Leonardo Da Vinci Essays (1358 words) - Giftedness, Fiction

Leonardo Da Vinci Leonardo DA Vinci (1452-1519), Florentine artist, one of the great masters of high Renaissance, celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. His profound love of knowledge and research was the keynote of both his scientific and artistic endeavors. His innovations in the field of painting influenced the course of Italian art for more than a century after his death, and his scientific studies, particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulics. He anticipated many of the developments of modern science. Leonardo was born in the small town of Vinci, in Tuscany, near Florence. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine notary and a peasant woman. In the mid- 1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Italy could offered. He rapidly advanced socially and intellectually. About 1466 he was the apprentice of Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day. In Verrocchio's workshop Leonardo was introduced to painting and sculpture in marble and bronze. In 1472 he was entered in the painters guild of Florence, and in 1476 he was still considered Verrocchios assistant. In 1478 Leonardo became an independent master. His first commission, to paint an altarpiece for the chapel of the plazzo vecchio, the Florentine town hall, was never executed. The period of Italian art in which Leonardo DA Vinci lived is called high Renaissance. In the course of the fifteenth century a long chain of early Renaissance artists, mainly of Florentine decent, had concentrated on a visual as well as theoretical conquest of nature. Their work formed the basis for a great idealistic style, which began to emerge from about 1490 onwards and was nearing its end at the time of Raphael?s death in 1520. It was given fullest expression during the decade 1500 to 1510, and the names of Leonardo, Michelangelou, Raphael, Bramante, Giorgone and Titian, round which legions of minor stars of considerable brilliance revolve, indicate its climax. Modern interpreters have excentially analyzed the truly classical qualities of this style which combine, like Greek art of the fifth and fourth centuries BC, a spiritual and formal dignity, harmony and equipoise never before or after equaled in the history of post-classical art. It is easier to describe this phenomenon t han to explained it. But while older writers regarded it mainly and too simply as a revival of the pagan art of antiquity, more recent studies have begun to throw light on the complexities of the style by investigating the intentions of its creators. In this essay I am going to focus on some aspects of Leonardo?s life in order to analyze the things that took him to invent and become one of the most famous artist in history. This was the period in history known as the Renaissance, when after hundreds of superstitions and slavery; finally appear the renovations of the study of the sciences. Europe had abandoned the dark ages and the feudal system was left behind. New schools were opened and the people were lefting the countryside in favor to the cities. For these changes was why the beautiful Florence City was full of artists and merchandisers. The Renaissance penetrated Verrochio?s work shop, were the painting and the sculpture were going hand by hand with the orfebry, the confection of delicated mechanical objects and musical instruments, and were all ready existent works were repaired. The elemental engineer was the basic part of an artist work. As an student of the work shop, Leonardo acquire this magnificent abilities with the paint art and the sculpture, familiarizaising with a wide range of tools like lifting, transporting and digging. Later on Leonardo would use this knowledge like a starting point for his numerous ideas and inventions. When he went to Milan that in that time was a city-state situated at the north of Florence, was being threatened by their enemies and Leonardo wanted to put in practice all his fantastic designs in benefit of the city. In a letter send to Francisco Sforza, Milan governor, Leonardo offered him his abilities to construct canons, catapults, war ships, digging tunnels under the enemy lines, grave drainages and methods for climbing castle brick walls. As well as for defending