A message about the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci - Italian genius

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Italian: Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci). Born on April 15, 1452 in the village of Anchiano, near the town of Vinci, near Florence - died on May 2, 1519, Clos Luce castle, near Amboise, Touraine, France. Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect) and scientist (anatomist, naturalist), inventor, writer, one of the largest representatives of the art of the High Renaissance.

Leonardo da Vinci is a vivid example of a “universal man” (lat. homo universalis).

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the village of Anchiano near the small town of Vinci, not far from Florence at “three o’clock in the morning,” that is, at 22:30 according to modern time. A noteworthy entry in the diary of Leonardo’s grandfather, Antonio da Vinci (1372-1468) (literal translation): “On Saturday, at three o’clock in the morning on April 15, my grandson, the son of my son Piero, was born. The boy was named Leonardo. He was baptized by Father Piero di Bartolomeo."

His parents were the 25-year-old notary Pierrot (1427-1504) and his lover, the peasant woman Katerina. Leonardo spent the first years of his life with his mother. His father soon married a rich and noble girl, but this marriage turned out to be childless, and Piero took his three-year-old son to be raised. Separated from his mother, Leonardo spent his whole life trying to recreate her image in his masterpieces. At that time he lived with his grandfather. In Italy at that time, illegitimate children were treated almost as legal heirs. Many influential people of the city of Vinci took part in the further fate of Leonardo. When Leonardo was 13 years old, his stepmother died in childbirth. The father remarried - and again soon became a widower. He lived to be 77 years old, was married four times and had 12 children. The father tried to introduce Leonardo to the family profession, but to no avail: the son was not interested in the laws of society.

Leonardo did not have a surname in the modern sense; "da Vinci" simply means "(originally) from the town of Vinci." His full name is Italian. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, that is, “Leonardo, son of Mr. Piero from Vinci.”

In his Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors and Architects, Vasari says that once a peasant he knew asked Father Leonardo to find an artist to paint a round wooden shield. Ser Pierrot gave the shield to his son. Leonardo decided to depict the head of the gorgon Medusa, and in order for the image of the monster to make the right impression on the audience, he used lizards, snakes, grasshoppers, caterpillars, bats and “other creatures” as subjects, “from a variety of which, combining them in different ways, he created the monster very disgusting and terrible, which poisoned with its breath and ignited the air.” The result exceeded his expectations: when Leonardo showed the finished work to his father, he was scared. The son told him: “This work serves the purpose for which it was made. So take it and give it away, for this is the effect that is expected from works of art.” Ser Piero did not give Leonardo's work to the peasant: he received another shield, bought from a junk dealer. Father Leonardo sold the shield of Medusa in Florence, receiving one hundred ducats for it. According to legend, this shield passed to the Medici family, and when it was lost, the sovereign owners of Florence were expelled from the city by the rebellious people. Many years later, Cardinal del Monte commissioned a painting of Caravaggio's Gorgon Medusa. The new talisman was presented to Ferdinand I de' Medici in honor of his son's marriage.

In 1466 Leonardo da Vinci entered Verrocchio's workshop as an apprentice artist. Verrocchio's workshop was located in the intellectual center of what was then Italy, the city of Florence, which allowed Leonardo to study the humanities, as well as acquire some technical skills. He studied drawing, chemistry, metallurgy, working with metal, plaster and leather. In addition, the young apprentice was engaged in drawing, sculpture and modeling. In addition to Leonardo, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, Agnolo di Polo studied in the workshop, Botticelli worked, and such famous masters as Ghirlandaio and others often visited. Subsequently, even when Leonardo’s father hires him to work in his workshop, he continues to collaborate with Verrocchio .

In 1473, at the age of 20, Leonardo da Vinci qualified as a master at the Guild of St. Luke.

In the 15th century, ideas about the revival of ancient ideals were in the air. At the Florence Academy, the best minds in Italy created the theory of new art. Creative youth spent time in lively discussions. Leonardo remained aloof from his busy social life and rarely left his studio. He had no time for theoretical disputes: he improved his skills. One day Verrocchio received an order for the painting “The Baptism of Christ” and commissioned Leonardo to paint one of the two angels. This was a common practice in art workshops of that time: the teacher created a picture together with student assistants. The most talented and diligent were entrusted with the execution of an entire fragment. Two Angels, painted by Leonardo and Verrocchio, clearly demonstrated the superiority of the student over the teacher. As Vasari writes, the amazed Verrocchio abandoned his brush and never returned to painting.

In 1472-1477 Leonardo worked on: “The Baptism of Christ”, “The Annunciation”, “Madonna with a Vase”.

In the second half of the 70s, the “Madonna with a Flower” (“Benois Madonna”) was created.

At the age of 24, Leonardo and three other young men were put on trial on false, anonymous charges of sodomy. They were acquitted. Very little is known about his life after this event, but it is likely (there are documents) that he had his own workshop in Florence in 1476-1481.

In 1481, da Vinci completed the first large order in his life - the altar image “The Adoration of the Magi” (not completed) for the monastery of San Donato a Sisto, located near Florence. In the same year, work began on the painting “Saint Jerome”.

In 1482, Leonardo, being, according to Vasari, a very talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de' Medici sent him to Milan as a peacemaker to Lodovico Moro, and sent the lyre with him as a gift. At the same time, work began on the equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza.

Leonardo had many friends and students. As for love relationships, there is no reliable information on this matter, since Leonardo carefully hid this side of his life. He was not married; there is no reliable information about his affairs with women. According to some versions, Leonardo had a relationship with Cecilia Gallerani, a favorite of Lodovico Moro, with whom he painted his famous painting “The Lady with an Ermine.” A number of authors, following the words of Vasari, suggest intimate relationships with young men, including students (Salai), others believe that, despite the painter’s homosexuality, relationships with students were not intimate.

Leonardo was present at the meeting of King Francis I with Pope Leo X in Bologna on December 19, 1515. In 1513-1516 Leonardo lived in the Belvedere and worked on the painting “John the Baptist”.

Francis commissioned a master to construct a mechanical lion capable of walking, from whose chest a bouquet of lilies would appear. Perhaps this lion greeted the king in Lyon or was used during negotiations with the pope.

In 1516, Leonardo accepted the invitation of the French king and settled in his castle of Clos-Lucé, where Francis I spent his childhood, not far from the royal castle of Amboise. In his official capacity as the first royal artist, engineer and architect, Leonardo received an annual annuity of one thousand ecus. Never before in Italy did Leonardo have the title of engineer. Leonardo was not the first Italian master who, by the grace of the French king, received “freedom to dream, think and create” - before him, Andrea Solario and Fra Giovanni Giocondo shared a similar honor.

In France, Leonardo almost did not draw, but was masterfully involved in organizing court festivities, planning a new palace in Romorantan with a planned change in the river bed, designing a canal between the Loire and the Saone, and the main two-way spiral staircase in the Chateau de Chambord. Two years before his death, the master’s right hand became numb, and he could hardly move without assistance. 67-year-old Leonardo spent the third year of his life in Amboise in bed. On April 23, 1519, he left a will, and on May 2, he died surrounded by his students and his masterpieces in Clos-Luce.

According to Vasari, da Vinci died in the arms of King Francis I, his close friend. This unreliable, but widespread legend in France is reflected in the paintings of Ingres, Angelika Kaufman and many other painters. Leonardo da Vinci was buried at Amboise Castle. The inscription was engraved on the tombstone: “Within the walls of this monastery lie the ashes of Leonardo da Vinci, the greatest artist, engineer and architect of the French kingdom.”

The main heir was Leonardo's student and friend Francesco Melzi, who for the next 50 years remained the main manager of the master's inheritance, which included, in addition to paintings, tools, a library and at least 50 thousand original documents on various topics, of which only a third has survived to this day. Another student of Salai and a servant each received half of Leonardo's vineyards.

Our contemporaries know Leonardo primarily as an artist. In addition, it is possible that da Vinci could also have been a sculptor: researchers from the University of Perugia - Giancarlo Gentilini and Carlo Sisi - claim that the terracotta head they found in 1990 is the only sculptural work of Leonardo da Vinci that has come down to us.

However, da Vinci himself, at different periods of his life, considered himself primarily an engineer or scientist. He did not devote much time to fine art and worked rather slowly. Therefore, Leonardo’s artistic heritage is not large in quantity, and a number of his works have been lost or severely damaged. However, his contribution to world artistic culture is extremely important even against the background of the cohort of geniuses that the Italian Renaissance produced. Thanks to his works, the art of painting moved to a qualitatively new stage of its development.

The Renaissance artists who preceded Leonardo decisively rejected many of the conventions of medieval art. This was a movement towards realism and much had already been achieved in the study of perspective, anatomy, and greater freedom in compositional solutions. But in terms of painting, working with paint, the artists were still quite conventional and constrained. The line in the picture clearly outlined the object, and the image had the appearance of a painted drawing.

The most conventional was the landscape, which played a secondary role. Leonardo realized and embodied a new painting technique. His line has the right to be blurry, because that’s how we see it. He realized the phenomenon of light scattering in the air and the appearance of sfumato - a haze between the viewer and the depicted object, which softens color contrasts and lines. As a result, realism in painting moved to a qualitatively new level.

His only invention that received recognition during his lifetime was a wheel lock for a pistol (started with a key). At the beginning, the wheeled pistol was not very widespread, but by the middle of the 16th century it had gained popularity among the nobles, especially among the cavalry, which was even reflected in the design of the armor, namely: Maximilian armor for the sake of firing pistols began to be made with gloves instead of mittens. The wheel lock for a pistol, invented by Leonardo da Vinci, was so perfect that it continued to be found in the 19th century.

Leonardo da Vinci was interested in the problems of flight. In Milan, he made many drawings and studied the flight mechanism of birds of various breeds and bats. In addition to observations, he also conducted experiments, but they were all unsuccessful. Leonardo really wanted to build a flying machine. He said: “He who knows everything can do everything. If only you could find out, you’ll have wings!”

At first, Leonardo developed the problem of flight using wings driven by human muscle power: the idea of the simplest apparatus of Daedalus and Icarus. But then he came to the idea of building such an apparatus to which a person should not be attached, but should maintain complete freedom in order to control it; The apparatus must set itself in motion by its own force. This is essentially the idea of an airplane. Leonardo da Vinci worked on a vertical take-off and landing apparatus. Leonardo planned to place a system of retractable staircases on the vertical “ornitottero”. Nature served as an example for him: “look at the stone swift, which sat on the ground and cannot take off because of its short legs; and when he is in flight, pull out the ladder, as shown in the second image from above... this is how you take off from the plane; these stairs serve as legs...” Regarding landing, he wrote: “These hooks (concave wedges) which are attached to the base of the ladders serve the same purpose as the tips of the toes of the person who jumps on them, without his whole body being shaken by it, as if he was jumping on his heels.” Leonardo da Vinci proposed the first design of a telescope with two lenses (now known as the Kepler telescope). In the manuscript of the Codex Atlanticus, page 190a, there is an entry: “Make glasses (ochiali) for the eyes so that you can see the moon large.”

Leonardo da Vinci may have first formulated the simplest form of the law of conservation of mass for the movement of fluids when describing the flow of a river, but due to vagueness of the wording and doubts about its authenticity, this statement has been criticized.

During his life, Leonardo da Vinci made thousands of notes and drawings on anatomy, but did not publish his work. While dissecting the bodies of people and animals, he accurately conveyed the structure of the skeleton and internal organs, including small details. According to clinical anatomy professor Peter Abrams, da Vinci's scientific work was 300 years ahead of its time and in many ways superior to the famous Gray's Anatomy.

Inventions of Leonardo da Vinci:

Parachute
Wheel lock
Bike
Tank
Lightweight portable bridges for the army
Spotlight
Catapult
Robot
Two-lens telescope.

The creator of “The Last Supper” and “La Gioconda” also showed himself as a thinker, early realizing the need for theoretical justification of artistic practice: “Those who devote themselves to practice without knowledge are like a sailor setting off on a journey without a rudder and compass... practice should always be based on good knowledge of theory."

Demanding from the artist an in-depth study of the objects depicted, Leonardo da Vinci recorded all his observations in a notebook, which he constantly carried with him. The result was a kind of intimate diary, the like of which is not found in all world literature. Drawings, drawings and sketches are accompanied here by brief notes on issues of perspective, architecture, music, natural science, military engineering and the like; all this is sprinkled with various sayings, philosophical reasoning, allegories, anecdotes, fables. Taken together, the entries in these 120 books provide materials for an extensive encyclopedia. However, he did not strive to publish his thoughts and even resorted to secret writing; a complete decipherment of his notes has not yet been completed.

Recognizing experience as the only criterion of truth and opposing the method of observation and induction to abstract speculation, Leonardo da Vinci not only in words, but in deeds deals a mortal blow to medieval scholasticism with its predilection for abstract logical formulas and deduction. For Leonardo da Vinci, speaking well means thinking correctly, that is, thinking independently, like the ancients, who did not recognize any authorities. So Leonardo da Vinci comes to deny not only scholasticism, this echo of feudal-medieval culture, but also humanism, a product of still fragile bourgeois thought, frozen in superstitious admiration for the authority of the ancients.

Denying book learning, declaring the task of science (as well as art) to be the knowledge of things, Leonardo da Vinci anticipates Montaigne's attacks on literary scholars and opens the era of a new science a hundred years before Galileo and Bacon.

The enormous literary heritage of Leonardo da Vinci has survived to this day in a chaotic form, in manuscripts written with his left hand. Although Leonardo da Vinci did not print a single line from them, in his notes he constantly addressed an imaginary reader and throughout the last years of his life he did not abandon the thought of publishing his works.

After the death of Leonardo da Vinci, his friend and student Francesco Melzi selected from them passages related to painting, from which the “Treatise on Painting” (Trattato della pittura, 1st ed., 1651) was subsequently compiled. The handwritten legacy of Leonardo da Vinci was published in its entirety only in the 19th-20th centuries. In addition to its enormous scientific and historical significance, it also has artistic value due to its concise, energetic style and unusually clear language.

Living in the heyday of humanism, when the Italian language was considered secondary compared to Latin, Leonardo da Vinci delighted his contemporaries with the beauty and expressiveness of his speech (according to legend, he was a good improviser), but did not consider himself a writer and wrote as he spoke; his prose is therefore an example of the colloquial language of the 15th century intelligentsia, and this saved it in general from the artificiality and eloquence inherent in the prose of the humanists, although in some passages of the didactic writings of Leonardo da Vinci we find echoes of the pathos of the humanistic style.

Even in the least “poetic” fragments by design, Leonardo da Vinci’s style is distinguished by its vivid imagery; Thus, his “Treatise on Painting” is equipped with magnificent descriptions (for example, the famous description of the flood), amazing with the skill of verbal transmission of pictorial and plastic images. Along with descriptions in which one can feel the manner of an artist-painter, Leonardo da Vinci gives in his manuscripts many examples of narrative prose: fables, facets (joking stories), aphorisms, allegories, prophecies. In fables and facets, Leonardo stands on the level of the prose writers of the 14th century with their simple-minded practical morality; and some of its facets are indistinguishable from Sacchetti’s short stories.

Allegories and prophecies are more fantastic in nature: in the first, Leonardo da Vinci uses the techniques of medieval encyclopedias and bestiaries; the latter are in the nature of humorous riddles, distinguished by brightness and precision of phraseology and imbued with caustic, almost Voltairean irony, directed at the famous preacher Girolamo Savonarola. Finally, in the aphorisms of Leonardo da Vinci his philosophy of nature, his thoughts about the inner essence of things are expressed in epigrammatic form. Fiction had a purely utilitarian, auxiliary meaning for him.

To date, about 7,000 pages of Leonardo’s diaries have survived, located in various collections. At first, the priceless notes belonged to the master's favorite student, Francesco Melzi, but when he died, the manuscripts disappeared. Individual fragments began to “emerge” at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. At first they did not meet with enough interest. Numerous owners did not even suspect what kind of treasure fell into their hands. But when scientists established the authorship, it turned out that the barn books, and art history essays, and anatomical sketches, and strange drawings, and studies on geology, architecture, hydraulics, geometry, military fortifications, philosophy, optics, and drawing techniques were the fruit of one person. All entries in Leonardo's diaries are made in a mirror image.

The following students came out of Leonardo's workshop: "Leonardeschi"): Ambrogio de Predis, Giovanni Boltraffio, Francesco Melzi, Andrea Solario, Giampetrino, Bernardino Luini, Cesare da Sesto.

In 1485, after a terrible plague epidemic in Milan, Leonardo proposed to the authorities a project for an ideal city with certain parameters, layout and sewer system. The Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, rejected the project. Centuries passed, and the authorities of London recognized Leonardo's plan as the perfect basis for the further development of the city. In modern Norway there is an active bridge designed by Leonardo da Vinci. Tests of parachutes and hang gliders made according to the master’s sketches confirmed that only the imperfection of materials did not allow him to take to the skies. At the Roman airport named after Leonardo da Vinci, there is a gigantic statue of the scientist with a model of a helicopter in his hands, stretching into the sky. “He who is directed towards a star does not turn around,” wrote Leonardo.

Leonardo, apparently, did not leave a single self-portrait that could be unambiguously attributed to him. Scientists have doubted that the famous self-portrait of Leonardo's sanguine (traditionally dated 1512-1515), depicting him in old age, is such. It is believed that perhaps this is just a study of the head of the apostle for the Last Supper. Doubts that this is a self-portrait of the artist have been expressed since the 19th century, the latest to be expressed recently by one of the leading experts on Leonardo, Professor Pietro Marani. But recently, Italian scientists announced a sensational discovery. They claim that an early self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered. The discovery belongs to the journalist Piero Angela.

He played the lyre masterfully. When Leonardo's case was heard in the Milan court, he appeared there precisely as a musician, and not as an artist or inventor. Leonardo was the first to explain why the sky is blue. In the book “On Painting” he wrote: “The blueness of the sky is due to the thickness of illuminated air particles, which is located between the Earth and the blackness above.”

Leonardo was ambidextrous - he was equally good with his right and left hands. They even say that he could write different texts with different hands at the same time. However, he wrote most of his works with his left hand from right to left.

It is believed that da Vinci was a vegetarian (Andrea Corsali, in a letter to Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, compares Leonardo to an Indian who did not eat meat).

The phrase often attributed to da Vinci: “If a person strives for freedom, why does he keep birds and animals in cages? .. man is truly the king of animals, because he cruelly exterminates them. We live by killing others. We are walking cemeteries! Even at an early age, I gave up meat” is taken from the English translation of Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s novel “Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci."

Leonardo wrote in his famous diaries from right to left in mirror image. Many people think that in this way he wanted to make his research secret. Perhaps this is true. According to another version, mirror handwriting was his individual feature (there is even evidence that it was easier for him to write this way than in a normal way); There is even a concept of “Leonardo’s handwriting.”

Leonardo's hobbies even included cooking and the art of serving. In Milan, for 13 years he was the manager of court feasts. He invented several culinary devices to make the work of cooks easier. Leonardo's original dish - thinly sliced stewed meat with vegetables placed on top - was very popular at court feasts.

The brilliant Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci created a whole series of masterpieces in his life. Thus, he perceived reality, learning it through his sketches and paintings.

The works of art that he created during his life still attract connoisseurs today. Thanks to his works, the art of painting moved to a new stage.

The list of works by Leonardo da Vinci includes particularly significant works that touched the souls of many people. For example, the painting “Madonna Litta”, completed in 1491. A young mother feeding her child. The artist himself seems to identify the process of feeding with understanding the human soul. In the child’s hands we see a small bird – a red goldfinch. The image of the bird is shed blood, sacrifice and suffering, life for the glory of the Faith. The painting glorifies motherhood, as well as the modesty of a mother. Currently this work of art is in the Hermitage.

The painting “Madonna with a Carnation” is surrounded by many mysteries. It dates back to around 1478 and depicts a spiritual mother with a smile on her face and a carnation in her hands and an active child trying to reach the flower. Leonardo's signature handwriting is already visible in this painting.

The poetess depicted with a sad expression on her face is the “Portrait of Ginevra de Benci.”

The artist often painted portraits of women, fully conveying the psychologism of their experiences.

Let's talk about selected works of the great Italian painter. His most famous works: “The Last Supper”, “Mona Lisa”, “Lady with an Ermine”, “Vitruvian Man”, “The Baptism of Christ”.

"The Last Supper" reveals deep human experiences in religious themes. Jesus and his 12 disciples were painted in detail by Leonardo. The masterpiece began to deteriorate immediately, and restorers have been struggling for several centuries to “freeze” the work.

The painting “The Baptism of Christ” was created by Leonardo da Vinci together with Andrea del Verrocchio. It is believed that the student painted an angel on this picture, and did it so accurately that Andrea stopped using his brush. Angel is really different in its writing technique.

“Lady with an Ermine” is one of the most beautiful paintings in the world. The beautiful face of a lady, dressed in fashion, with well-drawn hands. She gracefully holds the animal, without restricting its movements at all. It is believed that the painting depicts one of the mistresses of the Duke of Sforza, Cecilia Gallerani, but there is no documentary evidence.

“The Vitruvian Man” was created as an illustration for an educational publication dedicated to the works of Vitruvius. A drawing that shows the ideal human form, dividing the male figure into two equal parts. This work is both a masterpiece of art and a scientific work. The “Golden Ratio” that we use today was invented by Leonardo da Vinci. There is a version that the author depicted himself, and to understand the picture itself, you need to carefully read the description of it.

And finally, the most mysterious and mystical painting by Leonardo is the “Mona Lisa” (La Gioconda). It is still unknown who is depicted in this picture, although there are many guesses. This painting now hangs in the Louvre. Her mysterious smile is captivating, causing numerous controversies.

They say that the works of art of Leonardo da Vinci contain secret signs and esoteric codes that have not been solved for several centuries. But all over the world in museums we can find his paintings and admire how the Italian master painted them!

An outstanding Italian artist, scientist, engineer and anatomist, one of the prominent representatives of art and science of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in the village of Anchiano, near the city of Vinci.

In addition to world-famous paintings and sculptures, Leonardo left behind manuscripts on many areas of knowledge. He studied mathematics, fluid mechanics, geology and physical geography, meteorology, chemistry, astronomy, botany, as well as the anatomy and physiology of humans and animals.

Despite the fact that some of Leonardo’s masterpieces, for example “La Gioconda,” are known to everyone, little-known facts of his life and work can also be cited. For example, that Leonardo’s mother was a simple peasant woman, he was educated at home, played the lyre masterfully, was the first to explain why the sky is blue and the moon is so bright, he was ambidextrous and suffered from dyslexia.

1. Leonardo was born into the family of a wealthy notary and landowner Piero da Vinci; his mother was a simple peasant woman, Katerina. He received a good education at home, but he lacked systematic studies in Greek and Latin.

2. He played the lyre masterfully. When Leonardo's case was heard in the Milan court, he appeared there precisely as a musician, and not as an artist or inventor.

4. According to one theory, Mona Lisa smiles from the realization of her secret pregnancy.

5. According to another version, Gioconda was entertained by musicians and clowns while she posed for the artist.

6. There is another theory according to which the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait of Leonardo.

7. Leonardo, apparently, did not leave a single self-portrait that could be unambiguously attributed to him. Scientists have doubted that the famous self-portrait of Leonardo's sanguine (traditionally dated 1512-1515), depicting him in old age, is such. It is believed that perhaps this is just a study of the head of the apostle for the Last Supper. Doubts that this is a self-portrait of the artist have been expressed since the 19th century, the latest to be expressed recently by one of the leading experts on Leonardo, Professor Pietro Marani.

8. Scientists at the University of Amsterdam and specialists from the USA, having studied the mysterious smile of Gioconda using a new computer program, unraveled its composition: according to them, it contains 83% happiness, 9% disdain, 6% fear and 2% anger.

9. Bill Gates bought Codex Leicester, a collection of works by Leonardo da Vinci, for $30 million in 1994. Since 2003 it has been on display at the Seattle Art Museum.

10. Leonardo loved water: he developed instructions for underwater diving, invented and described a device for underwater diving, a breathing apparatus for scuba diving. All of Leonardo's inventions formed the basis of modern underwater equipment.

11. Leonardo was the first to explain why the sky is blue. In the book “On Painting” he wrote: “The blueness of the sky is due to the thickness of illuminated air particles, which is located between the Earth and the blackness above.”

12. Observations of the moon in the waxing crescent phase led Leonardo to one of the important scientific discoveries - the researcher found that sunlight is reflected from the Earth and returns to the moon in the form of secondary illumination.

13. Leonardo was ambidextrous - he was equally good with his right and left hands. He suffered from dyslexia (impaired reading ability) - this ailment, called “word blindness,” is associated with reduced brain activity in a certain area of the left hemisphere. As you know, Leonardo wrote in a mirror way.

14. The Louvre recently spent $5.5 million to move the artist’s famous masterpiece “La Gioconda” from the general public to a room specially equipped for it. Two-thirds of the State Hall, occupying a total area of 840 square meters, was allocated for La Gioconda. The huge room was rebuilt into a gallery, on the far wall of which Leonardo’s famous creation now hangs. The reconstruction, which was carried out according to the design of the Peruvian architect Lorenzo Piqueras, lasted about four years.

The decision to move the “Mona Lisa” to a separate room was made by the administration of the Louvre due to the fact that in its original place, surrounded by other paintings by Italian painters, this masterpiece was lost, and the public had to stand in line to see the famous painting.

15. In August 2003, a painting by the great Leonardo da Vinci worth $50 million, “Madonna of the Spindle,” was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland. The masterpiece disappeared from the home of one of Scotland's richest landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch. Last November, the FBI released a list of the 10 most notorious art crimes, which included this robbery.

16. Leonardo left designs for a submarine, a propeller, a tank, a loom, a ball bearing and flying cars.

17. In December 2000, British parachutist Adrian Nicholas in South Africa descended from a height of 3 thousand meters from a hot air balloon using a parachute made according to a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. The Discover website writes about this fact.

18. Leonardo was the first of the painters to dismember corpses in order to understand the location and structure of muscles.

19. A great fan of word games, Leonardo left in the Codex Arundel a long list of synonyms for the male penis.

20. While building canals, Leonardo da Vinci made an observation, which later entered geology under his name as a theoretical principle for recognizing the time of formation of the earth's layers. He came to the conclusion that the Earth is much older than the Bible believed.

The personality and work of Leonardo da Vinci have always aroused great interest. Leonardo was too extraordinary a figure for his time. Books and articles are published, feature films and documentaries are released. Art critics turn to scientists and mystics in an attempt to find a solution to the mystery of the genius of the great master. There is even a separate direction in science that studies the painter’s heritage. Museums are opening in honor of Leonardo da Vinci, thematic exhibitions are constantly taking place around the world, breaking all attendance records, and the Mona Lisa watches crowds of tourists all day long from behind armored glass. Real historical facts and legends, scientific achievements and artistic fiction are closely intertwined around the name of one genius.

The fate of the great master

The future great artist and scientist was born on April 14, 1452 from an extramarital affair between a wealthy notary, Sir Pierrot, and either a peasant woman or a tavern owner from the town of Vinci. The boy was named Leonardo. Katerina, that was the name of the artist’s mother, raised her son for the first five years of his life, after which the father took the boy into his home.

Although Piero was officially married, he had no other children except Leonardo. Therefore, the arrival of the child in the house was greeted warmly and cordially. The only thing the artist was left deprived of, being fully supported by his father, was the right to inheritance. Leonardo's early years were spent serenely, surrounded by the picturesque mountainous nature of Tuscany. He will carry admiration and love for his native land throughout his life, immortalizing its beauty in his landscapes.

The peace and quiet of provincial life ended when the family moved to Florence. Life began to sparkle, seething with all the colors of a real metropolis of that time. The city was ruled by representatives of the Medici family, patrons of the arts known for their generosity, who created ideal conditions for the development of the arts on their estate.

During their reign, Florence became the cradle of the cultural and scientific revolution known as the Renaissance. Once here, young Leonardo found himself in the very center of events, when the city was approaching the apogee of its prosperity and glory, the peak of greatness, of which the young artist became an integral part.

But greatness was ahead, and for now, the future genius simply needed to get an education. Being an illegitimate son, he could not continue his father's work, nor could he become, for example, a lawyer or a doctor. Which, in general, did not harm Leonardo’s fate in any way.

From a very early age, the young man demonstrated extraordinary artistic abilities. Pierrot could not help but take this into account when he made a decision regarding the fate of his only son. Soon, his father sent eighteen-year-old Leonardo to study at a very successful and advanced painting workshop. The artist's mentor was the famous painter Andrea del Verrocchio.

A talented and broad-minded sculptor and artist, Verrocchio did not preach medieval aesthetic views, but tried to keep up with the times. He was keenly interested in examples of ancient art, which he considered unsurpassed, and in his work he sought to revive the traditions of Rome and Greece. Nevertheless, recognizing and respecting progress, Verrocchio made extensive use of the technical and scientific achievements of his time, thanks to which painting was increasingly closer to realism.

Flat, schematic images of the Middle Ages were moving away, giving way to the desire to completely and completely imitate nature in everything. And for this it was necessary to master the techniques of linear and aerial perspective, to understand the laws of light and shadow, which meant the need to master mathematics, geometry, drawing, chemistry, physics and optics. Leonardo studied with Verrocchio the basics of all the exact sciences, while simultaneously mastering the techniques of drawing, modeling and sculpture, and acquired skills in working with plaster, leather and metal. His talent revealed itself so quickly and clearly that soon the young talent was far behind his teacher in terms of skill and quality of painting.

Already at the age of twenty, in 1472, Leonardo became a member of the honorary Florentine Guild of Artists. And even the lack of his own workshop, which he acquired only a few years later, did not prevent him from starting his own path as an independent master. Despite obvious engineering abilities and remarkable talent for the exact sciences, society saw in the artist only a craftsman who did not yet have much prestige. The ideals of freedom and creativity were still far away.

The fate of the 15th century artist depended entirely on influential patrons. Likewise, throughout his life Leonardo had to seek a place of service with the powers that be, and the fulfillment of individual secular and church orders was based on the principle of a simple trade agreement.

The first ten years of the artist’s life were spent in creative pursuits and working on a few orders. Until one day a rumor reached Leonardo that the Duke of Sforza, the ruler of Milan, needed a court sculptor. The young man immediately decided to try his hand.

The fact is that Milan at that time was one of the largest centers of weapons production, and Leonardo was immersed in his latest hobby - developing drawings of original and ingenious machines and mechanisms. Therefore, the opportunity to move to the capital of engineering greatly inspired him. The artist wrote a letter of recommendation to the Duke of Sforza, in which he dared to offer himself not only as a sculptor, artist and architect, but also as an engineer, claiming that he could build ships, armored vehicles, catapults, cannons and other military equipment. The Duke was impressed by Leonardo's self-confident letter, but was only partially satisfied: he liked the position of sculptor for the artist. The first task of the new court sculptor was to make a bronze statue of a horse, intended to decorate the Sforza family crypt. The funny thing is that, due to a variety of circumstances, during the seventeen years that Leonardo spent at the Milanese court, the horse was never cast. But the young talent’s interest in military affairs, mechanics and technology in weapons workshops only grew. Almost all of Leonardo's inventions date from this period.

During his life, the brilliant da Vinci created numerous drawings of weaving, printing and rolling machines, metallurgical furnaces and woodworking machines. He was the first to come up with the idea of a helicopter propeller, ball bearings, a rotary crane, a mechanism for driving piles, a hydraulic turbine, a device for measuring wind speed, a telescopic fire ladder, an adjustable wrench, and a gearbox. Leonardo developed models of all kinds of military vehicles - a tank, a catapult, a submarine. His sketches contain prototypes of a diving bell spotlight, an excavator, a bicycle, and fins. And also, his most famous designs, based on a painstaking study of bird flight techniques and the structure of a bird's wing - an aircraft very reminiscent of a hang glider, and a parachute.

Unfortunately, Leonardo did not have the chance to see the implementation of the vast majority of his ideas during his lifetime. The time had not yet come for them; the necessary raw materials and materials, the creation of which was also foreseen by the genius of the 15th century, were missing. Throughout his life, Leonardo da Vinci had to come to terms with the fact that his grandiose plans were too far ahead of his era. Only at the end of the 19th century many of them will receive their realization. And, of course, the master did not suspect that in the 20th and 21st centuries millions of tourists would admire these inventions in special museums dedicated to his work.

In 1499 Leonardo left Milan. The reason was the capture of the city by French troops led by Louis XII; the Duke of Sforza, who had lost power, fled abroad. It was not the best period in his life for the artist. For four years he constantly moved from place to place, never staying anywhere for long. Until, in 1503, he, fifty years old, again had to return to Florence - the city where he had once worked as a simple apprentice, and now, at the peak of his skill and fame, he was working on the creation of his brilliant “Mona Lisa”.

True, da Vinci did return to Milan after several years of work in Florence. Now, he was there as a court painter for Louis XII, who at that time controlled the entire Italian north. Periodically, the artist returned to Florence, fulfilling one or another order. Leonardo's ordeal ended in 1513, when he moved to Rome to live with a new patron, Giuliano Medici, brother of Pope Leo X. For the next three years, da Vinci was mainly engaged in science, orders for engineering developments and technical experiments.

Already at a very advanced age, Leonardo da Vinci moved again, this time to France, at the invitation of Francis I, who succeeded Louis XII on the throne. The rest of the life of the brilliant master was spent in the royal residence, the castle of Lmboise, surrounded by the highest honor from the monarch. The artist himself, despite the numbness of his right hand and his constantly deteriorating state of health, continued to make sketches and study with students, who replaced him with a family that was never created by the master during his lifetime.

Gift of the Observer and Scientist

From early childhood, Leonardo had a rare talent for observation. From early childhood until the end of his life, the artist, fascinated by natural phenomena, could spend hours peering into the flame of a candle, monitoring the behavior of living creatures, studying the movement of water, the growth cycles of plants and the flight of birds. A keen interest in the world around him gave the master a lot of invaluable knowledge and keys to many of the secrets of nature. “Nature has arranged everything so perfectly that everywhere you find something that can give you new knowledge,” said the master.

During his life, Leonardo crossed the highest alpine passes to explore the nature of atmospheric phenomena, traveled along mountain lakes and rivers to study the properties of water. All his life, Leonardo carried a notebook with him, in which he wrote down everything that attracted his attention. He attached particular importance to optics, believing that the painter's eye is a direct instrument of scientific knowledge.

Refusing to follow the path trodden by his contemporaries, Leonardo sought his own answers to the questions that worried him about the harmony and proportionality of all things (the world around him and man himself). The artist realized that if he wants to capture the man himself and the world around him in his works without distorting their essence, he must study the nature of both as deeply as possible. Starting with observation of visible phenomena and forms, he gradually delved into the processes and mechanisms that govern them.

Mathematical knowledge helped the painter understand that any subject or object is a whole, which inevitably consists of many parts, the proportionality and correct arrangement of which gives rise to what is called harmony. The artist’s incredible discovery was that the concepts of “nature”, “beauty” and “harmony” are inextricably linked with a specific law, following which absolutely all forms in nature are formed, from the most distant stars in the sky to flower petals. Leonardo realized that this law can be expressed in the language of numbers, and, using it, create beautiful and harmonious works in painting, sculpture, architecture and any other field.

In fact, Leonardo managed to discover the principle by which the Creator of Genesis himself created this world. The artist called his discovery “Golden or Divine Proportion.” This law was already known to philosophers and creators of the ancient world, in Greece and Egypt, where it was widely used in a variety of forms of art. The painter followed the path of a practitioner, and preferred to gain all his knowledge from his own experience of interacting with nature and the world.

Leonardo did not skimp on sharing his discoveries and achievements with the world. During his lifetime, he worked together with the mathematician Luca Pocioli on the creation of the book “Divine Proportion”, and after the death of the master, the treatise “The Golden Ratio”, completely based on his discoveries, was published. Both books are written about art in the language of mathematics, geometry and physics. In addition to these sciences, the artist at different times was seriously interested in studying chemistry, astronomy, botany, geology, geodesy, optics and anatomy. And all in order to ultimately solve the problems that he set for himself in art. It was through painting, which Leonardo considered the most intellectual form of creativity, that he sought to express the harmony and beauty of the surrounding space.

Life on canvas

Looking at the creative heritage of the great painter, one can clearly see how the depth of Leonardo’s penetration into the fundamentals of scientific knowledge about the world filled his paintings with life, making them more and more truthful. It seems that you can easily start a conversation with the people depicted by the master, you can turn the objects he painted in your hands, and you can enter the landscape and get lost. In Leonardo's images, mysterious and surprisingly realistic at the same time, depth and spirituality are obvious.

To understand what Leonardo considered a real, living creation, we can draw an analogy with photography. Photography, in fact, is only a mirror copy, a documentary evidence of life, a reflection of the created world, incapable of achieving its perfection. From this point of view, the photographer is the modern embodiment of what Leonardo said: “The painter, who sketches mindlessly, guided only by practice and the judgment of the eye, is like an ordinary mirror that imitates all the objects opposed to it, without knowing anything about them.” A true artist, according to the master, by studying nature and recreating it on canvas, must surpass it, “himself inventing countless forms of grasses and animals, trees and landscapes.”

The next level of mastery and the unique gift of man, according to Leonardo, is fantasy. “Where nature has already finished producing its species, man himself begins to create from natural things, with the help of the same nature, countless types of new things.” The development of imagination is the first and most basic thing that an artist should do, according to da Vinci, this is what he writes about on the pages of his manuscripts. In the mouth of Leonardo, this sounds like Truth with a capital T, because he himself has repeatedly proven this throughout his life and creative heritage, which includes so many brilliant guesses and inventions.

Leonardo's irrepressible desire for knowledge touched almost all areas of human activity. During his life, the master was able to prove himself as a musician, poet and writer, engineer and mechanic, sculptor, architect and urban planner, biologist, physicist and chemist, expert in anatomy and medicine, geologist and cartographer. Da Vinci's genius even found its way into creating culinary recipes, designing clothing, creating games for palace entertainment, and designing gardens.

Leonardo could boast not only of unusually versatile knowledge and a wide range of skills, but also of almost perfect appearance. According to contemporaries, he was a tall, handsome man, beautifully built and endowed with great physical strength. Leonardo sang excellently, was a brilliant and witty storyteller, danced and played the lyre, had refined manners, was courteous and simply charmed people with his mere presence.

Perhaps it was precisely this uniqueness of his in almost all spheres of life that caused such a wary attitude towards him by the conservative majority, who were wary of innovative ideas. For his genius and unconventional thinking, he was more than once branded a heretic and even accused of serving the devil. Apparently this is the lot of all geniuses who come into our world to break the foundations and lead humanity forward.

Denying the experience of past generations in word and deed, the great painter said that “a painter’s painting will not be perfect if he takes the paintings of others as an inspiration.” This also applied to all other areas of knowledge. Leonardo paid great attention to experience as the main source of ideas about man and the world. “Wisdom is the daughter of experience,” the artist said, it cannot be acquired simply by studying books, because those who write them are just intermediaries between people and nature.

Every person is a child of nature and the crown of creation. Countless possibilities for understanding the world, inextricably linked with every cell of his body, are open to him. Through studying the world, Leonardo learned about himself. The question that plagues many art historians is what was more interesting to da Vinci – painting or knowledge? Who was he in the end - an artist, a scientist or a philosopher? The answer is essentially simple, like a true creator, Leonardo da Vinci harmoniously combined all these concepts in one. After all, you can learn to draw, be able to use a brush and paints, but this will not make you an artist, because true creativity is a special state of feelings and attitude towards the world. Our world will reciprocate, become a muse, reveal its secrets and allow only those who truly love it to penetrate into the very essence of things and phenomena. From the way Leonardo lived, from everything he did, it is obvious that he was a man passionately in love.

Images of Madonna

The work “The Annunciation” (1472-1475, Louvre, Paris) was written by a young painter at the very beginning of his creative career. The painting depicting the Annunciation was intended for one of the monasteries not far from Florence. It gave rise to a lot of controversy among researchers of the work of the great Leonardo. Doubts relate in particular to the fact that the work is a completely independent work of the artist. It must be said that such disputes around authorship are not uncommon for many of Leonardo’s works.

Executed on a wooden panel of impressive dimensions - 98 x 217 cm, the work shows the moment when the Archangel Gabriel, descending from heaven, informs Mary that she will give birth to a son, whom he will name Jesus. It is traditionally believed that Mary at this time is reading the very passage of the prophecies of Isaiah, which mentions a future accomplishment. It is no coincidence that the scene is depicted against the backdrop of a spring garden - the flowers in the archangel’s hand and under his feet symbolize the purity of the Virgin Mary. And the garden itself, surrounded by a low wall, traditionally refers us to the sinless image of the Mother of God, fenced off by her purity from the outside world.

An interesting fact is connected with the wings of Gabriel. It is clearly visible in the picture that they were painted later - an unknown artist lengthened them in a very crude painterly manner. The original wings that Leonardo depicted remained distinguishable - they were much shorter and were probably copied by the artist from the wings of a real bird.

In this work, if you look closely, you can find several mistakes made by the still inexperienced Leonardo in constructing perspective. The most obvious of which is Mary’s right hand, visually located closer to the viewer than her entire figure. There is no softness in the draperies of the clothes yet; they look too heavy and stiff, as if made of stone. Here we must take into account that this is exactly how Leonardo was taught by his mentor Verrocchio. This angularity and sharpness is characteristic of almost all the works of artists of that time. But in the future, on the path to achieving his own pictorial realism, Leonardo will develop himself and lead all other artists with him.

In the painting “Madonna Litta” (circa 1480, Hermitage, St. Petersburg), Leonardo managed to create an incredibly expressive female image with the help of almost a single gesture. On the canvas we see a thoughtful, tender and peaceful mother admiring her child, concentrating in this gaze the fullness of her feelings. Without such a special tilt of the head, so characteristic of many of the master’s works, which he spent hours studying while creating dozens of preparatory drawings, much of the impression of boundless maternal love would have been lost. Only the shadows in the corners of Maria’s lips seem to hint at the possibility of a smile, but how much tenderness this gives to the whole face. The size of the work is very small, only 42 x 33 cm, most likely it was intended for home worship. Indeed, in 15th-century Italy, paintings of the Madonna and Child were quite popular; wealthy citizens often commissioned them from artists. Presumably, the “Madonna Litta” was originally painted by the master for the rulers of Milan. Then, after changing several owners, it passed into a private family collection. The modern name of the work comes from the name of Count Litta, who owned the family art gallery in Milan. In 1865, it was he who sold it to the Hermitage along with several other paintings.

Almost hidden in the right hand of the baby Jesus is a chick, invisible at first glance, which in the Christian tradition serves as a symbol of the Son of God and His childhood. There is controversy surrounding the painting, caused by the too clear contours of the drawing and the somewhat unnatural pose of the child, which leads many researchers to assume that one of Leonardo’s students took an active part in the creation of the painting.

The first painting in which the master’s revealed talent was visible was the painting “Madonna in the Grotto” (circa 1483, Louvre, Paris). The composition was commissioned for the altar of the chapel in the Milan church of St. Francis and was intended to be the central part of a triptych. The order was divided between three masters. One of them created the side panels with images of angels for the altar image, the other created the carved frame of the finished work in wood.

The clerics entered into a very detailed contract with Leonardo. It stipulated the smallest details of the painting, down to the style and technique of execution of all elements and even the color of clothes, from which the artist should not deviate even one step. Thus, a work was born that tells about the meeting of the baby Jesus and John the Baptist. The action takes place in the depths of the grotto, in which mother and son are hiding from pursuers sent by King Herod, who saw in the Son of God a direct threat to his power. The Baptist rushes to Jesus, folding his palms in prayer, who, in turn, blesses him with a gesture of his hand. The silent witness of the sacrament is the angel Uriel, looking towards the viewer. From now on he will be called upon to protect John. All four figures are so skillfully arranged in the picture that they seem to form a single whole. I would like to call the entire composition “musical”; there is so much tenderness, harmony and fluidity in its characters, united by gestures and glances.

This work was very difficult for the artist. The time frame was strictly stipulated in the contract, but, as often happened with the painter, he was unable to meet them, which led to legal proceedings. After much litigation, Leonardo had to write another version of this composition, which is now kept in the National Gallery in London, we know it as “Madonna of the Rocks”.

Famous fresco of the Milan monastery

Within the walls of the Milan monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie, or rather in its refectory, one of the greatest masterpieces of painting and the main national treasure of Italy is kept. The legendary fresco “The Last Supper” (1495-1498) occupies a space of 4.6 x 8.8 m, and describes the dramatic moment when, surrounded by disciples, Christ utters the sad prophecy “One of you will betray me.”

The painter, who was always attracted to the study of human passions, wanted to depict ordinary people, rather than historical characters, in the images of the apostles. Each of them responds to the event in its own way. Leonardo set himself the task of conveying the psychological atmosphere of the evening with maximum realism, conveying to us the different characters of its participants, revealing their spiritual world and contradictory experiences with the precision of a psychologist. In the variety of faces of the characters in the picture and their gestures, there is room for almost all emotions, from surprise to furious anger, from confusion to sadness, from simple disbelief to deep shock. The future traitor Judas, whom all artists had traditionally previously separated from the general group, in this work sits with the others, clearly standing out with a gloomy expression on his face and a shadow that seems to have enveloped his entire figure. Taking into account the principle of the golden ratio discovered by him, Leonardo verified the location of each of the students with mathematical precision. All twelve apostles are divided into four almost symmetrical groups, highlighting the figure of Christ in the center. Other details of the picture are designed not to distract attention from the characters. Thus, the table is deliberately made excessively small, and the room itself in which the meal takes place is strict and simple.

While working on The Last Supper, Leonardo experimented with paints. But, unfortunately, the composition of primer and paint he invented, for which he combined oil and tempera, turned out to be completely unstable. The consequence of this was that just twenty years after it was written, the work began to rapidly and irreversibly deteriorate. The stables that Napoleon's army set up in the room where the fresco was located exacerbated the already existing problem. As a result, almost from the beginning of its history to the present day, restoration work has been carried out on this monumental canvas, only thanks to which it can still be preserved.

Having led his long life, Leonardo da Vinci created no more than twenty paintings, some of which remained unfinished. Such slowness, surprising for that time, alarmed customers, and the slowness with which the master used to work on his paintings became the talk of the town. There are memories of a monk of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, who watched the painter work on the famous fresco “The Last Supper”. This is how he described Leonardo’s working day: the artist climbed the scaffolding erected around the painting early in the morning and could not part with his brush until late at night, completely forgetting about food and rest. But other times, he spends hours, days on end, intently examining his creation, without applying a single stroke. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of the master, due to an unsuccessful experiment and materials, the fresco from the Milan monastery became one of the artist’s greatest disappointments.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452 -1519) - Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect) and scientist (anatomist, naturalist), inventor, writer, one of the largest representatives of the art of the High Renaissance, a vivid example of the “universal man”.

BIOGRAPHY OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

Born in 1452 near the city of Vinci (where the prefix of his surname came from). His artistic interests are not limited to painting, architecture and sculpture. Despite his enormous achievements in the field of exact sciences (mathematics, physics) and natural science, Leonardo did not find sufficient support and understanding. Only many years later his work was truly appreciated.

Fascinated by the idea of creating an aircraft, Leonardo da Vinci first developed the simplest aircraft (Daedalus and Icarus) based on wings. His new idea was an airplane with full control. However, it was not possible to implement it due to the lack of a motor. The scientist’s also famous idea is a vertical take-off and landing device.

Studying the laws of fluid and hydraulics in general, Leonardo made significant contributions to the theory of locks and sewer ports, testing ideas in practice.

Famous paintings by Leonardo da Vinci are “La Gioconda”, “The Last Supper”, “Madonna with an Ermine”, and many others. Leonardo was demanding and precise in all his affairs. Even when he became interested in painting, he insisted on fully studying the object before starting to draw.

Giaconda Last Supper Madonna with an ermine

Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts are priceless. They were published in full only in the 19th and 20th centuries, although even during his lifetime the author dreamed of publishing Part 3. In his notes, Leonardo noted not just thoughts, but supplemented them with drawings, drawings, and descriptions.

Being talented in many fields, Leonardo da Vinci made significant contributions to the history of architecture, art, and physics. The great scientist died in France in 1519.

THE WORK OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

Among Leonardo’s early works is the “Madonna with a Flower” (the so-called “Benois Madonna,” circa 1478), kept in the Hermitage, which is decidedly different from the numerous Madonnas of the 15th century. Refusing the genre and careful detailing inherent in the works of the early Renaissance masters, Leonardo deepens the characteristics and generalizes the forms.

In 1480, Leonardo already had his own workshop and received orders. However, his passion for science often distracted him from his studies in art. The large altar composition “Adoration of the Magi” (Florence, Uffizi) and “Saint Jerome” (Rome, Vatican Pinacoteca) remained unfinished.

The Milanese period includes paintings of a mature style - “Madonna in the Grotto” and “The Last Supper”. “Madonna in the Grotto” (1483-1494, Paris, Louvre) is the first monumental altar composition of the High Renaissance. Her characters Mary, John, Christ and the angel acquired features of greatness, poetic spirituality and fullness of life expressiveness.

The most significant of Leonardo’s monumental paintings, “The Last Supper,” executed in 1495-1497 for the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan, takes you into the world of real passions and dramatic feelings. Departing from the traditional interpretation of the Gospel episode, Leonardo gives an innovative solution to the theme, a composition that deeply reveals human feelings and experiences.

After Milan was captured by French troops, Leonardo left the city. Years of wandering began. Commissioned by the Florentine Republic, he made cardboard for the fresco “The Battle of Anghiari”, which was to decorate one of the walls of the Council Chamber in the Palazzo Vecchio (city government building). When creating this cardboard, Leonardo entered into competition with the young Michelangelo, who was executing an order for the fresco “The Battle of Cascina” for another wall of the same hall.

In Leonardo’s composition, full of drama and dynamics, the episode of the battle for the banner, the moment of the highest tension of the forces of the combatants is given, the cruel truth of the war is revealed. The creation of a portrait of Mona Lisa (“La Gioconda”, circa 1504, Paris, Louvre), one of the most famous works of world painting, dates back to this time.

The depth and significance of the created image is extraordinary, in which individual features are combined with great generalization.

Leonardo was born into the family of a wealthy notary and landowner Piero da Vinci; his mother was a simple peasant woman, Katerina. He received a good education at home, but he lacked systematic studies in Greek and Latin.

He played the lyre masterfully. When Leonardo's case was heard in the Milan court, he appeared there precisely as a musician, and not as an artist or inventor.

According to one theory, Mona Lisa smiles from the realization of her secret pregnancy.

According to another version, Gioconda was entertained by musicians and clowns while she posed for the artist.

There is another theory according to which the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait of Leonardo.

Scientists at the University of Amsterdam and specialists from the United States, having studied the mysterious smile of Gioconda using a new computer program, unraveled its composition: according to them, it contains 83% happiness, 9% disdain, 6% fear and 2% anger.

In 1994, Bill Gates purchased Codex Leicester, a collection of works by Leonardo da Vinci, for $30 million. Since 2003 it has been on display at the Seattle Art Museum.

Leonardo loved water: he developed instructions for underwater diving, invented and described a device for underwater diving, and a breathing apparatus for scuba diving. All of Leonardo's inventions formed the basis of modern underwater equipment.

Leonardo was the first to explain why the sky is blue. In the book “On Painting” he wrote: “The blueness of the sky is due to the thickness of illuminated air particles, which is located between the Earth and the blackness above.”

Observations of the moon in the waxing crescent phase led Leonardo to one of the important scientific discoveries - the researcher found that sunlight is reflected from the Earth and returns to the moon in the form of secondary illumination.

Leonardo was ambidextrous - he was equally good with his right and left hands. He suffered from dyslexia (impaired reading ability) - this ailment, called “word blindness,” is associated with reduced brain activity in a certain area of the left hemisphere. As you know, Leonardo wrote in a mirror way.

The Louvre recently spent $5.5 million to move the artist's famous masterpiece, La Gioconda, from the general public to a room specially equipped for it. Two-thirds of the State Hall, occupying a total area of 840 square meters, was allocated for La Gioconda. The huge room was rebuilt into a gallery, on the far wall of which Leonardo’s famous creation now hangs. The reconstruction, which was carried out according to the design of the Peruvian architect Lorenzo Piqueras, lasted about four years. The decision to move the “Mona Lisa” to a separate room was made by the administration of the Louvre due to the fact that in its original place, surrounded by other paintings by Italian painters, this masterpiece was lost, and the public had to stand in line to see the famous painting.

In August 2003, a painting by the great Leonardo da Vinci worth $50 million, “Madonna of the Spindle,” was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland. The masterpiece disappeared from the home of one of Scotland's richest landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch. Last November, the FBI released a list of the 10 most notorious art crimes, which included this robbery.

Leonardo left designs for a submarine, a propeller, a tank, a loom, a ball bearing and flying cars.

In December 2000, British parachutist Adrian Nicholas in South Africa descended from a height of 3 thousand meters from a hot air balloon using a parachute made according to a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. The Discover website writes about this fact.

Leonardo was the first painter to dismember corpses in order to understand the location and structure of muscles.

A great fan of word games, Leonardo left in the Codex Arundel a long list of synonyms for the male penis.

While building canals, Leonardo da Vinci made an observation, which later entered geology under his name as a theoretical principle for recognizing the time of formation of the earth's layers. He came to the conclusion that the Earth is much older than the Bible believed.

It is believed that da Vinci was a vegetarian (Andrea Corsali, in a letter to Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, compares Leonardo to an Indian who did not eat meat). The phrase often attributed to da Vinci: “If a person strives for freedom, why does he keep birds and animals in cages? .. man is truly the king of animals, because he cruelly exterminates them. We live by killing others. We are walking cemeteries! Even at an early age, I gave up meat” is taken from the English translation of Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s novel “Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci."

Italian scientists announced a sensational discovery. They claim that an early self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered. The discovery belongs to the journalist Piero Angela.

In Terry Pratchett's books, there is a character named Leonard, whose prototype was Leonardo da Vinci. Pratchett's Leonard writes from right to left, invents various machines, practices alchemy, paints pictures (the most famous is the portrait of Mona Ogg)

Leonardo is a minor character in the game Assassin's Creed 2. Here he is shown as still a young but talented artist, as well as an inventor.

A considerable number of Leonardo's manuscripts were first published by the curator of the Ambrosian Library, Carlo Amoretti.

Bibliography

Symbols

Fairy tales and parables of Leonardo da Vinci
Natural science writings and works on aesthetics (1508).
Leonardo da Vinci. "Fire and the Cauldron (story)"

About him

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Leonardo Da Vinci in works of art

The Life of Leonardo da Vinci is a 1971 television miniseries.
Da Vinci's Demons is a 2013 American television series.

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