9781422271766

MASTERS OF ART

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in April 1452 near Vinci, a small town in Italy. He was the illegitimate son of a local village notary. As a young man, he demonstrated a developing artistic talent that led to his unique legacy to the world. Along with Michelangelo and Raphael, Leonardo is one of the greatest figures of the Italian Renaissance and is acknowledged to be perhaps the most complete universal genius in history, as artist, scientist, engineer, and inventor. His painting, the Mona Lisa , is arguably both the most famous painting in the world and the quintessential Renaissance image of womanhood. Other world-famous works include The Last Supper and Leonardo’s drawings of a flying machine. Da Vinci died of a probable stroke in May 1519 at the age of 67.

THE ART OF LEONARDO

O ne of the more interesting aspects of Renaissance civilization is that its genius did not spring from the privileged, educated, and monied classes, but revealed itself in unlikely places, often developing from seemingly unpropitious beginnings. It is a measure of the freedom of thought that was then current that in the intellectual climate that the Renaissance fostered, there was no single route to achievement—nor one point of departure. These comments are made because they have a particular relevance to the subject of this book, Leonardo Da Vinci, whose illegitimate birth to a peasant woman in an obscure fortified village in the foothills of Monte Albano could not have presaged that he would become perhaps the greatest universal genius in the history of mankind. It is always dangerous to deal in superlatives, but if Leonardo cannot be said to fit that Continued on page 14

PLATE 1 Self-Portrait (c. 1512–15) Sanguine red chalk on paper, 13 1 ⁄

8 x 8

3 ⁄ 8 inches (33.3 x 21.3 cm)

Leonardo’s presentation of himself as an ancient sage, with a long beard and severe demeanor, has been analyzed by a number of writers since he drew the portrait in the last years of his life. One comment from the sixteenth century is that Leonardo wore his hair and his beard so long, and his eyebrows were so bushy, that he appeared the very personification of noble wisdom. Is this how Leonardo actually perceived himself? Views of those who knew him varied greatly, but there was general agreement that he was a procrastinator who rarely finished anything, with which view any writer on his career is bound to agree. Pope Leo X summed up his view of Leonardo thus: “Alas, this man will do nothing; he starts by thinking of the end of the work before its beginning.” This assessment of a man whose life achievement seems to us unparalleled is a surprising reflection on Renaissance values.

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