Leonardo Da Vinci’s Life

              Leonardo Da Vinci  

      Paper work

[pic 1]                                                       [pic 2][pic 3]                                 [pic 4]                                                                                                                                           

                                                        Leonardo Da Vinci’s life

     Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452 in the town of Vinci, His father was Sere Piera was a notary, his mother Caterina, was from a peasant family. But his parents were not married but the boy's uncle Francesco may have had more of a hand in his upbringing than by either of his parents. When Leonardo was about 15, he moved to the nearby city of Florence and became an apprentice. He was already a promising talent. While at the studio, he aided his master, and eventually painted his own art. Around the age of 30, Leonardo began his own practice, starting work on the Adoration; however, he soon abandoned it and moved to Milan in 1482. In 1500, Leonardo arrived in Florence, where he painted the virgin Anne. He was very interested in math at this time. In 1502, he went to work as chief military engineer, and also became acquainted with his working. After a year he returned to Florence, where he contributed to the huge engineering project of diverting the course of the River, and also painted a giant war painting, which was never completed, largely due to problems with the paints. In 1505 Leonardo probably made his first sketches for the Mona Lisa, but it is not known when he completed the painting. In 1506, Leonardo traveled to Milan at the summon of Charles D’Amboise, the governor. He became court painter and engineer to Louis and worked on a second version of the virgin on the rocks. In 1507, he returned to Florence to engage in a legal battle against his brothers for their Uncle Francesco's inheritance. In this same year, he took the young aristocrat Mel as an assistant, and for the rest of the decade he intensified his studies of anatomy. In 1513, he moved to Rome, where Leo the 5th reigned as pope. There, he worked on mirrors, and probably the above self- portrait. In 1516, he left Italy for France, joining King Francis in Amboise, who he served as a wise philosopher for three years before his death in 1519. [pic 5]

                                                                           Mona Lisa Painting #1[pic 6]

    Leonardo left his art with Cesare Borgia in 1503. He may have sensed that Borgia's power would soon come to an end, or he may have been disgusted with some of the assassinations that Borgia had performed in recent months. Leonardo may have renewed relations with Machiavelli: the Arno River ran from Florence to Pisa, and the two cities were now at war; Machiavelli served as one of the directors of a project to divert the river so as to prevent it from running through Pisa, thus depriving the inhabitants of freshwater, as well as supplied brought by riverboats. Leonardo made many sketches of the river and of the planned new course; most likely the directors also consulted him as an engineer. However, the project itself failed. By this time, Leonardo had gained an immense reputation, and Florence wanted to take advantage of its famous son: the new, republican government had built a large council hall at the Palazzo Della Signori, and now commissioned Leonardo to paint the battle, commemorating a historical battle, on one of the large side walls. As with Leonardo's other mural the the last supper, problems doomed this painting to fail. It deteriorated very quickly, and the painter abandoned it in 1505, long before it was completed. The only records we have of it are a few of Leonardo's sketches and copies done by other artists such as this one by Rubens. Rubens style shows through in the copy and this it should not be taken as a completely accurate representation of Leonardo's original. Even though Leonardo often designed machines of war, he often spoke of war's terrifying he meant the to illustrate its horrors. Most critics agree that Leonardo began work on the Mona Lisa while he was still in Florence, probably around 1505. The debate around the painting's subject has raged for years, recently, some have used computer technology to compare the portrait with Leonardo's own self-portrait and suggest that the Mona Lisa is a female version of Leonardo. The painting presents a woman in half-body portrait, which has as a backdrop a distant landscape.

                                                            Virgin on the rocks painting #2

    The Virgin of the Rocks is the name used for two Leonardo da Vinci's paintings, of the same subject, and of a composition which is identical except for two significant details. One painting usually hangs in the Louvre Paris, and the other in the National Gallery, London Both paintings show the Madonna and Christ Child with the infant angel, in a rocky setting which gives the paintings their usual name. The significant compositional differences are in the gaze and right hand of the angel. There are many minor ways in which the works differ, including the colors, the lighting, the flora, and the way in which summate has been used. Although the date of an associated commission is documented, the complete histories of the two paintings are unknown and lead to speculation about which of the two is earlier. A wish to get to the heart of nature and know the secrets was perhaps Leonardo da Vinci's main impetus in everything he did; and such interest as he had in painting might almost have been to set up rivals to nature, fusing all his knowledge of her into the creation of things supernatural. In The Virgin of the Rocks the laws are natures but the final creation Leonardo's. And he here defies the natural in many ways that cut across previous artistic assumptions. The result is organic rather than intellectual. Other painters threw a deliberate schema over nature, seeing it in terms of conscious mingling, enriched by art, whereby buildings were allied to scenery, minor groups of figures enlivened background spaces, and objects were artistically re-arranged to mirror a cosmic order. This showed the artist's invention. In this painting Leonardo designs a grotto which is marvelous for seeming not human work at all. It appears the product of natural forces: the rocks ribbed and smoothed by the constant motion of water. Leonardo was beginning serious research into anatomy. In order to gain knowledge about the workings of the human body he learned to dissect cadavers. Leonardo painted the work for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan.
[pic 7]

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