Famous artist leonardo da vinci biography painting

A name that needs no introduction, Leonardo was the archetypal Renaissance man; a painter, sculptor, scientist, mathematician, inventor, musician and writer. He is known foremost as a painter, with world famous works such as his, Mona Lisa, Virgin of the Rocks, and, The Last Supper. His art was innovative, taking knowledge of the sciences and applying them masterfully to painting; unequaled for some in technique and expression.

Throughout history and still today in modern culture, he continues to fascinate and inspire. He shares with Raphael (1483 – 1520) and Michelangelo (1475 – 1564), a triumvirate of brilliance during the High Renaissance. He was simply know as Leonardo, and took his surname from the small town of Vinci in Tuscany. With such a large scope of skills and works, this biography is limited to his work housed in the Uffizi Gallery. This includes, his Annunciation, from around 1472, executed while still in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435 – 1488). The other is an early independent work, Adoration of the Magi, which he left unfinished for the Monks of San Donato at Scopeto in 1481.

As with much of the Italian Renaissance, the source of Leonardo’s life comes from the biographer and artist, Giorgio Vasari (1511 – 1574). Leonardo’s, Annunciation, was produced around the same time that he contributed to Verrocchio’s, Baptism of Christ, also housed in the Uffizi. Verrocchio was already an influential painter, but according to Vasari, Leonardo’s Angel and landscapes next to Saint John, was the reason Verrocchio resorted to a dedication of sculpting; “never to touch colours again, angered that a young boy understood them better than he did.” (Vasari, The Lives of the Artists.) It is noted that Leonardo’s, Annunciation, one of two pieces by the same title, is composed in the style of the early Renaissance painter, Fra Angelico (1395 – 1455).

In Leonardo’s, Adoration of the Magi, comes forth his emerging chiaroscuro technique.

Early years

Painter, sculptor, architect, designer, theorist, engineer and scientist, Leonardo da Vinci created some of the most famous images in European art. Though many of his works were never finished, and even fewer have survived, he influenced generations of artists and he continues to be revered as a universal genius.

Leonardo was born near the Tuscan hill-town of Vinci. An illegitimate child, he was raised by his paternal grandfather. His father had a flourishing legal practice in the city of Florence, where Leonardo received his early artistic training with the sculptor Andrea Verrocchio.

Verrocchio's workshop undertook a wide range of commissions including sculpture and decorative metalwork as well as paintings.

Frustrated in Florence

By 1472, Leonardo had joined the brotherhood of Florentine artists, the Compagnia di San Luca, and he worked in Florence for the next ten years, but few paintings survive.

He made numerous drawings, however, which revealed his growing interest in other disciplines, including geometry, anatomy and engineering.

By 1483, Leonardo felt stifled and decided that Milan would offer more exciting opportunities. He wrote to the ruling family, the Sforzas, asking for employment primarily on the grounds that he was an expert in military engineering. He mentioned his skill in painting and sculpture as an added bonus. Soon after his move to Milan, a confraternity commissioned an altarpiece, and Leonardo created 'The Virgin of the Rocks'. When they refused to give what he considered a fair price for the painting, he sold it to someone else in disgust and it was some years before the confraternity could persuade him to do a second version - the one that now hangs in the National Gallery.

The notebooks

Leonardo kept notebooks of his research into science, biology, anatomy, engineering and art. (He was particularly keen on flying machines, and came up with a design for a type of helicopter, although it was neve

Biography

The illegitimate son of a 25-year-old notary, Ser Piero, and a peasant girl, Caterina, Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy, just outside Florence. His father took custody of him shortly after his birth.

Growing up in his father's Vinci home, Leonardo had access to scholarly texts owned by family and friends. He was also exposed to Vinci's longstanding painting tradition, and when he was about 15 his father apprenticed him to the renowned workshop of Andrea del Verrochio in Florence. Even as an apprentice, Leonardo demonstrated his great talent. Indeed, his genius seems to appear in a number of pieces produced by the Verrocchio's workshop from the period 1470 to 1475. For example, one of Leonardo's first big breaks was to paint an angel in Verrochio's "Baptism of Christ," and Leonardo was so much better than his master's that Verrochio allegedly resolved never to paint again. Leonardo stayed in the Verrocchio workshop until 1477.

Seeking to make a living, and new challenges, he entered the service of the Duke of Milan in 1482, abandoning his first commission in Florence, "The Adoration of the Magi". He spent 17 years in Milan, leaving only after Duke Ludovico Sforza's fall from power in 1499. It was during these years that Leonardo reached new heights of scientific and artistic achievement.

The Duke kept Leonardo busy painting and sculpting and designing elaborate court festivals, but he also had Leonardo design weapons, buildings, and machinery. From 1485 to 1490, Leonardo produced studies on many subjects, including nature, flying machines, geometry, mechanics, municipal construction, canals and architecture (designing everything from churches to fortresses). His studies from this period contain designs for advanced weapons, including a tank and other war vehicles, various combat devices, and even submarines. Also during this period, Leonardo produced his first anatomical studies. His Milan wo

(April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519)

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath, having been a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Born as the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant girl, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, spending his final years in France at the home given to him by King François I.

Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.

It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

As an engineer, Leonardo's ideas were vastly ahead of his time. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrat