Leonardo da Vinci is the most interesting and mysterious of his life. The genius leonardo da vinci

Introduction

Italian artist, writer, engineer and scientist of outstanding and versatile ability. He studied at the VERROCCHIO workshop in Florence. V early work depicts the "Annunciation" against the background of an open-air landscape. His extraordinary author's manner and innovative methods of monochrome modeling of "figurine" introduction of color can be seen in the huge unfinished painting "Adoration of the Magi" (1481). Through this preparation, he developed the "sfumato" effect, which consists of slightly blurred outlines and became hallmark Milan school. From 1483 he worked in Milan for the Sforza family, and his first commission was "Madonna on the Rocks", where he depicted the figures of the saints in a mystical light against the backdrop of a fantastic landscape. The groundbreaking Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie, located in Milan, is one of the artist's most significant works. His experimental technique of painting with oil on a dry primer led to the fact that the painting began to deteriorate during his lifetime. He took preparatory work and created a huge model for the equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, but this project was not implemented due to the French invasion of Milan in 1499.

Leonardo returned to Florence and in the following years wrote, among other works, "Mona Lisa" and several versions of "Madonna and Child with St. Anne." Leonardo spent his last years restlessly - he lived in Rome and Florence, eventually moved to France under the patronage of Francis I. In the last years of his life he painted little, but was actively involved in other areas of activity, devoting himself to scientific experiments and scrupulous observations of nature. A significant number of his diaries and drawings, some of which are kept in the Royal Library in Windsor, testify to his unique research mind and exceptional intelligence. The main objects of research were:

Anatomy (Leonardo performed an autopsy of bodies and described in detail the internal organs);

Botany;

The movement of water, often with the idea of ​​controlling the flow of rivers;

War machines and aircrafts, showing ingenuity, but mostly highly impractical;

Architecture.

The artist designed centrally symmetrical churches (which could have influenced Bramante). Leonardo was not a humanities scientist and seemed to have little interest classical literature and culture. Consequently, he was not a typical humanist, but he won an enormous reputation during his lifetime and convincingly proved that an artist is a thinker, not an artisan.

Life and art

Leonardo da Vinci was born in the village of Anchiano, near the town of Vinci, between Florence and Pisa. Exact date his birth is only relatively recently established on the basis of a document found in the State Archives of Florence. Namely, the diary of Leonardo's grandfather, Antonio da Vinci, contains the following entry: “In 1452, my grandson was born from Ser Pierrot, my son, on April 15, Saturday at 3 o'clock in the morning. Received the name Leonardo. He was baptized by the priest Piero de Bartolomei da Vinci. " Leonardo was illegitimate son notary Piero da Vinci. About his mother, Katherine, nothing is known. It is only known that shortly after his birth, she married local resident Antonio, nicknamed Akkat-tabriga.

The young father in the year of his son's birth married Albiera Amadori. Leonardo spent his childhood with his grandmother Lucia and uncle Francesco, living in Vinci. Ser Piero moved with his family to Florence around 1464. Here he soon lost his wife and remarried.

In 1466, fourteen-year-old Leonardo was apprenticed to the famous Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea Verrocchio (1436-1488). In Florence, his interests developed, his first knowledge was accumulated.

Another Florentine artist, Antonio Pollaiolo (1429-1498), whose workshop was next to Verrocchio's, dissected corpses to examine the muscles and joints. The Florentine artist Benozzo Gozzoli (1420 - c. 1497) diligently studied anatomy in the same years.

In communication with such master experimenters, observers, researchers, young Leonardo grew and developed. At the end of May 1472, a golden ball and a cross were installed on top of the Santa Maria del Fiore lantern. This technical task was entrusted to Verrocchio in 1468, and the young Leonardo was the closest witness to the development of the project. In the same 1472 Leonardo finished his studies with Verrocchio and was enrolled in the workshop of Florentine artists. Even then, his interests were not limited to painting. According to Vasari, "he was the first who, as a young man, raised the question of how to use the Arno River to connect Pisa and Florence with a canal." Even if the indication that Leonardo already in his youth raised the question of precisely this channel is incorrect, it is indisputable that it was Florence who gave Leonardo the first impetus to technical creativity... His invention of machines for spinning and twisting silk, for processing cloth, more than definitely points to Florence - at that time a major center of the silk and wool industry. However, social conditions were not conducive to the activities of the Leonardo Technician. In 1469, that is, approximately when the Piero da Vinci family moved to Florence, Lorenzo Medici, nicknamed the Magnificent, became in power.

In 1478 Leonardo received the first large order: to paint the altarpiece in the chapel of the City Hall, Palazzo Vecchio. The work proceeded slowly - apparently, even then Leonardo, as well as later, made preparatory experiments with paints, made numerous sketches. As a result, it was never completed, and in 1483 the order was transferred to another person.

Despite the great events that took place in Florence in 1478, Leonardo did not stop his work, but on the contrary wrote two of his many famous paintings - « Madonna Benoit"Located in the St. Petersburg Hermitage, as well as the painting" St. Jerome ".

It was surprising that, no matter how judged in Florence about the importance of painting, the financial situation of Leonardo and other artists remained difficult. It is known that due to the need, he had to paint the clock tower of San Donato with gold and ultramarine. In Leonardo's notes, there are angry lines directed against the "trumpeters and retelling of other people's works", arrogant and pompous, proud of their book education. It is understandable why the gaze of Leonardo the inventor, the Leonardo technician from the Medici Florence with its cult of Plato and refined artificial literature imitating ancient models, turned to Milan.

Milan at that time was one of the richest cities in Italy. Officially, the young Gian Galeazzo Sforza was considered its ruler, in fact, his uncle, Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Moro, ruled. Poets, humanists, scientists flocked to his court, but the nature of the learned environment was somewhat different from that in Florence. Here, mathematics and natural sciences enjoyed great weight, this was reflected in the proximity of the University of Pavia.

Around 1482 Leonardo wrote a letter to Lodovico Moro offering him his services as an engineer. Nine points of Leonardo's letter are devoted to military inventions, they should have been especially interested in the Milanese rulers. Also in the letter, Leonardo listed in detail some of the secrets of the military craft that he owned, such as the construction of light, but very strong portable bridges, knowledge of the construction of various artillery weapons and many of his other knowledge, which spoke of the originality of his personality.

This is how Leonardo moved to Milan, and the Milanese period of his life, rich in creative events, began (1483-1499). Leonardo was admitted to the Duke's College of Engineers. He performs in Milan as a military engineer, architect, hydraulic engineer, sculptor, painter. But it is characteristic that in the documents of this period he is referred to first as an "engineer" and then as an "artist."

From the very first months of his stay in Milan, Leonardo was closely involved in all industries. military equipment... His notes and drawings of this time are, as it were, the implementation of the program that was outlined by him in a letter to Lodovico Moro: the re-equipment of the fortifications of the Milan castle, siege devices, mobile ladders, battering rams, etc.

In the years 1487-1490. Leonardo took part in the competition for the construction of the vestibule of Milan Cathedral, but his candidacy was rejected. In 1490 the competition was resumed, but Leonardo not long before took his model, promising to return it. He did not return it and did not participate in a new competition. The winners were the builders of the cathedral Amadeo and Dolcebono, who completed the vestibule in 1500.

Despite the lack of immediate practical results, the project was of great importance in creative biography Leonardo. This is exactly the time. a large number of drawings showing how persistently Leonardo pondered the problems of the domed ceiling and the various forms of his architectural solutions. The drawings show that Leonardo, as it were, experimented mentally, going over various possible options in his mind.

A number of his notes on structural mechanics - on the theory of arches and vaults - date back to the Milanese period of Leonardo's life. Leonardo theoretically and experimentally develops questions about the strength of materials, being in this respect the predecessor of Galileo. Later, he conceived special treatises on cracks in the walls and means of preventing them.

A lot of place in the work of Leonardo da Vinci was occupied by hydraulic engineering projects. The political and economic conditions were such that these plans were not realized during his lifetime.

As in Florence, Leonardo had to waste his technical ingenuity on decorative, lavish festivities and undertakings. Here he organized festivities in honor of the wedding of Moro's nephew, Gian Galeazzo and the granddaughter of the King of Naples, Isabella of Aragon (1489), organized grandiose spear competitions for the wedding of Lodovico Moro with Beatrice d'Este, daughter of the Duke of Ferrara (1491). In Milan, Leonardo came into contact with university science, with Aristotelian scientific traditions, not in a purely scholastic medieval form, but with traditions significantly updated under the influence of new trends characteristic of the Renaissance.Likewise, in Milan, Leonardo communicated with the engineer and philosopher Pietro Monti, the author the book "On Recognizing People, was close enough with Luca Pacioli, who was considered the" father of accounting. "

Leonardo da Vinci, the largest figure in Italian High Renaissance Is a great example universal person, the owner of many-sided talent: he was not only a great representative of art - a painter, sculptor, musician, writer, but also a scientist, architect, technician, engineer, inventor. He was born near Florence, in the small town of Vinci (hence his name). Leonardo was the son of a wealthy notary and a peasant woman (many biographers believe that he was illegitimate) and was brought up from an early age by his father. He had hopes that the grown-up Leonardo would follow in his footsteps, but social life did not seem interesting to him. At the same time, it is possible that the craft of the artist was chosen for the reason that the profession of a lawyer and a doctor was not available to illegitimate children.

Be that as it may, after he and his father moved to Florence (1469), Leonardo got a job as an apprentice in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, one of the most famous Florentine painters of that period. The techniques of the artist's work in the Florentine workshop at that time implied technical experiments. The rapprochement with Paolo Toscanelli, the astronomer, was another factor in the awakening of Da Vinci's serious interest in various sciences. It is known that in 1472 he was a member of the Florentine Guild of Artists, and his first dated independent artistic work is attributed to 1473. A few years later (in 1476 or 1478) da Vinci has his own workshop. Literally from the first canvases ("Annunciation", "Madonna Benois", "Adoration of the Magi"), he declared himself as a great painter, and further creativity only increased his fame.

Since the beginning of the 80s. biography of Leonardo da Vinci is associated with Milan, work with Duke Louis Sforza as a painter, sculptor, military engineer, organizer of festivities, inventor of various mechanical "miracles" that glorified his owner. Da Vinci is actively working on own projects in various fields (for example, over an underwater bell, an aircraft, etc.), but Sforza does not show any interest in them. Da Vinci lived in Milan from 1482 to 1499 - until the troops of Louis XII captured the city and forced him to leave for Venice. In 1502 he was employed as a military engineer and architect Cesare Borgia.

In 1503 the artist returned to Florence. By this year (tentatively) it is customary to attribute the writing of perhaps his most famous painting - "Mona Lisa" ("La Gioconda"). During 1506-1513. da Vinci lives and works in Milan again, this time serving the French crown (the north of Italy was then under the control of Louis XII). In 1513 he moved to Rome, where the Medici patronized his work.

The last stage of the biography of Leonardo da Vinci is associated with France, where he moved in January 1516 at the invitation of King Francis I. Having settled in the castle of Clos-Luce, he received the official title of the first royal artist, architect and engineer, became the recipient of a large rent. Working on the plan for the royal apartments, he mainly acted in the guise of an adviser and a sage. Two years after arriving in France, he fell seriously ill, it was difficult for him to move around alone, right hand numb, and the next year he fell completely ill. On May 2, 1519, the great "universal man", surrounded by his disciples, died; he was buried in the nearby royal castle of Amboise.

In addition to works that are generally recognized masterpieces ("The Adoration of the Magi", "The Last Supper", "Holy Family", "Madonna Litti", "Mona Lisa"), da Vinci left behind about 7000 unrelated drawings, sheets with records, which, after the death of the master, were brought together by his students into several treatises that give an idea of ​​the worldview of Leonardo da Vinci. He is credited with numerous discoveries in the field of art theory, mechanics, natural sciences, mathematics, which made a significant contribution to the development of sciences and engineering. Leonardo da Vinci became the embodiment of the ideal of the Italian Renaissance and was perceived by subsequent generations as a kind of symbol of the creative aspirations inherent in that time.

Biography from Wikipedia

Childhood

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the village of Anchiano near the small town of Vinci, near Florence at "three in the morning" that is, at 22:30 modern time. Noteworthy is the 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 Pierrot, was born. The boy was named Leonardo. He was baptized by his father Piero di Bartolomeo. " His parents were 25-year-old notary Pierrot (1427-1504) and his beloved, a peasant woman, Katerina. Leonardo spent the first years of his life with his mother. His father soon married a wealthy and noble girl, but this marriage turned out to be childless, and Pierrot took his three-year-old son for upbringing. Separated from his mother, Leonardo tried all his life 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 like 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 77 years, 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 Monsieur Piero of Vinci."

The Legend of Medusa's Shield

In his "Biographies of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects" Vasari says that once a peasant friend 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 proper impression on the audience, he used lizards, snakes, grasshoppers, caterpillars, bats and “other creatures” “from many of which, combining them in different ways, he created a monster very disgusting and terrible, which poisoned with its breath and inflamed the air. " The result exceeded his expectations: when Leonardo showed the finished work to his father, he was frightened. The son told him: “This work serves what it was made for. So take it and give it away, for this is the action that is expected from works of art. " Ser Pierrot did not give Leonardo's work to the peasant: he received another shield, bought from a junk dealer. Leonardo's father sold Medusa's shield in Florence for one hundred ducats. According to legend, this shield passed to the Medici family, and when it was lost, the rebellious people expelled the sovereign masters of Florence from the city. Many years later, Cardinal del Monte ordered a painting depicting Medusa the Gorgon Caravaggio. The new talisman was presented to Ferdinand I de Medici in honor of the marriage of his son.

Verrocchio's workshop

In 1466, Leonardo da Vinci entered Verrocchio's studio 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 the workshop, in addition to Leonardo, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, Agnolo di Polo studied, Botticelli worked, there were often such famous masters like Ghirlandaio et al. Subsequently, even when Leonardo's father took him to work in his workshop, he continued to collaborate with Verrocchio.

In 1473, at the age of 20, Leonardo da Vinci received the qualification of a master in the Guild of Saint Luke.

Defeated teacher

Painting by Verrocchio "The Baptism of Christ". Angel on the left (lower left corner) - a creation by Leonardo

In the 15th century, ideas about the revival of ancient ideals were in the air. At the Florentine Academy the best minds Italy created a theory of new art. Creative youth spent time in lively debates... Leonardo stayed away from the stormy public life and rarely left the workshop. He was not up to theoretical disputes: he improved his skills. One day Verrocchio received an order for the painting "The Baptism of Christ" and instructed Leonardo to paint one of the two angels. It was a common practice in art workshops of that time: the teacher created the picture together with the student assistants. The most talented and diligent ones were entrusted with the execution of a whole fragment. Two angels, written by Leonardo and Verrocchio, clearly demonstrated the superiority of the student over the teacher. As Vasari writes, amazed Verrocchio abandoned the brush and never returned to painting.

Professional activity, 1472-1513

• In the years 1472-1477 Leonardo worked on: "The Baptism of Christ", "Annunciation", "Madonna with a Vase".
• In the second half of the 70s was created "Madonna with a flower" ("Benois Madonna").
• At the age of 24, Leonardo and three other young people were attracted to trial on a false anonymous charge 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 commission in his life - the altarpiece "Adoration of the Magi" (not completed) for the monastery of San Donato a Sisto, located not far from 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 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.

• 1483 - work on "Madonna in the grotto" began
• 1487 - development of a flying machine - an ornithopter based on bird flight
• 1489-1490 - "The Lady with the Ermine"
• 1489 - Anatomical drawings of skulls
• 1490 - painting "Portrait of a Musician". A clay model of the monument to Francesco Sforza was made.
• 1490 - Vitruvian Man - famous drawing, sometimes referred to as canonical proportions
• 1490-1491 - Madonna Litta created
• 1490-1494 - completed "Madonna in the grotto"
• 1495-1498 - work on the fresco "The Last Supper" in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan
• 1499 - Milan is captured by the French troops of Louis XII, Leonardo leaves Milan, the model of the Sforza monument is badly damaged
• 1502 - joins Cesare Borgia as an architect and military engineer
• 1503 - return to Florence
• 1503 - cardboard for the fresco "Battle in Angiari (at Anghiari)" and the painting "Mona Lisa"
• 1505 - sketches of the flight of birds
• 1506 - returned to Milan and served with King Louis XII of France (who at that time controlled the north of Italy, see Italian Wars)
• 1507 - study of the structure of the human eye
• 1508-1512 - work in Milan on the equestrian monument to Marshal Trivulzio
• 1509 - painting in St. Anne's Cathedral
• 1512 - "Self-portrait"
• 1512 - moved to Rome under the auspices of Pope Leo X

Personal life

Leonardo had many friends and students. As for love relationship, there is no reliable information on this score, since Leonardo carefully concealed this side of his life. He was not married, there is no reliable information about romances with women. According to some versions, Leonardo had a relationship with Cecilia Gallerani, the favorite of Lodovico Moro, with whom he wrote his famous painting"Lady with an Ermine". A number of authors, following the words of Vasari, suggest intimate relationships with young men, including students (Salai), although there is no evidence of this, while others believe that Leonardo never had a close relationship at all and with anyone, and he is more likely in all, he was a virgin, completely not interested in this side of life and giving preference to pursuing science and art.

It is believed that da Vinci was a vegetarian (Andrea Corsali, in a letter to Giuliano di Lorenzo Medici, compares Leonardo to one Indian who did not eat meat). Da Vinci's often attributed phrase “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! I gave up meat at an early age. " taken from english translation the novel by Dmitry Merezhkovsky "The Risen Gods. Leonardo da Vinci ".

Among Leonardo's hobbies were even cooking and the art of serving. In Milan for 13 years he was the steward of the court feasts. He invented several culinary devices that make the work of cooks easier. Original dish"From Leonardo" - a thinly sliced ​​stew with vegetables on top - was very popular at court feasts.

Last years and death

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 emerge. This lion may have greeted the king in Lyons or was used during negotiations with the pope.

In 1516, Leonardo accepted the invitation of the French king and settled in his castle Clos-Luce (where Francis I spent his childhood), not far from the royal castle of Amboise. Officially the first royal painter, engineer and architect, Leonardo received an annual rent of one thousand crowns. Leonardo had never had the title of engineer in Italy before. Leonardo was not the first italian master, by the grace of the French king who received "the freedom to dream, think and create" - before him a similar honor was shared by Andrea Solario and Fra Giovanni Giocondo. the channel, the project of the canal between the Loire and the Saone, the main double spiral staircase in the Chambord castle.

Two years before his death, the master's right hand became numb, and he could hardly move without assistance. Leonardo spent the third year of his life in Amboise in bed. On April 23, 1519, he left a will, and on May 2, at the age of 68, he died surrounded by his students and his masterpieces at the Clos-Luce castle.

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

The main heir was the student and friend of Francesco Melzi who accompanied Leonardo, 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 have survived to this day. Another student of Salai and a servant each got half of Leonardo's vineyards.

Achievements

Art

To our contemporaries, Leonardo is primarily known as an artist. In addition, it is possible that da Vinci could 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 different periods In his life, he considered himself primarily an engineer or scientist. He did not devote a lot of time to the fine arts and worked rather slowly. So artistic heritage Leonardo is quantitatively not great, and a number of his works have been lost or badly damaged. However, his contribution to the world artistic culture is extremely important even against the background of the cohort of geniuses that the Italian Renaissance gave. Thanks to his works, the art of painting moved to a high-quality new stage its development. Renaissance artists who preceded Leonardo resolutely abandoned many conventions medieval art... This was a movement towards realism and much has already been achieved in the study of perspective, anatomy, greater freedom in compositional solutions... But in terms of picturesqueness, work with paint, the artists were still rather conventional and constrained. The line in the picture clearly outlined the subject, and the image looked like a painted drawing. The most conditional was the landscape that played secondary role... Leonardo realized and embodied a new painting technique. His line has the right to blur, because this is how we see it. He realized the phenomena 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.

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

Leonardo, apparently, did not leave a single self-portrait that could be unambiguously attributed to him. Scientists 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 sketch 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 latter was recently expressed by one of the leading experts on Leonardo, Professor Pietro Marani.

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

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

Science and engineering

His only invention that received recognition during his lifetime was a wheel lock for a pistol (wound with a key). At the beginning, the wheeled pistol was not widely used, but by the middle of the 16th century it gained popularity among the nobles, especially among the cavalry, which even affected the design of 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 flight problems. In Milan, he made many drawings and studied the flying 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 an aircraft. He said: “He who knows everything can do everything. If only to find out - and there will be wings! "

First, Leonardo developed the problem of flying with the help of wings set in motion by the muscular force of a person: 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 retain complete freedom in order to control him; the apparatus must set itself in motion by its by my own strength... This is essentially the idea of ​​an airplane.

Leonardo da Vinci worked on a vertical take-off and landing apparatus. On the vertical "ornitottero" Leonardo planned to place a system of retractable ladders. Nature served as an example for him: “Look at a stone swift, which has sat down 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 ... so you have to take off from the plane; these stairs serve as legs ... ". Regarding the landing, he wrote: “These hooks (concave wedges), which are attached to the base of the stairs, serve the same purpose as the tips of the toes of the person who jumps on them, and his whole body does not shake at the same time, as if he jumped on heels. "

Leonardo da Vinci proposed the first design of a telescope (telescope) with two lenses (now known as the Kepler telescope). In the manuscript of the Codex Atlantic, folio 190a, there is an entry: "Make spectacle glasses (ochiali) for the eyes to see the big moon" (Leonardo da Vinci. "LIL Codice Atlantico ...", I Tavole, C. A. 190a),

Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps, was the first to formulate the simplest form of the law of conservation of mass for the movement of fluids, describing the flow of a river, however, due to vague wording and doubts about its authenticity, this statement has been criticized.

Anatomy and Medicine

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

Inventions

List of inventions, both real and attributed to Leonardo da Vinci:

• Parachute
• Wheel lock
• A bike
• Lightweight portable bridges for the army
• Spotlight
• Catapult
• Robot
• Two-lens telescope

Parachute

Flying machine drawing

War machine

Aircraft

Automobile

Crossbow

Rapid fire weapon

War drum

Spotlight

Vitruvian man - the golden ratio in the image of a man

Thinker

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

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

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 fact, inflicts a fatal blow on medieval scholasticism with its addiction to 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 reject not only scholasticism, this echo of feudal-medieval culture, but also humanism, the product of the still fragile bourgeois thought, frozen in a superstitious admiration for the authority of the ancients. Denying book scholarship, declaring the knowledge of things to be the task of science (as well as art), Leonardo da Vinci anticipates Montaigne's attacks on literary scholars and opens the era of new science a hundred years before Galileo and Bacon.

... Empty and full of delusions are those sciences that are not generated by experience, the father of all certainty, and do not end in visual experience ...

No human research can be called true science if it has not passed through mathematical proof... And if you say that the sciences that begin and end in thought have truth, then we cannot agree with you on this ... because such purely mental reasoning does not involve experience, without which there is no certainty.

Literary heritage

The huge literary legacy of Leonardo da Vinci has survived to this day in a chaotic form, in left-hand manuscripts. Although Leonardo da Vinci did not print a single line of them, however, in his notes he constantly turned to an imaginary reader and throughout the last years of his life did not leave the thought of publishing his works.

After the death of Leonardo da Vinci, his friend and student Francesco Melzi selected from them fragments related to painting, from which the "Treatise on Painting" (Trattato della pittura, 1st ed., 1651) was later composed. In full, the handwritten legacy of Leonardo da Vinci was published only in the XIX-XX centuries. In addition to the enormous scientific and historical significance it also has artistic value thanks to a concise, energetic syllable and an unusually clear language. Living in the heyday of humanism, when Italian language was considered secondary in comparison with Latin, Leonardo da Vinci admired 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 a model spoken language intelligentsia of the 15th century, and this saved it as a whole from the artificiality and grandeur 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" by design fragments, the syllable of Leonardo da Vinci is distinguished by vivid imagery; thus, his Treatise on Painting is equipped with excellent descriptions (for example, famous description flood), striking in the skill of verbal transmission of pictorial and plastic images. Along with descriptions in which the manner of an artist-painter is felt, Leonardo da Vinci gives in his manuscripts many examples of narrative prose: fables, facets (humorous stories), aphorisms, allegories, prophecies. In fables and facets, Leonardo stands on the level of the 14th century prose writers with their ingenuous practical morality; and some of his facets are indistinguishable from Sacchetti's novellas.

Allegories and prophecies have a more fantastic character: 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 the brightness and accuracy of phraseology and imbued with a 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 on the inner essence of things are expressed in an epigrammatic form. For him fiction had a purely utilitarian, subsidiary meaning.

A special place in the artist's legacy is occupied by the treatise "On the Game of Chess" (Latin "De Ludo Schacorum") - a book by the Italian monk-mathematician Luca Bartolomeo Pacioli from the Holy Sepulcher Monastery in Latin. The treatise is also known under the name "Driving away boredom" (Latin "Schifanoia"). Some of the illustrations for the treatise are attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and some researchers claim that he also compiled some of the chess problems from this collection.

Diaries

To date, about 7000 pages have survived from Leonardo's diaries, which are in different collections. At first the invaluable notes belonged to the master's favorite student, Francesco Melzi, but when he died, the manuscripts disappeared. Some fragments began to "emerge" at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, a considerable number of Leonardo's manuscripts were first published by the curator of the Ambrosian Library, Carlo Amoretti. At first, they did not meet with due interest. Numerous owners did not even suspect what treasure fell into their hands. But when scientists established the authorship, it turned out that the granary books, and art history essays, and anatomical sketches, and strange drawings, and research in geology, architecture, hydraulics, geometry, military fortifications, philosophy, optics, drawing technique are the fruit of one person. All entries in Leonardo's diaries are made in a mirror image. Leonardo was ambidextrous - he was equally good at right and left hands. They even say that he could write different texts at the same time. with different hands... However, he wrote most of his works with his left hand from right to left. Many people think that in this way he wanted to make his research secret. Perhaps it is so. According to another version, the mirror handwriting was his individual feature (there is even information that it was easier for him to write in this way than in the normal way); there is even the concept of "Leonardo's handwriting".

Students

Such students ("leonardeschi") as:

• Ambrogio de Predis
• Giovanni Boltraffio
• Francesco Melzi
• Andrea Solario
• Giampetrino
• Bernardino Luini
• Cesare da Sesto

The renowned master summarized his many years of experience in educating young painters in a number of practical recommendations... The student must first master the perspective, explore the shapes of objects, then copy the master's drawings, draw from life, study the works of different painters, and only after that he can take up his own creation. “Learn diligence before speed,” advises Leonardo. The master recommends developing memory and especially imagination, prompting you to peer into the obscure contours of the flame and find new, amazing forms in them. Leonardo encourages the painter to explore nature, so as not to be like a mirror that reflects objects, without knowing about them. The teacher created "recipes" for the image of a face, figure, clothes, animals, trees, sky, rain. In addition to the aesthetic principles of the great master, his notes contain wise everyday advice to young artists.

After Leonardo

In 1485, after a terrible plague epidemic in Milan, Leonardo proposed to the authorities a project for an ideal city with certain parameters, planning and sewerage system. Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, rejected the project. Centuries passed, and the London authorities recognized Leonardo's plan as the perfect basis for the further development of the city. In modern Norway, there is a working 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 the materials did not allow him to rise into the sky. In the Roman airport, which bears the name of Leonardo da Vinci, a gigantic statue of a scientist with a model of a helicopter in his hands is installed, leaving into the sky. "He who strives to the star does not turn around", - wrote Leonardo.

The image in the modern mass consciousness

Leonardo is an example historical personality, transformed by mass consciousness into the image of a "magician from science." He was a brilliant artist and consummate mechanical engineer, albeit far from the most educated person of his time. The source of myth-making was his notebooks, where he sketched and described both his own technical ideas and what he found in the writings of predecessor scientists or travel diaries, "spied" from other practitioners (often with his own improvements). Now he is perceived by many as the inventor of "everything in the world." Seen outside the context of other Renaissance engineers, his contemporaries and predecessors, he appears to the public as the one who single-handedly laid the foundations of modern engineering knowledge.

• Leonardo da Vinci is the protagonist of the story by the writer Keith Reed "Signor da V."(English Mr. da V .; 1962).
• In the books of science fiction writer Terry Pratchett, there is a character named Leonard, whose prototype was Leonardo da Vinci. Pratchett's Leonard writes from right to left, invents various machines, does alchemy, paints (the most famous is the portrait of Mona Yagg).
• Leonardo - minor character in the games Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, where he is an ally and close friend of the protagonist of the game Ezio Auditore. As in life, he is shown as a talented artist, as well as an inventor, whose inventions were repeatedly helped by Ezio.
• Leonardo - one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is named after da Vinci

Memory

• In 1935, the International Astronomical Union named Leonardo da Vinci a crater on the visible side of the moon.
• The asteroid (3000) Leonardo, discovered on March 2, 1981 by the American astronomer Shelte Bas, is named in honor of Leonardo da Vinci.
• Leonardo da Vinci is an Italian battleship of the Conte di Cavour class.
• Davinchiite is a mineral first discovered by Russian geologists on Mount Rasvumchorr and named after Leonardo da Vinci. The name was approved by the Commission on New Minerals of the International Mineralogical Association on June 2, 2011.

In works of art

• “The Risen Gods. Leonardo da Vinci ”is a 1900 novel by Dmitry Merezhkovsky.
• The Life of Leonardo da Vinci is a 1971 television miniseries.
• Da Vinci Demons is a 2013 American television series.

Gallery

"Lady with an Ermine"

human embryo

human embryo "Annunciation"

"Mona Lisa"

"The Last Supper"

Editions of essays

in Russian

• Leonardo da Vinci. Selected works of natural science. - M. 1955
• Tales and parables by Leonardo da Vinci
• Works on natural science and works on aesthetics. (1508).
• Leonardo da Vinci. "Fire and Cauldron (story)"

in other languages

• I. Les manuscrits de Leonard de Vinci, de la Bibliothèque de l'Institut, 1881-1891.
• Leonardo da Vinci: Traité de la peinture, 1910.
• Il Codice di Leonardo da Vinci, nella Biblioteca del principe Trivulzio, Milano, 1891.
• Il Codice Atlantico di Leonardo da Vinci, nella Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milano, 1894-1904.

Grasping the scale of Leonardo da Vinci's personality is impossible. A person who became a legend during his lifetime remains a legend and an unattainable ideal in the modern world.

The genius or, as he is often called, the titan of the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci is a truly unique personality. His life is an amazing kaleidoscope - in all areas he undertook, from painting to complex engineering inventions, he reached incredible heights. Meanwhile, we know almost nothing about Leonardo himself - he was a very secretive and lonely person, and the first biography was written 30 years after his death by Giorgio Vasari.

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452 in the small town of Vinci in northwestern Italy. The history of his family keeps several mysteries, since it is not known who his mother was. All sources indicate that her name was Katerina, but what she did is an open question. Traditionally it is believed that she was a simple, young peasant woman. Leonardo's father was notary Piero da Vinci, who at that time was 25 years old. The father was present at the baptism of the child and recognized him, but for unknown reasons, Leonardo spent the first 4 years of his life in the village of Anchiano. In the year of his son's birth, Pierrot marries Albier Amador and only 4 years later takes his son to him. The position of a notary in those days was considered quite noble, therefore Leonardo spent his childhood and youth in prosperity and prosperity. The father was married 3 times, had 12 children and lived to be 77 years old. But he, according to Vasari, was an ordinary person, which makes Leonardo's singularity all the more interesting. One way or another, the father still gave good home education son, albeit haphazard, as Leonardo later mentioned in his notes.

The young man's talent manifested itself at an early age. An interesting episode in which Pierre da Vinci asked his son to paint a large wooden shield as a gift to one of the neighbors. Leonardo approached the matter with joy and great responsibility, choosing the image of Medusa the Gorgon for the drawing on the shield. The drawing was made so realistic that the father, upon seeing it, literally reeled in horror. Of course, he could not give such a masterpiece and kept it for himself. Now a copy of this shield by Caravaggio is kept in one of the museums in France. It was probably after this incident that Piero decided to send his son to study in Florence, where Leonardo studied painting under the edification of the famous artist Verrocchio. This is how the period in the life of Leonardo da Vinci began, which received the name Florentine.

Florence at that time was one of the main centers of the intellectual elite of the whole Western Europe... Leonardo, having found himself among such famous artists as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Bellini and many others, stands out for his aloofness and loneliness. It can be clearly seen in his notes that his loneliness is conscious. He believed that “if you are alone, then you completely belong to yourself,” and did not seek to make close acquaintances with anyone. This is partly why he was not a member of the circle of intellectuals of the Florentine ruler Lorenzo Medici. But not only because of this, he could not get into the intellectual environment of that time. One of the reasons was what Leonardo himself was annoyed about - this is a poor knowledge of Latin, which until modern times was considered the main language of science. But another reason was more important - Leonardo was an artist, and at the time of the Renaissance, artists were considered more of artisans or even professional painters fulfilling the order; artists were treated like servants. Not appreciated by the circle of humanist intellectuals, da Vinci's talent amazed Verrocchio. While working in the workshop, the teacher commissioned Leonardo to paint an angel on one of his canvases. The figure of an angel, painted by da Vinci, amazed the teacher so much that, according to Vasari, he never picked up a brush again. The student has surpassed the teacher. Soon Leonardo opens his own workshop.

At this time, Pope Sixtus IV invited the best Tuscan masters to work in the Vatican. Among them were Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Perugino, Philip Lippi, Signorelli and many others, but not Leonardo. It is possible that the underestimated genius experienced some annoyance from what happened and decided to move to Milan. In addition, his engineering and scientific inclinations were already taking possession of him more and more, and Milan at this time was practically the opposite of exquisite Florence - it was an industrial city where many craftsmen, gunsmiths and artisans established strong production. Leonardo asks for patronage from the local business executive Lodovico Sforza, and positions himself primarily not as an artist, but as an engineer, talking in a letter about his own engineering ideas, such as cannons, closed chariots, catapults and ballistae, and mentions his own artistic activities... Sforza takes Leonardo to the court and gives various assignments, both engineering and art-related. One of the tasks was the construction of a monument to the founder of the Sforza dynasty - Francesco Sforza. The statue in the form of a horse with a rider was to become a symbol of the legitimacy and majesty of the family's power, and Leonardo set to work. Work on the monument continued for 16 years. After several unsuccessful casts, the clay horse statue was made, but due to the French invasion of Milan in 1499, it was irretrievably lost. Fortunately, drawings have survived, according to which one can judge the singularity of Leonardo's idea.

The Milanese period increasingly asserts the engineering and artistic talent of Leonardo da Vinci. It was then that his paintings "Lady with an Ermine", "Madonna Litta", "Madonna in the Grotto", "The Last Supper", many anatomical and simple pencil drawings... One of the most famous drawings by Leonardo da Vinci is the Vitruvian Man - the figure of a man in two superimposed positions, inscribed in a circle and a square. The drawing, 34.3 × 24.5 cm, was made in ink and watercolors. The figure of a man shows mathematical proportions human body according to data from the treatises of the Roman architect Vitruvius. Vitruvian man is a kind of symbol of the natural ideality of man, his inner symmetry and mathematical proportion. The drawing, therefore, is at the same time piece of art, and scientific work.

The engineering developments and ideas of da Vinci that have come down to us in his records cannot but amaze. It is amazing how a man at the turn of the XV-XVI centuries could be so much ahead of his time! The blueprints include designs for a rotating bicycle chain, mass-produced machines, various aircraft, machine tools, and more. He developed projects for the improvement of cities, designed sluices, dams, canals, mills, even calculated the cost of these projects, but, unfortunately, no one undertook them. The indefatigable and intensive inventive and engineering activity of da Vinci seemed to be a protest against those circles of intellectuals where he did not get. He proved to himself that he still enters this circle, and does it head and shoulders above the others.

After the invasion of French troops, Leonardo returns to Florence. Here he receives an assignment from Señoria to participate in the painting of the hall of the Grand Council of the Señoria Palace, where Michelangelo was already working at that time. So the two giants of the era began to work together, although without much affection for each other. As Vasari notes, from time to time to look at the work of the masters, the then young Raphael came in. A truly incredible situation! Around the same time, Leonardo wrote his main masterpiece - the world famous "La Gioconda" or "Mona Lisa". The history of this painting attracts art critics from all countries, and the mysterious Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo does not leave the audience indifferent. The most famous work painting in the world has had an incredible impact on the global artistic culture, and Leonardo da Vinci himself does not part with his masterpiece, even after leaving for France. He had three such favorite paintings: "Mona Lisa", "John the Baptist" and "Saint Anna with the Madonna and the Child Christ."

Leonardo again spends some time in Milan in the service of the French king Louis XII, and then in Rome with Pope Leo X. In 1516, da Vinci was invited to the court by the new king of France, Francis I. He received the title of the first royal artist, engineer and architect. but in fact it was just a "decoration" of the court - it was prestigious for the king to have "that very Leonardo" who had already become a legend. Unfortunately, the artist's health deteriorated, his right hand was paralyzed, and it became more and more difficult for him to move without assistance, so he could fulfill his official duties. Then Francis I bought the "Mona Lisa" from Leonardo, which ensured its safety for centuries.

Shortly before his death, the artist moved to the small town of Amboise, on the Loire River. At the age of 67, Leonardo da Vinci was already bedridden. In full consciousness, he writes a will: all his manuscripts and books passed to one of his students Francesco Melzi. May 2, 1519 Leonardo da Vinci quietly passed away.

The phenomenon of a brilliant artist, scientist, and writer still excites the minds of researchers. The personality of Leonardo da Vinci is not included in any human size, the scope of his activities is enormous, and the influence exerted on the whole world culture, incredibly amazing. Leonardo is really inexhaustible, modernity is considering more and more new aspects of his life and work, trying to comprehend the secrets of the "universal man". An asteroid is named after him, many authors use the prototype of Leonardo da Vinci in their works, films and TV series are made in one way or another related to the legacy of the great da Vinci, and much more. He became more than just a historically significant figure - he became an image, a titan and an unattainable ideal.

Leonardo da Vinci defines art as "cosa mentale" - literally: "mind-thing", conventionally: "the essence of the mind." In his opinion, through painting, thought takes on a perfect form.

Self-portrait

OK. 1515; 33x21 cm; sanguine drawing
Royal Library, Turin
***
During the creation of this self-portrait
Leonardo da Vinci
was already over sixty years old

The author of La Gioconda belongs to the second generation of Italian Renaissance artists. In terms of chronology, he is the heir to Masaccio (1401-1428) and the same age as Botticelli (1445-1510), but his work goes beyond the art of the Quattrocento rather than being its logical continuation.

Already the first paintings Leonardo discover the sphere of his interests concerning the depiction of nature. This is, first of all, a formidable element - waves beating against coastal rocks, various atmospheric phenomena, a rapidly changing sky before a thunderstorm and reflections of sunlight after it ...

The artist is very impressionable, nature equally admires him both in its powerful manifestations and in the most insignificant ones - in a drop of water or in a blade of grass. In his opinion, nature is a dynamic phenomenon, it changes due to the constant evolution of all living things. Therefore, Leonardo's gravitation towards naturalism is caused by the desire to demonstrate both explicit and hidden forces and natural phenomena.

Leonardo da Vinci was, perhaps, the only one of the entire brilliant cohort of great painters of the Italian Renaissance, who paid the most attention in his work to the depiction of nature. Leonardo's landscape played the same important role in the compositional space, as well as the characters surrounded or shaded by him.

The famous sfumato, characteristic of the background of some of his paintings, symbolizes secret forces nature - those forces on which human life depends and the existence of which the person himself, due to his imperfection, does not even know. This ignorance is embodied by the characters located by Leonardo on a "smoky" background - more often than not, they are deprived of any kind of illusion about their fate, are submissive to it and therefore can afford ironic smiles ...

The establishment of such a relationship between the represented characters and nature was considered unacceptable by Leonardo's contemporaries. For example, in Botticelli's painting, nature, being a secondary element in relation to the Characters, carries almost no functional load.

Embryo drawing

1510-1513; 30x22 cm; pen drawing
Royal Library, Windsor

The truly invaluable contribution Leonardo da Vinci into the science that studies the structure of the human body - anatomy. Moreover, he was interested in the characteristics of the body, not only from the standpoint of a scientist, but also from the standpoint of an artist who seeks to represent a person on his canvases as accurately as possible, about which he himself has repeatedly written:

„In order for the artist to be able to convey the pose and gestures of a naked person as authentically as possible, he must carefully study the structure of bones and muscles. Only then will he be sure that it is precisely those and not other muscles that are responsible for this or that movement or effort. And only they will he emphasize and make visible, instead of showing them all together, in bulk, as do those who, claiming the title of great artists, present nude figures as solid - almost wooden, and therefore ugly. Completed In a similar way the shapes are more reminiscent of bags of nuts than muscular human bodies ...”

This statement contains an allusion to the work of Pollaiolo (c. 1432-1498), with whom Leonardo more than once discussed the representation of human bodies and the sculpture of which he sarcastically called "bags of nuts" or "bags of turnips" ... On the other hand From this point of view, Leonardo highly appreciated the characters from the paintings of Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), with their refined movements and generalized forms of bodies, reminiscent of harmonious spirals.

Talented human body imaging artist Leonardo da Vinci also considered Verrocchio, although the teacher considered himself defeated by his student - and this recognition does him credit. It is enough to look at The Baptism of Christ to appreciate the difference between Leonardo's impeccably modeled figure of an angel with exquisitely curling curls and the rest of the characters belonging to Verrocchio's brush.

Ambiguity of feelings

Portrait of a musician

OK. 1484; 43x31 cm;
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan
***
Leonardo plays great music.
He even creates his own instrument -
the lute to be played
for Lodovico Sforza

Art Leonardo da Vinci highly appreciated Stendhal, who noted that "Leonardo's style, sublime and melancholic, is marked by a special gift - exceptional expressiveness." Indeed, before Leonardo, the outlines of objects acquired decisive importance, the line reigned in painting (especially in Florentine) - that is why the works of Leonardo's predecessors, and contemporaries, often resemble painted drawings.

Leonardo's discovery was that "light and shadow should not be sharply differentiated, for their boundaries are in most cases vague." The master wrote: "If a line, as well as a mathematical point, are invisible things, then the boundaries of things, being lines, are invisible ... And therefore, you, painter, do not limit things ..." For Leonardo, blurred outlines and sfumato symbolized instability " fluidity " the visible world and the power of time - this "destroyer of things", power over everything.

During the Renaissance there were many brilliant sculptors, painters, musicians, inventors. Leonardo da Vinci stands out strongly against their background. He created musical instruments, he owns many engineering inventions, wrote picturesque canvases, sculptures and more.

His external data is also striking: high growth, angelic appearance and extraordinary strength... Let's get acquainted with the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, short biography will tell his main achievements.

Biography facts

He was born near Florence in the small town of Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a famous and wealthy notary. His mother is an ordinary peasant woman. Since his father had no other children, at the age of 4 he took little Leonardo to him. The boy showed an extraordinary mind and affable character from the very early age and he quickly became a darling in the family.

To understand how the genius of Leonardo da Vinci developed, a short biography can be presented as follows:

1. At the age of 14, he entered Verrocchio's workshop, where he studied drawing and sculpture.
2. In 1480 he moved to Milan, where he founded the Academy of Arts.
3. In 1499 he left Milan and began to move from city to city, where he built defensive structures. In the same period, his famous rivalry with Michelangelo begins.
4. Since 1513 he has been working in Rome. Under Francis I, he became a court sage.

Leonardo died in 1519. As he believed, nothing that he began was completed to the end.

Creative way

The work of Leonardo da Vinci, a brief biography of which was outlined above, can be divided into three stages.

1. Early period. Many works of the great painter were unfinished, such is the "Adoration of the Magi" for the monastery of San Donato. During this period, the paintings "Benois Madonna", "Annunciation" were painted. Despite his young age, the painter has already demonstrated great skill in his paintings.
2. The mature period of Leonardo's work took place in Milan, where he planned to pursue a career as an engineer. Most popular piece, written at this time, was "The Last Supper", at the same time he began work on "Mona Lisa".
3. V late period creativity was created the painting "John the Baptist" and a series of drawings "The Flood".

Painting has always supplemented science for Leonardo da Vinci, as he strove to fix reality.

Inventions

A short biography cannot fully convey the contribution to science of Leonardo da Vinci. However, the most famous and valuable discoveries of the scientist can be noted.

1. He made the greatest contribution to mechanics, this can be seen from many of his drawings. Leonardo da Vinci investigated the fall of the body, the centers of gravity of the pyramids, and more.
2. He invented a car made of wood that was powered by two springs. A brake was provided in the mechanism of the car.
3. He invented a spacesuit, fins and a submarine, as well as a way to dive to depths without using a spacesuit with a special gas mixture.
4. The study of the flight of a dragonfly led to the creation of several variants of wings for humans. The experiments were unsuccessful. However, then the scientist came up with a parachute.
5. He was involved in developments in the military industry. One of his suggestions was chariots with cannons. He came up with a prototype of an battleship and a tank.
6. Leonardo da Vinci made many developments in construction. Arch bridges, drainage machines and cranes are all his inventions.

There is no man in history like Leonardo da Vinci. That is why many consider him an alien from other worlds.

Da Vinci's Five Secrets

Today, many scientists are still puzzling over the legacy left by the great man of a past era. Although it is not worth calling Leonardo da Vinci that, he predicted a lot, and foresaw even more, creating his unique masterpieces and striking with the breadth of knowledge and thought. We offer you five secrets of the great Master, which help to lift the veil of secrecy over his works.

Encryption

The master encrypted a lot so as not to submit ideas open, but to wait a little until humanity “matures, grows up” to them. Equally good with both hands, da Vinci wrote with the left, the smallest type, and even from right to left, and often in a mirror image. Riddles, metaphors, rebuses - this is what is found on every line, in every piece. Never signing his works, the Master left his marks, visible only to an attentive researcher. For example, after many centuries, scientists discovered that by looking closely at his paintings, you can find the symbol of a flying bird. Or the famous "Benois Madonna", found among the itinerant actors who carried the canvas as a home icon.

Sfumato

The idea of ​​dispersion belongs also to the great mystifier. Take a closer look at the canvases, all objects do not reveal clear edges, like in life: a smooth flow of some images into others, blurring, scattering - everything breathes, lives, awakening fantasies and thoughts. By the way, the Master often advised to practice such a vision, peering into water stains, mud rushes or ash heaps. Often he deliberately fumigated workrooms with smoke in order to see in the clubs what was hidden beyond the bounds of reasonable sight.

Look at the famous painting - the smile of "Mona Lisa" from different angles, sometimes gentle, sometimes a little arrogant and even predatory. The knowledge gained through the study of many sciences gave the Master the opportunity to invent perfect mechanisms that are becoming available only now. For example, this is the effect of wave propagation, the penetrating power of light, oscillatory motion ... yes, there is a lot of things that still have to be disassembled, not even by us, but by our descendants.

Analogies

Analogies are the main thing in all the works of the Master. The advantage over accuracy, when the third follows from two conclusions of the mind, is the inevitability of any analogy. And in the quirkiness and drawing absolutely mind-blowing parallels to da Vinci, there is still no equal. One way or another, all of his works have some ideas that do not fit together: famous illustration The "golden ratio" is one of them. With the limbs apart and apart, a person fits into a circle, with closed in a square, and slightly raising his arms into a cross. It was such a kind of "mill" that gave the Florentine magician the idea of ​​creating churches, where the altar is placed exactly in the middle, and the worshipers stand in a circle. By the way, the engineers liked the same idea - this is how the ball bearing appeared.

Counterpost

The definition means the opposition of opposites and the creation of a certain type of movement. An example is the sculptural image of a huge horse in Corte Vecchio. There, the legs of the animal are located precisely in the counterpost style, forming a visual understanding of the movement.

Incompleteness

This is perhaps one of the Master's favorite "tricks". None of his works are of course. To finish is to kill, and da Vinci loved his every brainchild. Slow and meticulous, the hoaxer of all time could take a couple of brush strokes and go to the valleys of Lombardy to improve the landscapes there, switch to creating another masterpiece or something else. Many works were spoiled by time, fire or water, but each of the creations, at least something meaningful, was and is an "unfinished". By the way, it is interesting that even after the damage, Leonardo da Vinci never corrected his paintings. Having created his own paint, the artist even deliberately left the "unfinished window", believing that life itself will make the necessary adjustments.

What was art before Leonardo da Vinci? Born among the rich, it fully reflected their interests, their worldview, their views on people, on the world. The works of art were based on religious ideas and themes: the affirmation of those views on the world that the church taught, the depiction of subjects from sacred history, instilling in people a sense of reverence, admiration for the "divine" and the consciousness of their own insignificance. The dominant theme also determined the form. Naturally, the depiction of the "saints" was very far from the depictions of real living people, therefore, schemes, artificiality, and static prevailed in art. The people in these paintings were a kind of caricatures of living people, the landscape is fantastic, the colors are pale and inexpressive. True, even before Leonardo, his predecessors, including his teacher Andrea Verrocchio, were no longer satisfied with the template and tried to create new images. They already began to search for new methods of image, began to study the laws of perspective, thought a lot about the problems of achieving expressiveness of the image.

However, these searches for the new did not give great results, primarily because these artists did not have a sufficiently clear idea of ​​the essence and tasks of art and knowledge of the laws of painting. That is why they fell now again into schematism, now into naturalism, which is just as dangerous for true art, copying individual phenomena of reality. The significance of the revolution made by Leonardo da Vinci in art, and in particular in painting, is determined primarily by the fact that he was the first who clearly, clearly and definitely established the essence and tasks of art. Art should be deeply vital, realistic. It must come from a deep, thorough study of reality, nature. It must be deeply truthful, must depict reality as it is, without any far-fetched or falsehood. Reality, nature is beautiful in itself and does not need any embellishment. The artist must carefully study nature, but not for blind imitation of it, not for simple copying of it, but in order, having understood the laws of nature, the laws of reality, to create works; strictly complying with these laws. Create new values, values the real world- this is the purpose of art. This explains Leonardo's desire to link art and science. Instead of simple, casual observation, he considered it necessary to study the subject systematically, persistently. It is known that Leonardo never parted with the album and entered into it drawings and sketches.

They say that he loved to walk the streets, squares, markets, noting everything interesting - the postures of people, their faces, their expressions. Leonardo's second requirement for painting is the requirement for the truthfulness of the image, its vitality. The artist should strive for the most accurate reproduction of reality in all its wealth. In the center of the world there is a living, thinking, feeling person. He must be portrayed in all the richness of his feelings, experiences and actions. For this, it was Leonardo who studied human anatomy and physiology, for this, as they say, he gathered peasants he knew in his workshop and, treating them, told them funny stories to see how people laugh, how the same event causes people have different experiences. If before Leonardo there was no real person in painting, now he has become dominant in the art of the Renaissance. Hundreds of Leonardo's drawings give a gigantic gallery of types of people, their faces, parts of their bodies. A person in all the diversity of his feelings and actions is the task artistic image... And this is the strength and charm of Leonardo's painting. Forced by the conditions of the time to paint pictures mainly on religious subjects, for his customers were the church, feudal lords and wealthy merchants, Leonardo imperiously subordinates these traditional subjects to his genius and creates works of universal human significance. The Madonnas drawn by Leonardo are primarily an image of one of the deeply human feelings - the feeling of motherhood, the mother's boundless love for the baby, admiration and admiration for him. All his Madonnas are young, blooming, full of life women, all babies in his paintings - healthy, chubby, playful boys, in whom there is not an ounce of "holiness".

His Apostles in The Last Supper are living people of different ages, social status, of a different nature; in appearance they are Milanese artisans, peasants, and intellectuals. Striving for the truth, the artist must be able to generalize the individual he found, must create the typical. Therefore, even when painting portraits of certain, historically we famous people, as, for example, Mona Lisa Gioconda - the wife of a ruined aristocrat, Florentine merchant Francesco del Gioconda, Leonardo gives in them, along with individual portrait features, typical, common to many people. That is why the portraits written by him survived the people depicted on them for many centuries. Leonardo was the first who not only carefully and carefully studied the laws of painting, but also formulated them. He deeply, like no one before him, studied the laws of perspective, the placement of light and shadow. All this was necessary for him to achieve the highest expressiveness of the picture, in order, as he said, "to be equal to nature." For the first time, it was in the works of Leonardo that the picture as such lost its static character and became a window into the world. When you look at his picture, the feeling of being drawn, enclosed in a frame, is lost and it seems that you are looking through an open window that reveals to the viewer something new, unseen by him. Demanding the expressiveness of the painting, Leonardo resolutely opposed the formal play of colors, against the enthusiasm for form at the expense of content, against what so clearly characterizes decadent art.

For Leonardo, form is only a shell of the idea that the artist must convey to the viewer. Leonardo pays a lot of attention to the problems of painting composition, the problems of placing figures, individual details. Hence the composition, so favorite by him, of placing figures in a triangle - the simplest geometric harmonic figure - a composition that allows the viewer to embrace the whole picture as a whole. Expressiveness, truthfulness, accessibility - these are the laws of the present, truly folk art, formulated by Leonardo da Vinci, the laws that he himself embodied in his works of genius. Already in his first major painting "Madonna with a Flower" Leonardo showed in practice what the principles of art he professed mean. First of all, its composition is striking in this picture, the distribution of all the elements of the picture, which make up a single whole, is surprisingly harmonious. The image of a young mother with a cheerful baby in her arms is deeply realistic. The deep blue of the Italian sky directly felt in the window cut is incredibly skillfully conveyed. Already in this picture, Leonardo demonstrated the principle of his art - realism, the depiction of a person in the deepest accordance with his true nature, the image of a non-abstract scheme, which was taught and what medieval ascetic art was doing, namely a living, feeling person.

These principles are even more vividly expressed in Leonardo's second large painting "The Adoration of the Magi" in 1481, in which it is not the religious plot that is significant, but the masterful depiction of people, each of whom has his own, individual person, his posture, expresses his feeling and mood. The truth of life is the law of Leonardo's painting. The most complete disclosure of a person's inner life is its goal. In The Last Supper, the composition is brought to perfection: despite the large number of figures - 13, their placement is strictly calculated so that all of them as a whole represent a kind of unity, full of great inner content. The picture is very dynamic: some terrible news communicated by Jesus struck his disciples, each of them reacts to it in his own way, hence the huge variety of expressions of inner feelings on the faces of the apostles. Compositional excellence is complemented by an unusually skillful use of colors, the harmony of light and shadow. The expressiveness, expression of the picture reaches its perfection due to the extraordinary variety of not only facial expressions, but the position of each of the twenty-six hands painted in the picture.

This record of Leonardo himself tells us about the careful preliminary work that he carried out before painting the picture. Everything is thought out in it to the smallest detail: poses, facial expressions; even details such as an overturned bowl or knife; all this in its sum makes up a single whole. The richness of colors in this picture is combined with a subtle use of chiaroscuro, which emphasizes the significance of the event depicted in the picture. The subtlety of perspective, the transfer of air, color makes this picture a masterpiece of world art. Leonardo successfully solved many of the problems facing artists at that time, and opened the way for the further development of art. By the power of his genius, Leonardo overcame the medieval traditions weighing on art, broke them and threw them away; he managed to expand the narrow framework with which the then ruling clique of churchmen limited the artist's creative power, and showed instead of the hackneyed gospel stencil scene a huge, clean human drama, show living people with their passions, feelings, experiences. And in this picture again manifested the great, life-affirming optimism of the artist and thinker Leonardo.

Over the years of his wanderings, Leonardo painted many more paintings that received well-deserved world fame and recognition. In "La Gioconda" the image is deeply vital and typical. It is this deep vitality, unusually relief of facial features, individual details, costume, combined with a masterfully painted landscape that gives this picture a special expressiveness. Everything in her - from a mysterious half-smile playing on her face to calmly folded hands - speaks of a great inner content, of a great mental life this woman. Leonardo's desire to convey the inner world in external manifestations mental movements expressed here especially fully. An interesting painting by Leonardo "The Battle of Anghiari", depicting the battle of cavalry and infantry. As in his other paintings, Leonardo strove here to show a variety of faces, figures and poses. Dozens of people depicted by the artist create an integral impression of the picture precisely because they are all subordinated to a single idea underlying it. It was an aspiration to show the rise of all the forces of a person in battle, the tension of all his feelings, gathered together to achieve victory.