when he studied one subject for a long time a questions arises in his mind that he might change his interest. That’s the main reason why he completed only six pieces in just 17 years. He completed his 6 pieces when he was in Milan his masterpieces at that include “The Last Supper” and “The Virgin on the Rocks”. Many projects and paintings were not completed which also includes “Big Horse”.

However, he posses the tendency of not spending the time idle and when he wasn’t painting, sculpturing or involved in any other form of art he was usually studying. His major interests were studying the fields of science which includes anatomy, zoology etc. He has the tendency to spend hours in unlocking year old theories and framing new concepts from his mind.

When Leonardo was in Milan he was constantly occupied by the Duke of that time. He was allotted the work to paint the complete design the festivals of the court. The Duke offered Leonardo to show his talents and he asked Leonardo to design weapons, machinery and buildings. Leonardo was deeply involved in religious affairs and he also designed a number of churches.

All of his ideas were ahead of his time and as an engineer he used to conceptualize a helicopter, a calculator and certain other modern day inventions. Some of his engineered designs can be used at that time and some were constructed too.

But some of his inventions entered the manufacturing arena after a certain time but reports suggest that these inventions and their concept were unfortunately not acknowledged. Besides being a top notch painter he excelled in the field of science and certain ideas of Leonardo Di Vinci revolutionized the fields of optics, hydrodynamics, and anatomy.

At that time those who write with left hands were disgraced and the society didn’t like left handed people. Left hander writers were forced to write with their right hand. At that time Leonardo explained this phenomenon and said that this “difference” is a sign of genius and this is a distinctive feature in them. He was amongst the initiators of reverse writing and his writings can easily be deciphered through the mirror.

Leonardo was informed about the death of his father on July 9, 1504 but due to the evil nature of his step fathers he was not given the share of inheritance. Shortly, after the death of his father he was given the notice about the death of his uncle. He fought with his brothers and then ran with the money and some land that was inherited from his uncle.

He started to work n Rome, with his newly inherited money and he opened a workshop and he was involved in working for the projects of pope. He left France in the year 1516. Leonardo was considered to be the best painter when he was in France. In France Leonardo was working for Francis I and his job was near royal chateau an Amboise.

When Leonardo di Vinci left France he was suffering from paralysis and this affected his right hand. However, he was still working and fulfilling his passion. He continued his paintings and started to teach people who were interested in paintings and arts. Besides, arts and paintings he also started teaching anatomical studies and engineering.

Thus in a nutshell we can conclude that Leonardo Di Vinci was one of the most influential individuals from the field of arts and architecture. He was a true legend and his paintings truly display the element of geniuses in Leonardo. He was undoubtedly one of the most famous personalities in the Italian Renaissance.

He left his marks on all the fields which include arts, architecture, science, anatomy, anatomical studies. His reputation in entire life time was immense and influenced many contemporary artists of that time. He not only influenced great painters of Florentine like Raphael but also impressed the painters of Milan and Northern Italy. His painting of Mona Lisa is considered to be the best among all and it’s the most reproduced paintings of all times.

Heaton, M. (2001). Leonardo da Vinci and His Works. Adamant Media Corporation.

Phillps, J. (2008). World History Biographies: Leonardo da Vinci: The Genius Who Defined the Renaissance. National Geographic Children’s Books.

Stanley, D. (2000). Leonardo da Vinci. HarperCollins.

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During the late fourteenth century, artists began to use paper more and more to explore their ideas for the design of paintings and sculptures , rather than simply to copy or record finished works of art. This exploratory type of drawing offers a vivid and intimate glimpse of the artist creatively thinking on paper.

In preparing a composition, artists first drew quick sketches, usually in pen and ink, in which they formulated general ideas rather than focused on details. An example is Leonardo da Vinci’s fascinating double-sided sheet that includes an exquisite small sketch for an allegory on the fidelity of the lizard, and the stage design for a musical comedy ( 17.142.2 ). Another of Leonardo’s double-sided sheets combines an exciting array of ideas for different projects: a figure of Hercules probably intended for a sculpture, some scientific illustrations of the flow of water around obstacles, and a tiny figure of a man sheathing or unsheathing a sword ( 2000.328a,b ).

In the next steps of the creative process, artists investigated the poses of the figures from life models . The earliest such extant studies date from the first years of the fifteenth century. Using the medium of silverpoint on pink prepared paper to obtain delicate tonal effects, Filippino Lippi posed a male studio assistant to stand in for the figure of a bound Christ or Saint Sebastian, in order to observe the figure’s chiseled nude musculature ( 36.101.1 ). In contrast, Raphael’s sheet of studies of an infant ( 1997.75 ) attempts to capture his energy and delightful gestures, and the red chalk medium serves to imitate the soft tonal effects of his dimpled flesh. Artists then integrated the results of studying the figures from life models into a summary design of the composition, in order to pull together the figural arrangements with the lighting effects and setting. Raphael’s Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist ( 64.47 ) offers a fairly rough summary study of their pyramidal grouping, while Titian’s poetic study of two satyrs in a landscape ( 1999.28 ) concentrates especially on the transforming effects of light and atmosphere.

As a final step, artists drew cartoons (full-scale drawings). These were especially necessary in painting frescoes on moist plaster, for the enormously difficult medium of fresco demanded that artists paint quickly, one plaster patch per day, before the moist plaster and the water-based colors set in a chemical process. A monumental cartoon by Francesco Salviati ( 2001.409 ) is boldly rendered with black chalk and white highlights in the final size of the figure in the fresco painting, and the main outlines around the figure are incised with a stylus for the transfer of the full-scale design onto the moist plaster.

During the late fourteenth century, artists also began to work out the details of their commissions for paintings, sculptures, and buildings with their prospective patrons by drafting legally binding contracts. These contracts often included a drawing as an attachment in order to explain the details of the design that was expected and that would be agreed upon by the two parties. A number of drawings were also more generally produced as demonstration pieces ( modelli ) for the patron’s approval and for the workshop’s use, and these were often carefully modeled with pen and ink and were fairly complete regarding the iconography. These types of demonstration drawings for sculptural projects usually illustrate the architectural framework of the monument, as is seen in the designs by Jacopo della Quercia for the Fonte Gaia that was orignally meant for the Piazza del Campo in Siena ( 49.141 ), and by Michelangelo for the tomb of Pope Julius II , intended originally for Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican ( 62.93.1 ).

Bambach, Carmen. “Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function.” In  Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/drwg/hd_drwg.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Ames-Lewis, Francis. Drawing in Early Renaissance Italy . 2d ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

Bambach, Carmen C. Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Theory and Practice, 1300–1600 . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Additional Essays by Carmen Bambach

• Bambach, Carmen. “ Anatomy in the Renaissance .” (October 2002)
• Bambach, Carmen. “ Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) .” (October 2002)

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Writers — Leonardo Da Vinci

Essays on Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance and is widely regarded as one of the greatest artists and thinkers of all time. Writing an essay on Leonardo Da Vinci is important as it allows us to delve deeper into his life, work, and legacy, and to gain a better understanding of his impact on art, science, and society.

When writing an essay on Leonardo Da Vinci, it is important to consider the following tips:

• Research extensively: Leonardo Da Vinci had a multifaceted career, excelling in various fields such as painting, sculpture, engineering, anatomy, and architecture. It is important to conduct thorough research to gather comprehensive information about his life and work.
• Organize your thoughts: Before starting to write, make sure to organize your thoughts and create an outline for your essay. This will help you structure your essay and ensure that you cover all the important aspects of Leonardo Da Vinci's life and contributions.
• Focus on key accomplishments: Leonardo Da Vinci's contributions to art and science are vast, but it is important to focus on his key accomplishments and their impact. Whether it's his iconic paintings like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, or his groundbreaking scientific observations and inventions, make sure to highlight the most significant aspects of his work.
• Provide critical analysis: In addition to presenting factual information, it is important to provide critical analysis of Leonardo Da Vinci's work. Discuss the significance of his art and scientific discoveries, and explore how they have influenced subsequent generations and continue to inspire people today.
• Conclude with a reflection: Finally, conclude your essay with a reflection on Leonardo Da Vinci's enduring legacy and the lessons we can learn from his life and work. Consider the relevance of his ideas and innovations in the modern world and their lasting impact on art, science, and human creativity.

Best Leonardo Da Vinci Essay Topics

• The Influence of Leonardo Da Vinci's Inventions on Modern Technology
• The Mona Lisa: Unraveling the Mystery Behind the Painting
• Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus: Decoding his Manuscripts
• The Last Supper: A Masterpiece of Perspective and Composition
• Leonardo Da Vinci's Flying Machines: Ahead of his Time
• The Vitruvian Man: Exploring the Ideal Human Proportions
• The Legacy of Leonardo Da Vinci's Scientific Discoveries
• The Artistic Techniques of Leonardo Da Vinci: A Study in Mastery
• Leonardo Da Vinci's Anatomical Studies: Pioneering the Science of Human Anatomy
• The Role of Mathematics in Leonardo Da Vinci's Art and Designs
• The Lost Works of Leonardo Da Vinci: Uncovering Hidden Treasures
• The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci: A Multifaceted Renaissance Man
• The Artistic Rivalry Between Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo
• Leonardo Da Vinci's Engineering Marvels: Designing the Unthinkable
• The Mona Lisa: A Symbol of Beauty and Mystery
• The Scientific Mind of Leonardo Da Vinci: Exploring his Observations and Experiments
• Leonardo Da Vinci's Legacy in Art and Science: A Lasting Impact
• The Codex Leicester: Leonardo Da Vinci's Scientific Legacy
• The Drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci: A Window into his Creative Process
• The Vitruvian Man: Examining the Intersection of Art and Science

Leonardo Da Vinci Essay Topics Prompts

• Imagine you have the opportunity to interview Leonardo Da Vinci. What questions would you ask him and why?
• Create a fictional dialogue between Leonardo Da Vinci and a contemporary artist or scientist. How would their conversation unfold?
• Write a persuasive essay arguing why Leonardo Da Vinci's contributions to science are as significant as his artistic achievements.
• If Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today, what modern-day problems or challenges do you think he would be most interested in solving and why?
• Choose one of Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions or artworks and write a detailed analysis of its significance in the context of his time and its relevance today.

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Leonardo Da Vinci and His Masterpieces

The secret of mona lisa by leonardo da vinci, the life and contributions of leonardo da vinci, drawings of future possibilities by leonardo da vinci, da vinci and michelangelo – geniuses from the italian renaissance, the principles of true art, the golden spiral unveiled: the beauty of the fibonacci sequence, if you could talk to anyone in history, who would it be, leonardo da vinci: the master of art and science, leonardo da vinci: the renaissance master.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci[2]14/15 April 1452Anchiano, Vinci, Republic of Florence (present-day Italy)

2 May 1519(1519-05-02) (aged 67)Clos Lucé, Amboise, Kingdom of France

Painting, drawing, sculpting, science, engineering, architecture, anatomy

• Virgin of the Rocks (c. 1483–1493)
• Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489–1491)
• The Vitruvian Man (c. 1490)
• The Last Supper (c. 1492–1498)
• Salvator Mundi (c. 1499–1510)
• Mona Lisa (c. 1503–1516)

High Renaissance

15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495–98) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance.

“Battle of Anghiari”, “Last Supper”, “Leda”, “Mona Lisa”, “Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci”, “St. Jerome”, “The Benois Madonna”, “The Virgin of the Rocks”, “Treatise on Painting”, “Virgin and Child with St. Anne”

Among the qualities that make da Vinci’s work unique are the innovative techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy, his use of the human form in figurative composition, and his use of sfumato. Leonardo was also a master at “chiaroscuro," an Italian term meaning “light/dark."

Leonardo is identified as one of the greatest painters in the history of art and is often credited as the founder of the High Renaissance. Despite having many lost works and less than 25 attributed major works — including numerous unfinished works — he created some of the most influential paintings in Western art. His magnum opus, the Mona Lisa, is his best known work and often regarded as the world's most famous painting. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon.

Leonardo is sometimes credited as the inventor of the tank, helicopter, parachute, and flying machine, among other vehicles and devices, but later scholarship has disputed such claims. Nonetheless, Leonardo’s notebooks reveal a sharp intellect, and his contributions to art, including methods of representing space, three-dimensional objects, and the human figure, cannot be overstated.

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” “A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.” “Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”

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Essay on Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci, the ten men-in-one, was a painter, inventor, lute player, sculptor, military engineer, scientific observer, anatomist, architect, town planner, and designer, The many facets of Vinci’s genius earned him the title “Universal Man.”

This “Universal man” was the illegitimate son of a wealthy lawyer. Leonardo remained in Florence together with his father till 30, studying and working, but earing. In 1482 he was engaged by the Duke of Milan as a military engineer. He devised numerous types of equipment in this position, such as chemical smoke to armored vehicles and powerful weapons. Once, he designed a gun that was capable of producing a rain of shots.

While working as an architect in Milan, he designed streets, canals, churches, staircases, stables, brothels, central heating systems, satellite towns, etc.

In 1497 he completed his famous painting “Last Supper.”

In 1499, Leonardo was in Venice. The war with Turkey was there, and he produced many innovations to sink the Turkish fleet. But his ideas were considered too expensive to be put into use.

After returning to Florence after 1500, Venice start work on his famous painting “Mona Lisa” in 1503. After three years of hard work, it was completed in 1506. Now, this painting is on display in Louvre Museum in France.

Leonardo created many innovative designs of flying machines, both with flapping wings and rotating propellers. He gave detailed sketches of the human body, constructed a water-clock, and suggested ball bearings.

He spent the final stage of his life as the guest of King Francis I of Rome, who granted him a pension.

This great universal man passed away in 1519 at the age of 67.

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Geologist says she knows the Mona Lisa's setting. But not everyone is convinced

Ann pizzorusso used da vinci's notebooks to follow in his footsteps, leading her to the mountain city of lecco.

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While many art historians have focused on the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa , Ann Pizzorusso has a different obsession — the mountain ridges in the background.

Pizzorusso, a geologist and Italian Renaissance scholar, says she combined her two fields of expertise to pinpoint the exact setting of Da Vinci's most iconic painting.

"By using geology as an analytical tool, it opened up the art world to me because, while I couldn't comment on brushstrokes or figures, I could certainly look at the rocks," Pizzorusso, an independent scholar based in New York and Italy, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

The background, she says, depicts the Alps overlooking the Italian city of Lecco on Lake Como, and its 14th-century Azzone Visconti bridge.

Her theory, which she presented at a geology conference in Lecco this week, has been embraced by several Renaissance art historians. 

But it is one of several running theories about the painting's setting — a debate that one leading Da Vinci scholar says is misguided and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the artist's work. 

Da Vinci, the geologist

Da Vinci was known for having expertise in a wide range of subject matters and has been described, among other things, as an artist, draughtsman, architect and engineer. 

But Pizzorusso has bestowed him with another title — "the father of geology."

"I have analyzed every painting in which he has had a rock in it, and it's perfect," she said. "It's like looking at a photograph."

She's previously published books and papers examining geological depictions in Da Vinci's art, including Geologic Representations in the Virgin and Child with St. Anne, and  Leonardo's Geology: The Authenticity of the Virgin of the Rock.

Many of the previous theories, she says, focused on finding the bridge in the background. But there are hundreds of antique bridges with similar Roman style architecture in Italy. 

"So you can't just find a bridge," she said. "Once you find a bridge, you have to understand whether Leonardo was in that area. Then you have to determine if the geology is correct in the background. Then you have to make sure you have some water."

It was in Lecco 20 years ago, with the help of an Alps tour guide, that she found all three elements.

"We went up into the mountains, and when we came back to Lecco that night, we said, 'Look at this. This is the Mona Lisa,'" she said.

She says that, 250 million years ago, the area was all ocean. But over time, coral salified into limestone mountain ridges, and melting glaciers carved out lakes. 

"It's these glacial lakes that ribbon through the back of the Mona Lisa with these large sawtooth mountains coming out of the background," she said. 

Da Vinci scholar says there is no exact location

While she has long believed she solved the mystery of the Mona Lisa 's setting, she says she was compelled to present her theory publicly for the first time at the behest of art historian Jacques Franck, a former Leonardo consultant to the Louvre, who is working on a book about Da Vinci.

"I don't doubt for one second that Pizzorusso is right in her theory, given her perfect knowledge of the geology of the Italian country — and more precisely of the places where Leonardo travelled in his lifetime, which could correspond to the mountainous landscape in the Mona Lisa," Franck told the Guardian newspaper.

But not everyone is convinced. 

British art historian Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading Da Vinci scholars, says "the impulse to find a real place that Leonardo is portraying in the Mona Lisa and other of his paintings is pretty insatiable" — but, ultimately, he says, misguided.

While he agrees Da Vinci had a passion for geology and a tendency to depict nature with remarkable accuracy, that doesn't mean he's portraying "actually specific, identifiable landscapes."

"He's looking at real things with incredible intensity, but he then remakes them in painting. Why he should put a landscape of Albinor or a landscape of Arezzo or landscape of wherever is completely unclear," he said.

"It's a bit like saying in portraying Madonna, that he's portrayed a picture of the girl next door."

Martin says he appreciates efforts to examine Da Vinci's art through a geographical lens, "but to target it to get the location of the images is just fanciful."

• Scientists have tracked down 14 suspected living relatives of Leonardo Da Vinci
• The Mona Lisa — and its throngs of fans — should vacate the Louvre: NY Times art critic

One thing Kemp and Pizzorusso agree on is that the Mona Lisa is a work that continues to resonate throughout the eras, spawning countless theories and interpretations, and compelling people to try and solve its many mysteries. 

"He puts an enormous amount of poetic truth into painting, he puts a lot of scientific truth … and he, in a sense, invites the reader in to explore the picture," Kemp said.

"The legends, the myths, the stories of Mona Lisa are absolutely extraordinary."  

Interview with Ann Pizzorusso produced by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes

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A New Leonardo da Vinci Biopic Is Coming to the Big Screen

The film will be an adaptation of Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Renaissance painter, scientist and inventor

Daily Correspondent

Leonardo da Vinci is getting the Hollywood treatment: The Italian Renaissance artist, who lived during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, will be the subject of a forthcoming biopic from Universal Pictures. The studio recently confirmed that Andrew Haigh, best known for  All of Us Strangers (2023), will direct the production, as  Variety ’s Tatiana Siegel reports.

The film will be based on Walter Isaacson’s 2017 biography of Leonardo, a sprawling tome based largely on the polymath’s notebooks.

“It remains unclear whether it will touch on just one aspect of the artist’s life or the whole thing,” writes ARTnews ’ Alex Greenberger. “Isaacson’s book”—which is more than 600 pages long—“traces the full arc of Leonardo’s career, including his making of the Mona Lisa and his scientific experiments.”

Leonardo da Vinci

Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.

Soon after Isaacson’s biography debuted, Paramount bought the rights to the book—and even started working with actor  Leonardo DiCaprio to turn it into a film. However, that project never came to fruition, and Universal bought the rights last year. The company then selected Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton to write the screenplay.

This film will be Universal’s second big-screen adaptation of an Isaacson book: In 2015, the studio released Steve Jobs , which is based on the author’s 2011 biography .

Universal’s production also isn’t the only film focused on Leonardo currently in the works: In November, PBS will air Ken Burns’ two-part documentary series, which “examines the Italian polymath’s unrelenting drive to understand the world and the enduring influence of his legacy,” as  Smithsonian magazine ’s Julia Binswanger writes. (Leonardo was the first non-American subject material for Burns, who co-directed the film with daughter  Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon .)

Born in 1452 to unwed parents, Leonardo spent his childhood on his father’s family’s estate. At around age 14 or 15, he began apprenticing under Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio , who taught him how to paint and sculpt. The teenager also studied under  Antonio Pollaiuolo , who ran a nearby workshop.

Later, Leonardo began working independently in Florence, where he made pencil and pen sketches of objects such as military weapons and pumps.

In 1482, Leonardo moved to Milan, where he lived and worked for 17 years. The city’s duke, Ludovico Sforza , employed him as a painter, sculptor and designer of court festivals. He also often weighed in on technical matters as an engineer.

Leonardo created one of his best-known works, The Last Supper , during his time in Milan. Painted in the 1490s, the work depicts Jesus and his disciples breaking bread the night before the crucifixion. That masterpiece is located in the refectory of the Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery in Milan, which has been a  UNESCO World Heritage site since 1980.

Between 1500 and 1508, Leonardo returned to Florence—where he painted the  Mona Lisa —before moving back to Milan for several years. During his second stint in the city, he became engrossed in scientific study, with a particular interest in anatomy, physiology, math, geology and botany. The polymath spent his final years in France, living near Amboise on the Loire River and working under Francis I as a painter, architect and engineer.

Leonardo’s sexuality has long been a matter of debate among historians and other onlookers (including Sigmund Freud ). Isaacson’s biography leans into the idea that Leonardo was gay, and it remains to be seen whether or how the forthcoming film will tackle this subject . However, as Queerty ’s Cameron Scheetz writes, Haigh is “one of our most prolific LGBTQ writer-directors working today,” adding that many of his previous projects have examined queer themes.

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Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.