Transcript Leonardo da Vinci

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da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
• Leonardo da Vinci
was born in the year
1452 in the small hill
town of Vinci, Italy.
His father was a
successful notary and
his mother a peasant
woman.
The Renaissance Man
• Leonardo was and is best
known as an artist, the creator
of such masterpieces as the
Mona Lisa, Madonna of the
Rocks, and The Last Supper.
Yet Leonardo was far more
than a great artist: he had one
of the best scientific minds of
his time. He made painstaking
observations and carried out
research in fields ranging from
architecture and civil
engineering to astronomy to
anatomy and zoology to
geography, geology and
paleontology.
Leonardo the Inventor
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Archimedes' screw
Water wheel
Tank
Helicopter
More Inventions
• Flying machine
• War machine
Leonardo the Scientist
• Leonardo kept many
journals of his
scientific findings
• He performed
autopsies before they
were legal to learn
about how the human
body worked
Striving for Realism
• During the Renaissance,
European artists began to
study the model of nature
more closely and to paint
with the goal of greater
realism.
Linear Perspective
• They learned to create lifelike people and animals, and
they became skilled at creating the illusion of depth and
distance on flat walls and canvases by using the
techniques of linear perspective.
More Perspective
Leonardo the
Painter
• The Mona Lisa
• La Gioconda 1503-06 (150
Kb); Oil on wood, 77 x 53 cm
(30 x 20 7/8 in); Musee du
Louvre, Paris
The Last
Supper
• 1498 (180 Kb); Fresco,
460 x 880 cm (15 x 29 ft);
Convent of Santa Maria
delle Grazie (Refectory),
Milan
• Madonna of the
Rocks
• 1483-1486
• 199 x 122 см
• Louvre, Paris
Lady with an
Ermine
• 1483-90 (150 Kb); Oil
on wood, 53.4 x 39.3
cm (21 x 15 1/2 in);
Czartoryski Museum,
Cracow, Poland
Right to Left
Leonardo’s writings in a mirror
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No one knows the true reason
Leonardo used mirror writing,
though several possibilities have
been suggested:
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He was trying to make it harder for
people to read his notes and steal
his ideas.
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He was hiding his scientific ideas
from the powerful Roman Catholic
Church, whose teachings sometimes
disagreed with what Leonardo
observed.
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Writing left handed from left to right
was messy because the ink just put
down would smear as his hand
moved across it. Leonardo chose to
write in reverse because it prevented
smudging.
Leonardo Da Vinci
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1452-1519
Vinci, Italy
Renaissance Man
Mona Lisa, Last
Supper
• Artist, Scientist, Genius
Art Critique
1. Description (Who,
what, when,where)
2. Analysis (how did
the artist use the
elements/principles
of art?)
3. Interpretation (What
does it mean?)
4. Judgement (Is it
good art?)
La Gioconda 1503-06 (150 Kb); Oil on
wood, 77 x 53 cm (30 x 20 7/8 in);
Musee du Louvre, Paris
More Recent Monas