Largely self-educated, he filled dozens of secret notebooks with inventions, observations and theories about pursuits from aeronautics to anatomy. But the rest of the world was just beginning to share knowledge in books made with moveable type, and the concepts expressed in his notebooks were often difficult to interpret. As a result, though he was lauded in his time as a great artist, his contemporaries often did not fully appreciate his genius—the combination of intellect and imagination that allowed him to create, at least on paper, such inventions as the bicycle, the helicopter and an airplane based on the physiology and flying capability of a bat.
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Anchiano, Tuscany now Italy , close to the town of Vinci that provided the surname we associate with him today. 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 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. 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 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 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 Its composition, in which Jesus is centered among yet isolated from the Apostles, has influenced generations of painters.
When Milan was invaded by the French in and the Sforza family fled, da Vinci escaped as well, possibly first to Venice and then to Florence. The sheer range of topics that came under his inquiry is staggering: anatomy, zoology, botany, geology, optics, aerodynamics and hydrodynamics among others.
Da Vinci — The Artist. Da Vinci — The Inventor. Da Vinci — The Scientist. They were also very different in their art styles. Michelangelo painted as if he were a sculptor, using very sharp lines. Leonardo believed in sfumato , the blurring of lines, because he felt that was the way we actually see reality.
The rulers of Florence created a competition for both of them to paint battle scenes in the Council Hall. By that point, the rivalry had become bad. Michelangelo had been publicly rude to Leonardo. All of this had caused a certain electricity, so the rulers of Florence pitted them against each other to do these two battle drawings. In the end they both flinched, quitting before they finished the paintings. It was never thought to be a Leonardo, and sold very inexpensively because they thought it was a German copy of a Florentine artist.
But one art collector was convinced that it was an authentic Leonardo. He bought it and took it around the world to experts to determine whether it truly was a Leonardo.
It was pretty much confirmed when they found fingerprints because Leonardo often smudged his work using his thumb. Then it turned out that the guy who made that claim was a bit unreliable and perhaps even fraudulent so the claim was withdrawn. Finally, with the help of Martin Kemp , the great Oxford Leonardo scholar, they discovered that it was a drawing made by Leonardo, which had been the front piece of a book that was in a library in Poland where somebody had cut it out.
More recently, we have the tale of Salvator Mundi , a beautiful painting that goes on sale November 15th at Christies. Nobody will probably ever be able to buy a Leonardo painting again. He was a self-taught kid. He studied those, and from his childhood to his deathbed, he was still drawing the spiral forms and trying to figure out the math behind them. That translates both into a science and his art. He loved how air currents formed little flurries when they went over the curved wings of birds and realized that they helped keep the bird aloft, something we now know about airplanes.
To be really creative, you have to be interested in all sorts of different disciplines rather than be a specialist. The ultimate example of that is Leonardo da Vinci, who is interested in everything that could possibly be known about the universe, including how we fit into it. That made him a joyous character to write about. Ludovico Sforza also tasked da Vinci with sculpting a 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 — and shot the clay model to pieces — da Vinci fled the city along with the duke and the Sforza family. 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.
Da Vinci returned to Milan in to work for the very French rulers who had overtaken the city seven years earlier and forced him to flee. 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 along with Salai, Melzi and two studio assistants.
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.
Along with Melzi, da Vinci departed for France, never to return. 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. Da Vinci died of a probable stroke on May 2, , at the age of He continued work on his scientific studies until his death; his assistant, Melzi, became the principal heir and executor of his estate.
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. Although much has been written about da Vinci over the years, Walter Isaacson explored new territory with an acclaimed biography, Leonardo da Vinci , which offers up details on what drove the artist's creations and inventions.
The buzz surrounding the book carried into , with the announcement that it had been optioned for a big-screen adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
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