i need info about leonardo da vinci?

Question

i need help i am doing a report about him and his painting mona lisa i really need help so if u could find some time to help im doing a report and it is due friday

Answer 1

Ok here we go.

Some points about Leonardo and his life first of all.

Born in Vinci, Tuscany in 1452

Moved to Florence and apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio around 1469.

As an apprentice Leonardo would have improved his drawing, learned painting, gold, silver and metal working. Wood, bronze and stone scupture, pennant making, theatrical set designing, pulley systems, perspective, colour preparation etc.

Leonardo was a vegetarian and he loved animals. He probably had a small dog (see British Museum Prints and Drawings Collection) and he loved horses and kept them all his life.

Even though he loved animals and didn't eat them this did not stop him from disecting them for scientific and artistic purposes. He also disected human cadavers. This was not an unusual practice among Renaissance artists but Leonardo was the only one to disect to discover the human machine rather than look at the bodie's musculature etc in order to paint and draw it perfectly.
Not only did Leonardo investigate the human body through anatomical dissection. He also created inner bodily mechanisms that perfectly fulfilled their function.


Leonardo was a snappy dresser and very handsome. (So Georgio Vasari said at the time)

He was probably a homosexual.

He was friends with Sandro Botticelli and he and Michelangelo hated each other.

Leonardo had a wicked sense of humour and was an excellent muscician. He played the Lyre.
In Leonardo's words;

Leonardo once wished to make a picture of some laughing peasants. He picked out certain men… and arranged a feast for them…and sitting close to them he proceeded to tell the maddest and most ridiculous tales imaginable, making them, who were unaware of his intentions, laugh uproariously. Whereupon he observed all their gestures very attentively and those ridiculous things they were doing, and impressed them on his mind, and, after they had left, he retired to his room and there made a perfect drawing which moved those who looked at it to laughter as if they had been moved by Leonardo’s stories at the feast.


Leonardo had an extraordinary ability to visualize natural forms in space as if viewed from an immense distance. His airial maps are extremely accurate even today.

Some of his inventions include;

Self-propelled cart – Codex Atlanticus Fol 812r 1478-80 Armoured car - Biblioteca Reale, Fol 1030 1485
Scythed chariots - Biblioteca Reale Fol 1030 1485
Giant crossbow – Codex Atlanticus Fol 149r c1485
Armoured vessel – Codex Atlanticus Fol 172r 1487-89
The ideal city – Ms B Fol 16r and 37v 1488
Flying machine – Ms B Fol 74v-75r 1488-89
Double-deck bridge – Ms B Fol 23r 1488-90
Fortress – Codex Atlanticus Fol 117r 1507-10
Theatre stage set for Orpheus – Codex Arundel 224r and 231v 1508-18


Leonardo was a little like a modern scientist. He used a hypothesis and experimentation to prove or disprove his theory.

He correctly observed and noted the errosive power of water, rock strata.

Leonardo's studies of the human skull which are now in The Queens collection at Windsor are famous for their anatomical accuracy and the virtuosity of the pen and ink technique. Doctors today still study his drawings and recently a new discovery was made after looking at Leonardo's sketches of the heart.
During the final years of his life, Leonardo carried out detailed investigations of the heart. The main aim was to define how the heart and its valves operated in conjunction with the hydrodynamic turbulence of pumped blood.

Leonardo noted how vortices are formed in the blood after it has forced its way between the cusps, as a result of the contraction of the heart. Based on his observations of the flow of water, he proposed a complex theory regarding how and why vortices form. Despite being forced to concede that the complexities are “subtle and difficult to prove or clarify”, he deduced that the principles of circular motion in fluids are essential to the operation of the heart. He noted that the cusps of the valve only operate satisfactorily because of the vortices that form in the blood, which cause the closure of the valve. Without the circular motion, the inner walls of


Why Leonardo's art was special.

By Leonardo’s time, the study of the life model was standard practice in the Renaissance artist’s workshop. The movements of the face and hands were particularly important as a means of conveying a person’s feelings. Leonardo has obviously studied these elements intensely before beginning this painting.

In the foreground, a writhing mass of figures surrounds the Madonna and Child. Leonardo has portrayed these “extras” in an astonishing variety of movements and gestures so that each conveys their own unique response to the arrival of God’s son on earth – wonder, awe, curiosity or disbelief. Their varied emotions cause them to move in different directions, as their heads turn this way and that. Despite this chaos, the attention of most is firmly focused on the Mother and her infant, who are calmly seated in the centre of the heaving crowd.

The peculiar individuality, range and expressive force of Leonardo’s figures supersedes anything produced by his contemporaries. In this unfinished painting, Leonardo has combined the power of his imagination with his knowledge of natural forms, to create a new and powerfully expressive type of art.

In Leonardo's words

If the painter wishes to see beauties which will enamour him, he is the lord of their production, and if he wishes to see monstrous things which frighten or those which are buffoonish and laughable or truly compassionate, he is their lord and god.

This unfinished altarpiece was originally commissioned by the monks of San Donato a Scopeto, a monastery near Florence, in March 1481. Leonardo’s father, who administered the monastery’s finances, may have played a role in obtaining the commission. The painting was left unfinished by Leonardo when he moved to Milan sometime before 1483.

In this painting, Mary is seated with the Christchild in the centre of the composition in front of a rocky landscape, surrounded by a large number of figures, the identity of which remains unclear (it is uncertain which figure is Joseph). In the foreground, the three kings who followed the Star of Bethlehem on their journey from the East, kneel in worship before the Christchild. In the background we can see the ruins of King David’s palace, alluded to in the Old Testament as the ancestor and precursor of Christ, and figures on horseback engaged in violent combat. These may be a reference to the enmity that was said to exist between the three kings, or to the chaos of the world prior to the coming of Christ.

Leonardo’s Adoration represents the moment when the second king offers his gift of frankincense, traditionally a symbol of the Eucharist, to the Christ-child who willingly receives it, a symbolic gesture of his acceptance of his fate.

Medium Oil on wood panel
Size 24.3 x 24.6 cm
Location Galleria degli Uffizi


Leonardo invented the sfumato (in smoke) technique (see The Mona Lisa) and experimented with other painting methods. One that went wrong in his own lifetime was The Last Supper Fresco in Milan.

Now some information on the Mona Lisa.

Here's what The Louvre have to say about her.

Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo

This portrait was doubtless painted in Florence between 1503 and 1506. It is thought to be of Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Francesco del Giocondo - hence the alternative title, La Gioconda. However, Leonardo seems to have taken the completed portrait to France rather than giving it to the person who commissioned it. It was eventually returned to Italy by Leonardo's student and heir Salai. It is not known how the painting came to be in François I's collection.



Description


Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco Giocondo

The history of the Mona Lisa is shrouded in mystery. Among the aspects which remain unclear are the exact identity of the sitter, who commissioned the portrait, how long Leonardo worked on the painting, how long he kept it, and how it came to be in the French royal collection.
The portrait may have been painted to mark one of two events - either when Francesco del Giocondo and his wife bought their own house in 1503, or when their second son, Andrea, was born in December 1502 after the death of a daughter in 1499. The delicate dark veil that covers Mona Lisa's hair is sometimes considered a mourning veil. In fact, such veils were commonly worn as a mark of virtue. Her clothing is unremarkable. Neither the yellow sleeves of her gown, nor her pleated gown, nor the scarf delicately draped round her shoulders are signs of aristocratic status.


A new artistic formula


The Mona Lisa is the earliest Italian portrait to focus so closely on the sitter in a half-length portrait. The painting is generous enough in its dimensions to include the arms and hands without them touching the frame. The portrait is painted to a realistic scale in the highly structured space where it has the fullness of volume of a sculpture in the round. The figure is shown in half-length, from the head to the waist, sitting in a chair whose arm is resting on balusters. She is resting her left arm on the arm of the chair, which is placed in front of a loggia, suggested by the parapet behind her and the two fragmentary columns framing the figure and forming a "window" looking out over the landscape. The perfection of this new artistic formula explains its immediate influence on Florentine and Lombard art of the early 16th century. Such aspects of the work as the three-quarter view of a figure against a landscape, the architectural setting, and the hands joined in the foreground were already extant in Flemish portraiture of the second half of the 15th century, particularly in the works of Hans Memling. However, the spacial coherence, the atmospheric illusionism, the monumentality, and the sheer equilibrium of the work were all new. In fact, these aspects were also new to Leonardo's work, as none of his earlier portraits display such controlled majesty.


An emblematic smile

The Mona Lisa's famous smile represents the sitter in the same way that the juniper branches represent Ginevra Benci and the ermine represents Cecilia Gallerani in their portraits, in Washington and Krakow respectively. It is a visual representation of the idea of happiness suggested by the word "gioconda" in Italian. Leonardo made this notion of happiness the central motif of the portrait: it is this notion which makes the work such an ideal. The nature of the landscape also plays a role. The middle distance, on the same level as the sitter's chest, is in warm colors. Men live in this space: there is a winding road and a bridge. This space represents the transition between the space of the sitter and the far distance, where the landscape becomes a wild and uninhabited space of rocks and water which stretches to the horizon, which Leonardo has cleverly drawn at the level of the sitter's eyes.

Hope this helps a little.

Answer 2

Leonardo da Vinci
(d vĭn´chē, Ital. lāōnär´dō dä vēn´chē) , 1452—1519, Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, and scientist, b. near Vinci, a hill village in Tuscany. The versatility and creative power of Leonardo mark him as a supreme example of Renaissance genius. He depicted in his drawings, with scientific precision and consummate artistry, subjects ranging from flying machines to caricatures; he also executed intricate anatomical studies of people, animals, and plants. The richness and originality of intellect expressed in his notebooks reveal one of the greatest minds of all time.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

This is a lot of info and there is a lot out there on the net. Sorry, would love to help but this is so involved. Try googling this. Good luck.

Answer 5

He's the ninja turtle who wears the blue mask and has a katana blade.

As for the artist.... How do you expect to learn without doing your own homework? the man contributed so much to the world of art (and science) the least you could do is inform yourself. Who knows, you might find a new passion.

Answer 6

he is one of the most famous painters and his painting is very old: around 500-700 years old.
If thats not enough, go to www.classbrain.com.