Leonardo Da Vinci As An Artist example essay topic

Leonardo Da Vinci Leonardo Da Vinci was a man of many worlds. He was a great influence in his time. Leonardo was known as many things. He was known as a sculptor, architect, writer, musician, philosopher, engineer, and scientist. But most of all he was known for his impressive paintings that influenced the world. Leonardo was born in Anchiano, Italy on April 15, 1452, to Piero Da Vinci, a prominent public official in Florence, and a peasant woman named Caterina.

He was born out of wedlock and shortly after his birth they were married, but not to each other. As an infant, Leonardo was cared for by other family members; his uncles, grandmother, and Aunts. Later, his father took him into his own house where he was forced to join and get along with half-brothers and half-sisters. While living with his father, he was receiving the best education he could get and his talents and intelligence started to show at a very early age. In 1469, by the age of 17, his father sent him to study in the workshop of a well-known Italian Renaissance master named Andrea lV Errocchio. He remained there until 1476 and Leonardo had picked up a variety of skills.

He spent several years there practicing a variety of things such as drafting engineering, architecture, and building, but most of all he studied painting and drawing. Leonardo was assigned to build a golden sphere and cross to sit on top of the domed cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiori. It was a huge project that required complicated mathematical calculations and casting techniques. Although most people think of Leonardo da Vinci as an artist, he was also known for other things. Throughout his life, he had some incredible ideas in the area of science. He has sketched out many amazing designs for working machines and technology.

The amazing thing about this was that none of DA Vinci's inventions or creations were even recognized or expanded upon until 300 to 400 years later. Like the airplane or glider, Leonardo invented or developed these incredible machines, but they were not expanded upon until years later. He was also known as a man of science because of his drawings of the human body. In his free time, Leonardo decided to figure out how the human body works.

Around 1503 he dissected over 25 human bodies and made sketches and notes in order to figure the human body out. Not only was he very smart, but we all know that he had wonderful hands that painted like none of us could ever dream of doing. Some of his paintings like "The Last Supper" and the "Mona Lisa" are the popular paintings of the Renaissance period. He also painted "Portrait ofGinevra de Be nci", "Annunciation", "Lady with an Ermine"", Portrait of a Musician", "La BelleFerroniere", "Madonna of the Rocks", and "Virgin and Child with St. Anne". In 1493, Leonardo began to paint one of his most famous work, "The Last Supper" in a convent located just outside of Milian.

This painting took Leonardo about three years to complete and has been named as the ultimate mark of the Renaissance. It was finally finished in 1496. After that, he spent most of his time running back and forth between Milian and Florence, working on a variety of scientific, engineering and artistic projects. The "Mona Lisa", also known as the " La Giac onda", is the most famous and the most studied portrait ever painted. Previously, it was thought to have been painted in 1503, but it is now thought to have been completed sometime between 1514 and 1516. A major question of this famous painting is that everybody wants to know who exactly posed for this painting?

There are a different variety of people that they have in mind, Francesco delGioconda, or one of the two duchesses, both mistresses of Giuliana de Medici (a friend of Leonardo's that lives in Rome). Another possible suspect for the painting is Leonardo da Vinci himself. Leonardo has recorded in his notebook all of the models that posed for him, their real names, where they were from, that kind of stuff, but there is no record of the model for the Mona Lisa anywhere. Dr. Lillian Schwartz suggested that Leonardo painted himself. She come up with this By the facial expressions and other features in the painting. What she did is she flipped the self-portrait of Leonardo and lined it up with the Mona Lisa and put it together and the facial features and expressions were identical.

However, one thing is certain, the Mona Lisa is Leonardo's most famous work. During the last years of his life, Leonardo worked for Francis I, who felt that "no other man had ever been born into the world who knew as much as Leonardo". Leonardo knew his time was coming, so on April 23, 1518, he made a will leaving his work to Francesco de Mel zi, who had been his student for many years. On May 2, 1519, the great artist dies at the age of sixty-seven. An artistic and scientific genius, Leonardo had a deep effect on the world. He helped usher in the Renaissance and the scientific revolution.

Leonardo will always be remembered by all generations and I think his paintings, inventions, and sculptures will never die.

Bibliography

Leonardo Gilbert Creighton. Leonardo da Vinci. The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Biography. McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. Pages 437-442. Copyright 1973.
Leonardo Biography Notes. web vi div. html Aimee Erh as, G. Artists Volume 2 Thompson Publishing Co. Pages 250-256. Copyright 1995.