Great italian artist and Renaissance inventor Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the small village of Anchiano LU, located near the town of Vinci (Vinci FI). He was the illegitimate son of a wealthy notary, Piero da Vinci, and a beautiful villager, Katarina. Shortly after this event, the notary married a girl of noble birth. They had no children, and Piero and his wife took a three-year-old child to their place.

Birth of an artist

The short period of childhood in the village is over. The notary Piero moved to Florence, where he apprenticed his son to Andrea del Veroccio, a famous Tuscan master. There, in addition to painting and sculpture, the future artist had the opportunity to learn the basics of mathematics and mechanics, anatomy, work with metals and plaster, and methods of leather dressing. The young man eagerly absorbed knowledge and later widely used it in his activities.

An interesting creative biography of the maestro belongs to the pen of his contemporary Giorgio Vasari. In Vasari's book "The Life of Leonardo" there is a brief story about how Andrea Verrocchio (Andrea del Verrocchio) attracted a student to fulfill the order "Baptism of Christ" (Battesimo di Cristo). The angel, painted by Leonardo, so clearly demonstrated his superiority over the teacher that the latter threw away the brush in annoyance and never painted again.

The qualification of the master was awarded to him by the guild of St. Luke. Leonardo da Vinci spent the next year of his life in Florence. His first mature picture– “The Adoration of the Magi” (Adorazione dei Magi), made to order for the monastery of San Donato.

Milan period (1482 - 1499)

Leonardo came to Milan as a messenger of peace from Lorenzo Medici(Lorenzo di Medici) to Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Moro. Here his work took a new direction. He was enrolled in the court staff, first as an engineer and only later as an artist.

The Duke of Milan, a cruel and narrow-minded man, was little interested in the creative component of Leonardo's personality. The ducal indifference worried the master even less. Interests converged in one. Moreau needed engineering devices for warfare and mechanical structures for the amusement of the court. Leonardo understood this like no one else. His mind did not doze, the master was sure that the possibilities of a person are endless. His ideas were close to the humanists of modern times, but largely incomprehensible to contemporaries.

Two important works belong to the same period - (Il Cenacolo) for the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie (Chiesa e Convento Domenicano di Santa Maria delle Grazie) and the painting "Lady with an Ermine" (Dama con l'ermellino).

The second is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, mistress of Duke Sforza. The biography of this woman is unusual. One of the most beautiful and learned ladies of the Renaissance, she was simple and kind, able to get along with people. An affair with a duke saved one of her brothers from prison. She had the most tender relationship with Leonardo, but, according to contemporaries and the opinion of most researchers, their brief relationship remained platonic.

A more common (and also not confirmed) version of the intimate relationship of the master with the students of Francesco Melzi (Francesco Melzi) and Salai (Salai). The artist preferred to keep the details of his personal life a deep secret.

Moreau ordered the master equestrian statue Francesco Sforza. The necessary sketches were made and a clay model of the future monument was made. Further work was hampered by the French invasion of Milan. The artist left for Florence. Here he will return, but to another master - the French king Louis XII (Louis XII).

Again in Florence (1499 - 1506)

The return to Florence was marked by the entry into the service of the Duke of Cesare Borgia (Cesare Borgia) and the creation of the most famous canvas - "La Gioconda" (Gioconda). The new work involved frequent trips, the master traveled around Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria with various assignments. His main mission was reconnaissance and preparation of the area for hostilities by Cesare, who planned to subjugate the Papal States. Cesare Borgia was considered the greatest villain of the Christian world, but Leonardo admired his tenacity and remarkable talent as a commander. He argued that the Duke's vices were balanced by "equally great virtues". ambitious plans the great adventurer did not come true. Master in 1506 returned to Milan.

Later years (1506 - 1519)

The second Milan period lasted until 1512. The Maestro studied the structure human eye, worked on the monument to Giacomo Trivulzio (Gian Giacomo Trivulzio) and his own self-portrait. In 1512 the artist moved to Rome. Giovanni di Medici, son, was elected pope under the name of Leo X (Leo X). The pope's brother, Duke Giuliano di Medici, highly appreciated the work of his compatriot. After his death, the master accepted the invitation of King Francis I (François I) and left for France in 1516.

Francis proved to be the most generous and grateful patron. The maestro settled in the picturesque castle of Clos Lucé (Le Clos Lucé) in Touraine, where he had every opportunity to do what he was interested in. By royal commission, he designed a lion, from whose chest a bouquet of lilies opened. French period was the happiest in his life. The king appointed his engineer an annual annuity of 1000 ecu and donated land with vineyards, ensuring a peaceful old age. The life of the maestro ended in 1519. He bequeathed his notes, instruments and estates to his students.

Paintings

Inventions and works

Most of the master's inventions were not created during his lifetime, remaining only in notes and drawings. An airplane, a bicycle, a parachute, a tank… He had a dream of flying, the scientist believed that a person can and should fly. Studied bird behavior and sketched wings different forms. His design for a two-lens telescope is surprisingly accurate, and his diaries include a brief note about the possibility of "seeing the Moon big."

As a military engineer, he was always in demand, the light bridges he invented and the wheel lock for the pistol were used everywhere. He dealt with the problems of urban planning and land reclamation, in 1509 he built the St. Christopher, as well as the Martezana irrigation canal. Duke Moreau rejected his "ideal city" project. A few centuries later, London was built on this project. In Norway there is a bridge built according to his drawing. In France, already being an old man, he designed a canal between the Loire and Saone.

Leonardo's diaries are written in easy, lively language and are interesting to read. His fables, parables and aphorisms speak of the versatility of a great mind.

The secret of genius

There were plenty of secrets in the life of the titan of the Renaissance. The main one opened relatively recently. But did it open? In 1950, a list of the Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion (Prieuré de Sion), a secret organization created in 1090 in Jerusalem, was published. According to the list, Leonardo da Vinci was the ninth of the Grand Masters of the Priory. His predecessor in this amazing post was Sandro Botticelli, and his successor was Constable Charles de Bourbon (Charles III de Bourbon). The main goal of the organization was to restore the Merovingian dynasty to the throne of France. The Priory considered the offspring of this kind to be the descendants of Jesus Christ.

The very existence of such an organization raises doubts among most historians. But such doubts could have been sown by members of the Priory who wished to continue their activities in secret.

If we accept this version as the truth, the master's habit of complete independence and the strange attraction to France for a Florentine become clear. Even Leonardo's writing style - left hand and right to left - can be interpreted as an imitation of Hebrew writing. This seems unlikely, but the scale of his personality allows us to make the most daring assumptions.

Stories about the Priory arouse the distrust of scientists, but enrich artistic creativity. The most striking example is the book by Dan Brown (Dan Brown) "The Da Vinci Code" (Da Vinci Code) and the film of the same name.

• At the age of 24, together with three Florentine youths was accused of sodomy. The company was acquitted for lack of evidence.
• Maestro was a vegetarian. People who consume animal food, he called "walking cemeteries."
• He shocked his contemporaries by the habit of carefully examining and drawing in detail the hanged. He considered the study of the structure of the human body to be the most important of his studies.
• It is believed that the maestro developed for Cesare Borgia tasteless and odorless poisons and wiretapping devices made of glass tubes.
• Television mini-series "The Life of Leonardo da Vinci"(La vita di Leonardo da Vinci) shot by Renato Castellani, received the Golden Globe Award.
• named after Leonardo da Vinci and is decorated with a huge statue depicting a master with a model helicopter in his hands.

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There are people who seemed to be ahead of their time, they came from the future. As a rule, they are poorly understood by contemporaries, they look like eccentrics among the people around them. But time passes, and humanity realizes - a harbinger of the future. In this article we will talk about where Leonardo da Vinci was born, what he is known for, what legacy he left us.

Who is Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci is known to the world, first of all, as an artist, whose brush belongs to the legendary "La Gioconda". People who are a little more in-depth in the topic will also name his other world-famous masterpieces: “ The Last Supper”, “Lady with an Ermine” ... In fact, being an unsurpassed artist, he left to posterity not so many of his paintings.

And this happened not because Leonardo was lazy. He was just a very versatile person. In addition to painting, he devoted a lot of time to the study of anatomy, worked on sculptures, and was deeply interested in architecture. For example, a bridge built according to the project of an Italian is still functioning in Norway. But he calculated and drew this project more than five centuries ago!

But Leonardo da Vinci himself considered himself a scientist, engineer and thinker. We have received a huge number of his notes and drawings, indicating that this man was ahead of his time for a long time.

In fairness, it must be said that not all of his inventions belong exclusively to Leonardo himself. It seems that he often used other people's guesses as well. His merit lies in the fact that he was able to notice an interesting idea in time, hone it, and translate it into drawings. Here is just a short list of those ideas and mechanisms that he was able to describe or make graphic sketches of their designs:

• an aircraft resembling a helicopter;
• self-propelled cart (prototype of a car);
• a war machine that protects the soldiers inside it (an analogue of a modern tank);
• parachute;
• crossbow (the drawing is provided with detailed calculations);
• "quick-firing machine" (the idea of ​​a modern automatic weapon);
• spotlight;
• telescope;
• scuba diving apparatus.

The most interesting thing is that the vast majority of the ideas of this man did not receive practical application during his lifetime. Moreover, his developments and calculations were considered ridiculous, stupid, they have been gathering dust for hundreds of years in libraries and book collections. But when their time came, it turned out that often only the lack of necessary materials and manufacturing technologies prevented them from finding their real life.

But we began our story by mentioning the birthplace of a genius. He was born near Florence, in the small village of Anchiano, actually a suburb of a town called Vinci. Actually, he then gave the genius the name now known, because "da Vinci" can be translated as "originally from Vinci." The real name of the boy sounded like "Leonardo di Sir Piero da Vinci" (his father's name was Piero). Date of birth - April 15, 1452.

Piero was a notary and tried to involve his son in office work, but he did not have any interest in him. As a teenager, Leonardo was a student of the famous artist Andrea del Verrocchio, from Florence. The boy turned out to be extraordinarily talented, so much so that after a few years the teacher realized that the student had surpassed him.

Already in those years, the young artist paid special attention to human anatomy. He was the first of the medieval painters who began to carefully draw the human body, returning to the forgotten ancient traditions. Looking ahead, it should be said that Leonardo left behind the most valuable records on the anatomy of the human body with the most accurate sketches, according to which physicians have been trained for several centuries.

In 1476, the young man ended up in Milan, where he opened his own painting workshop. After another 6 years, he ended up at the court of the ruler of Milan, where, in addition to painting, he held the position of organizer of holidays. He made masks and costumes, created scenery, which made it possible to combine painting with engineering and architectural activities. At court, he spent about 13 years, gaining, among other things, the glory of a skilled culinary specialist!

IN last years The life of Leonardo da Vinci ended up in France, at the court of King Francis I. The monarch settled his guest in the Clos Luce castle, near Amboise, the royal residence. This happened in 1516. He was entrusted with the position of chief royal engineer and architect, and was given a huge salary for those times. At the end of his life, this man's dream came true - to completely surrender to his beloved business, without thinking about a piece of bread.

At this time, he completely stopped painting, took up architectural and engineering activities. But a year later his health was greatly shaken, his right hand refused to work. He died in April 1519, in the same Clos Luce, among his students and his manuscripts. The grave of the painter and is still located in the castle of Amboise.

Leonardo da Vinci is a scientist, engineer and thinker. But he is known to many as an artist, the author of such paintings as "Mona Lisa", "John the Baptist" and "The Last Supper". Thirteen works of the artist have been preserved, eight more are attributed to his authorship, several works have been lost. Of course, his contribution to art is significant: he was the first to blur the contours of the drawing, showed what could be scattered light and haze. The art of the Italian Renaissance received an impetus in its development and a galaxy of brilliant artists, including Michelangelo and Raphael.

Leonardo lived a long life at court and had influential patrons. However, he called himself a scientist. Although throughout his life he was represented in different ways, even as a musician. After his death, he left paintings and manuscripts to two of his students.

He never had a family, and only minor records of his novels have been preserved in history. And scandalous: with their students and sometimes with models. In general, there have always been many secrets and rumors around his name. And even five hundred years later, humanity continues to unravel secret signs, which the seer hid not only in his paintings, but also in manuscripts devoted to scientific and research works.

firstborn

He was born on Great love and illegal communication in 1452 near Florence. His father Piero was from a noble family, and his mother Katerina was a peasant. At that time, such a misalliance could not exist. The father soon found his equal. The couple had no children, so at the age of three, Leonardo was taken by his father, deciding that he could give the child a good upbringing and education.

Ten years later, the stepmother died, and a year later, 14-year-old Leonardo left his father's house to study science and work as an apprentice with Andrea del Verrocchio. He had a famous workshop in Florence, where he completed commissions for sculpture and, rarely, for painting, for the house of the ruling Medici clan.

Historians do not exclude that for the bronze sculpture David was posed for him by his student Leonardo: curls, head held high and the look of a winner. Anatomy, modeling of the human body was interesting to Leonardo from then until the end of his life. Later, he will devote more than one of his works to this direction, creating the most famous drawing “Vitruvian Man” to illustrate the book of the scientist-encyclopedist Vitruvius. Ideal proportions - that's what Leonardo was looking for, having become infected with the idea of ​​​​his brilliant teacher. His sculptures still make up the "golden fund" of the Renaissance.

In an independent life, students were released after six years. While he was studying, his father found a new stepmother for his first child. In total, Piero had four marriages and a dozen children, of which only his illegitimate son became one of the greatest minds. Piero died at the age of 77, when his son had already crossed the half-century mark, and he had already created the Mona Lisa.

He did not know anything about the fate of his mother for forty long years, but many researchers of the life of Leonardo da Vinci are inclined to assert that he tried to embody her image more than once on his canvases. The fact that she was a beauty, abandoned by her beloved and given in marriage to an unloved one - there is information about this. There is also evidence that she tried to see her son, came and watched him walk for a long time. Leonardo found out that Katerina was his mother as an adult.

At the age of 20, he qualified as a master. By this time, he managed to work on the "Annunciation" with other students and fulfill the teacher's assignment to write an angel for a large-scale canvas "The Baptism of Christ", which became a stepping stone to great art. Such assistance was common practice. A talented student completed the order, but the teacher was shocked to such an extent that he recognized the superiority of Leonardo and threw the brush into the far corner for the rest of his days.

Universal Man

Leonardo could write for hours without stopping for food, rest or other business. This is how his disciple remembered the master, who will accompany him to the end. Francesco Melzi will also become his heir. They will meet when he is 15 and Leonardo is 26 years old. At this time, he opened his own workshop and soon received a large order from the monks. The painting "The Adoration of the Magi" remained unfinished, but in it the author allegedly portrayed himself. To the right, in the corner, with his head turned, stands a curly-haired young man. He does not look at the center, where Mary is sitting with the baby, and where the eyes of all the depicted people are turned, as if the only one sees something in the distance. He began to write it in 1481, but soon left for Milan and never returned to it.

In the Vatican, another work of this year - also unfinished: "Saint Jerome", which suffered a sad fate. After the death of the painter, it was cut in half, and the lower part was used as a tabletop. One of the cardinals discovered it in a shop quite by accident after 150 years, and the Pope bought it for 2.5 million francs.

Leonardo was distracted from these works by another order: Lorenzo Medici himself, the head of the Florentine Republic, an art connoisseur and philanthropist, asked him to go to Milan, allegedly on a peacekeeping mission. In those days, the regions of Italy were in conflict, the troubled Venice was to blame.

Knowing the love of Duke Lodovik Moreau for music, Leonardo made him a lyre as a gift, the lower deck of which was decorated with a silver shield in the shape of a horse's head. He himself performed a cantata on it, it was Leonardo's favorite instrument, on which he played virtuoso. The artistic addition was not only decoration, it also enhanced the sound. The cantata, performed by the Florentine, extolled the duke and the Sforza dynasty, and most of all the regent Moro. It also marked the beginning of friendship between the nobility and Leonardo. It is known that he painted portraits of both favorites of the duke: Cecilia is depicted in the painting “Lady with an Ermine” (this animal is on the coat of arms of Sforza), and Lucretia posed for him for the portrait of “Beautiful Ferroniera”. By the way, the first portrait is kept in Poland - the only one of the four portraits of women written by da Vinci.

At the same time, work began on the order of the duke to create a monument to Sforza on horseback. The original clay version was damaged when the French captured Milan, and the rulers had to leave it. So that's how it came to the bronze performance.

The Milan period for the 30-year-old Leonardo was fruitful. He was very good-looking, witty, interesting, so it is not surprising that historians attribute to him an affair with one of the duke's mistresses. Whether he was Platonic or quite real - this is another secret of the great da Vinci, about whose personal life there is practically no documentary data. Some considered him a homosexual, but many considered him a virgin.

On that first trip to Milan, Leonardo brought with him not only the lyre, but also a letter offering military services. He writes that he owns several unique recipes against enemies. For example, he knows how to sink a ship and build spinguards - tools for destroying walls. Engineering talent was to the taste and Moreau enrolled him in the staff of ducal engineers. Leonardo zealously set to work: he began to strengthen and decorate the facade of the castle, design passages and a door that closes with a counterweight.

Drawings have been preserved, where the architectural and engineering thought of Leonard speaks of an excellent knowledge of fortification, his advanced ideas in the field of defense.

In addition to these concerns, he was involved in the construction of the Milan Cathedral, around which there were confrontations between German and Italian masters. Sketches from that time show how tenaciously da Vinci worked to solve the problem of placing domes. He even managed to get a fee for the project, but another Florentine architect continued the centuries-old construction of the Gothic Duomo.

Nevertheless, among the drawings left by Leonardo, there are several dedicated to the architecture of churches and cathedrals, sketches for strengthening foundations and the stability of decorative elements. And at the request of the duke, he began to write a "Treatise on Painting" in order to draw a line under their dispute - which is more important of all the arts.

But this work has become much wider, although like his other projects. In total, he wrote thirteen works about art. He treated him with exact scientific approach: the same observations, studies, experiments. He read and studied a lot in order to bring something new to the technique of painting.

He paints "Madonna in the Grotto" and "Portrait of a Musician", starts work on the fresco "The Last Supper". This large-scale work will be with him for almost three years. He will finish it by the age of 46. In total, he will spend seventeen years at the court of the Duke of Milan, occasionally leaving him on business to other cities.

In parallel, he conducts engineering activities. Studies, drawings and drawings dedicated to aviation appear in his manuscripts. He invented a mechanism resembling a helicopter and a prototype of the future modern parachute.

He was not in Florence for a long time. He returned home following his fame. But everything changed here, Lorenzo Medici left, the new rulers were far from art, he did not receive large orders.

The only significant proposal from representatives of the church was the painting "Saint Anna with the Madonna and Child", on which he will work for 10 years. He also proposed to the authorities the project of the Florence-Pisa canal, but the rulers of these cities were at enmity all the time, and Leonardo's engineering talent was out of work.

But in Romagna, a region of Italy, where the new ruler, the young Duke Cesare Borgia, tried to unite small feudal lands into one state, his knowledge of science came in handy. He gladly accepted the Duke's invitation. The task is to connect the town of Cesena with a canal to the Adriatic port. However, life there was very hectic due to military conflicts and assassination attempts on the duke. Leonardo left the project and left for Constantinople to build a bridge.

He wrote to the Turkish authorities, offering his various services, and now he received an invitation. The Turkish story also turned out to be short: he left his calculations and went to Florence, where they nevertheless decided to lay a canal. The hydraulic structure from Florence to Pisa is described in detail in the Codex Atlanticus. He skillfully approaches trifles, calculations, studies the structure of the earth and thinks about strengthening.

But painting does not give up. This time, he reflected the horrors of the war in the canvas “Battle of Anghiari”. The fresco has not survived.

The creation of his most mysterious work belongs to this period: the portrait of Mona Lisa. Until now, it remains unknown who this woman is and what her secret is. With this work, he goes to Florence, and only after a while paints the background of the picture. The artist never parted with her, and there are many versions of such care, in general, not characteristic of Leonardo.

The next seven years, from the summer of 1506, he will spend in Milan at the invitation of the French governor. The city is under his control, the once powerful Sforza clan was partially destroyed, someone survived, fleeing. During this period, his father dies, business calls to go to Florence, where several unpleasant months await him. The funeral is overshadowed by squabbles in the family, due to the lack of a will. The division of property took place behind the scenes between stepbrothers and sisters who do not take Leonardo into account in this case. The eldest son, and even the illegitimate one, was not part of their plans. Soon uncle Francesco also died, leaving both a will and a share of the inheritance for his nephew. The brothers went to extreme lengths to forge the document. So there was no trial. By the way, he won the process, and there was something to fight for: his father owned several land plots, capital and real estate.

But for a long time he did not harbor a grudge against the brothers: before his death, he left them his savings. He did not consider money to be something valuable, unlike paintings and manuscripts - this is unconditional wealth, and the family did not get it.

In 1509, he set about building a lock that would protect Milan from floods. But it was not completed, citing a lack of funding.

Many useful engineering works remained only on paper, however, as well as a dozen sculptures not embodied in marble and bronze. The last one remained in the form of sketches major project sculpture, on which Leonardo worked at the age of 60: a statue of Marshal Trivulzio on horseback. This time, circumstances prevented: Milan was captured by the French, who held power in the city for more than a year. The return of the Sforza did not bode well for da Vinci, he fell into disgrace as a man who was in the service of the French. Therefore, he was glad to be invited to Rome, where he came to power new dad from the Medici family, who always favored genius. But even there they put spokes in the wheels. Leonardo left a note about how he was not allowed to conduct anatomical research, which he has been passionate about for the past few years. Denunciations flowed to his address that he was working with corpses, they saw this as not a healthy interest. Meanwhile, he left behind research, having studied in detail the structure of all the muscles of the human body, which was in demand not only by sculptors, but also by physicians.

The Louvre also has the last artwork master - "John the Baptist", written by him in Rome. He hoped to get a job painting the Sistine Chapel, but it was given to younger colleagues. Michelangelo, Raphael and many other talented artists were already breathing in the back of the elderly creator.

Last shelter

When the king of France offered tempting conditions for activity and life, Leonardo immediately agreed. At the age of 63, health was fooling around, but no one was waiting at home. With his student, with whom he did not part for almost 30 years, he set off on his last journey.

They accepted him with honors, gave him the title of "the first painter and architect" under the king. They provided a mansion in the castle, an income of seven hundred gold crowns a year. From the bedroom window, he saw the amazing castle of the patron and made a drawing. Tourists can see him among some things, the environment in which the creator died.

His hand was not moving well; for the last year he practically did not get out of bed. He died at the age of 68 in a calm atmosphere, in the care and attention of his students.

His heir, Francesco Melzi, kept paintings and a mountain of manuscripts for the most different topics of which only a third survived.

Their names are like a sign of quality. They are familiar even to those who are infinitely far from the world of art. Each of them was a special phenomenon of its time.

Someone has the role of a discoverer, someone beckons with their mystery, someone surprises with realism - they are so different, but unique.

These artists have become a symbol of the era, country, style.

Leonardo da Vinci. great and mighty

Leonardo da Vinci. Self-portrait. 1512 Royal Library in Turin, Italy

The works of this artist, inventor, musician, anatomist and, in general, the “universal man” still amaze us.

Thanks to his paintings, world painting has reached a new qualitative level. He moved towards realism, comprehending the laws of perspective and understanding the anatomical structure of a person.

Leonardo da Vinci. Vitruvian Man. 1490 Accademia Gallery, Venice

He depicted ideal proportions in the drawing “Vitruvian Man”. Today it is considered both an artistic masterpiece and a scientific work.

The most recognizable work of genius -

Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa. 1503-1519

Here we can see the main achievement of Leonardo in painting. Sfumato, that is, a blurred line and superimposed shadows in the form of haze. Hence such a living image. And the feeling that the Mona Lisa is about to speak.

Today, the name of the mysterious Mona Lisa is brutally covered in caricatures and Internet memes. But that didn't make her any less beautiful.

Also read about the recently found masterpiece of the master in the article.

Hieronymus Bosch. Mysterious and mysterious

Jacques le Bouc. Portrait of Hieronymus Bosch. 1550

Half-humans, half-mutants, huge birds and fish, unprecedented plants and crowds of naked sinners... All this is mixed and woven into multi-figured compositions.

Hieronymus Bosch very recognizable. And his most famous work is the triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights".

Hieronymus Bosch. The Garden of Earthly Delights. Fragment. 1505-1510 , Moscow

There is no other artist who uses so many details to express ideas. What ideas? There is no consensus on this matter. Dissertations and books were devoted to Bosch, they were looking for interpretations of his characters, but they did not come to any one opinion.

At the Garden of Earthly Delights, the right wing is dedicated to Hell. Here the master set as his goal to frighten both the peasant and the educated contemporary with depressing visions that await after death. Well... Bosch succeeded. Even we are a bit uncomfortable...

Hieronymus Bosch. The Garden of Earthly Delights. Right leaf triptych "Hell". 1505-1510 Prado Museum, Madrid.

But Bosch has evolved over the course of his career. And by the end of his life, multi-figured, large-scale works were replaced by a very close approximation to the heroes. So they barely fit into the frame. Such is the work of Carrying the Cross.

Hieronymus Bosch. Carrying the cross. 1515-1516 Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium. wga.hu

Regardless of whether Bosch considers his characters from afar or close, his message is the same. Show human vices. And reach out to us. Help us save our souls.

Raphael. Subtle and inspirational

Raphael. Self-portrait. 1506 Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

Most famous representative strikes with harmonious compositions and lyricism. Write beautiful people not as difficult as correctly placing them on the canvas. Here in this Rafael was a virtuoso.

Perhaps not a single master in the world influenced his colleagues as much as Raphael did. His writing style will be mercilessly exploited. Its heroes will wander from one century to another. And lose their relevance only at the beginning of the 20th century. In the age of modernism and avant-garde.

Remembering Raphael, we first of all think of his beautiful Madonnas. During his short life (38 years), he created 20 paintings with her image. And it never happened again.

Raphael. Sistine Madonna. 1513 Old Masters Gallery, Dresden, Germany

Rembrandt. Real and poetic

Rembrandt. Self-portrait at the age of 63. 1669 National Gallery of London

Rembrandt portrayed the world as it was. Without embellishments and varnishes. But he did it in a very emotional way.

On the canvases of Rembrandt - twilight, from which, illuminated by golden light, figures protrude. Beautiful in their naturalness. These are the heroes of his painting “The Jewish Bride”.

Rembrandt. Jewish bride. 1662 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The fate of the greatest Dutch painter is like a springboard - ascend from obscurity to wealth and popularity, only to fall down and die in poverty.

He was not understood by his contemporaries. Who preferred beautiful everyday scenes with cute, carefully written details. Rembrandt wrote human feelings and experiences that were not at all fashionable.

Rembrandt. Return prodigal son. 1668 State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg. Arthistory.ru

It is a great miracle that the most notable works, such as The Return of the Prodigal Son, are in Russia, where you can come to admire, understand, feel.

Goya. Deep and bold

Vicente Lopez Portana. Portrait of Francisco Goya. 1819 Prado Museum, Madrid.

Goya began his career with youthful ardor and idealism. He even became a court painter at the Spanish court. But soon he was fed up with life, seeing the greed of the world, stupidity, hypocrisy.

Francisco Goya. Portrait of the family of Charles IV. 1800 Prado Museum, Madrid.

Just take a look at his group, where Goya did not even try to smooth out the empty facial expressions and the repulsive arrogance of the royal family.

Goya created many paintings that reflect his civil and human position. And the world knows him primarily as a bold truth-seeking artist.

The simply incredible work "Saturn devouring his son" can serve as proof.

Francisco Goya. Saturn devouring his son. 1819-1823 Prado Museum, Madrid

This is a cold-blooded, most honest interpretation. mythological plot. This is what the crazy Kronos should have looked like. Who is scared to death that he might be overthrown by his children.

Ivan Aivazovsky. Grandiose and dedicated to the sea

Ivan Aivazovsky. Self-portrait. 1874 Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Ivan Aivazovsky. Ninth shaft. 1850 Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. wikipedia.org

The greatness of the elements, hopelessness. Can a handful of sailors survive the storm? The morning sun with its warm rays seems to give a subtle hope.

Aivazovsky can be called the most important marine painter of all time. No one wrote the nature of the sea element in such a variety of ways. No one has depicted so many naval battles and shipwrecks.

Ivan Aivazovsky. Chesme battle. 1848 Art Gallery. I.K. Aivazovsky, Feodosia

At the same time, Aivazovsky was also a documentary filmmaker, thoroughly depicting ship equipment. And a bit of a visionary. Indeed, in fact, the Ninth Wave is written incorrectly - on the high seas, a wave never bends with an “apron”. But for greater entertainment, Aivazovsky wrote it just like that.

Claude Monet. colorful and airy

Claude Monet. Self-portrait in a beret. 1886 Private collection

Monet is considered the most prominent representative. He was devoted to this style all his long life. When the main characters are light and color, the lines disappear and the shadows may well be blue.

His "Rouen Cathedral" shows how an object changes when you look at it through the sun's rays. The cathedral trembles, lives in the rays.

Claude Monet. Rouen Cathedral. Sunset. 1892-1894 Marmottan Monet Museum, Paris

Monet experimented a lot with strokes in order to convey not so much nature as impressions from it. And that's where he saw the truth. Why photographically repeat a landscape or object?

In recent years, the old artist painted his garden. We can also look at one of the most picturesque corners of this garden in the painting “White Water Lilies”. It is kept in Moscow.

Claude Monet. White water lilies. 1899 Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin (Gallery of European and American Art, 19th-20th centuries), Moscow

Vincent Van Gogh. Crazy and sympathetic

Vincent Van Gogh. Sunflowers. 1888 National Gallery of London.

Pablo Picasso. Different and seeking

Pablo Picasso. Self-portrait. 1907 National Gallery of Prague

This famous womanizer became famous not only for the frequent change of muses, but also for the frequent change artistic directions. At the beginning of the 20th century, he created many works in the “African style”, when instead of faces he painted masks of exotic tribes. Then there was cubism, and also abstractionism and surrealism.

Pablo Picasso. Guernica. 1937 Queen Sophia Center for the Arts

The pinnacle of his work can be called the emotional "Guernica", dedicated to the city destroyed by the war. A symbol of suffering and barbarism.

It was Picasso who came up with the idea of ​​combining full face and profile in portraits, breaking objects into simple figures, assembling into amazing shapes.

He changed the entire landscape of fine art, enriching it revolutionary ideas. How could someone before Picasso paint a portrait of the famous patron Ambroise Vollard like that?

Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Ambroise Vollard. 1910 Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin, Moscow

Salvador Dali. Outrageous and ruthless

Willie Rizzo. Salvador Dali, magnifiers. 1949 France

Who is he? Crazy artist, a freak of his time or a competent PR man? Salvador Dali made a lot of noise with his surrealism.

Salvador Dali. Time constancy. 1931 Museum contemporary art in New York (MOMA)

But there were also very deep themes in his works, for example, war and destruction. They were also very intimate. Sometimes Dali, in his desire to surprise, went too far.

Once, on one of his paintings at an exhibition, the artist wrote in ink “Sometimes I spit on a portrait of my mother with pleasure.” After this trick, Dali's father did not speak to him for several years.

But we also remember him for his endless love for his muse, his wife Galya. It can be seen in many of his paintings. Even as Madonna.

Yes, Dali was a believer. True, he became it already being a mature person, under the influence of the events of the Second World War.

Salvador Dali. Madonna of Port Lligat. 1950 Minami Group Collection, Tokyo

Dali is a total shocker. He invented a taxi in which it always rains and an aphrodisiac tuxedo with hanging glasses of liquor. Quite enough to forever remain in the history of art.

Summarize

There were thousands of artists in the world. But only a few were able to become so famous that almost every inhabitant of the Earth knows them.

Some of them lived 500 years ago, like Leonardo, Raphael and Bosch. And someone worked in the 20th century, like Picasso and Dali.

What unites them all? They all, each in their own way, changed the time in which they lived. As the art critic Alexander Stepanov said, only a mediocre artist lives in step with his time.

We are waiting for the next genius of the same scale. Maybe he's already doing it right now. Jeff Koons? Damien Hirst? Or maybe the artist duo Recycle group? What do you think?..

Jeff Koons. "Inflatable dog" at the exhibition in Versailles in 2008

FEATURES OF LEONARDO DA VINCI'S CREATIVITY

INTRODUCTION 2

1. The birth of the great Leonardo. 4

2. Early period creativity. 6

3. Mature and late period of da Vinci's work. eleven

4. The phenomenon of mastery of Leonardo da Vinci. 16

CONCLUSION. 20

LIST OF USED LITERATURE.. 21

APPLICATION. 22

INTRODUCTION

Leonardo da Vinci - the great artist, scientist, engineer and outstanding figure of the Italian Renaissance, a symbol cultural revival Italy in the 15th century. His works caused a real revolution in European art and had a huge impact on subsequent generations of painters around the world. The work of Leonardo da Vinci at all times attracted the attention of both specialists and just art lovers.

Leonardo is rightly called one of the most prominent people of the Renaissance, a symbol of the cultural renaissance of Italy in the 15th century. He was a very outstanding and talented person - he made a huge contribution to the development of such areas of human knowledge as painting, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, optics, geology, botany, hydrodynamics, anatomy and much more.

Despite such a variety of interests, Leonardo was a specialist in each of these areas. His passion for knowledge and experimentation bore fruit: da Vinci's inventions and discoveries were far ahead of their time, many of them were appreciated and brought to life only centuries after his death. However, many of da Vinci's works remained unfinished; this applies to both painting and scientific developments (for example, he did not publish any serious scientific treatise, although I intended to do so). Numerous Leonardo's notes, sketches and drawings after his death were scattered throughout Europe and were collected relatively recently (some of the artist's diaries have been lost forever). Therefore, his inventions and discoveries did not have a well-deserved serious impact on the development of science and technological progress.

The era in which Leonardo da Vinci lived is divided into two parts: the Renaissance (starts from the 15th century) and high renaissance(an artistic style that developed at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries).

All the works of the great Leonardo da Vinci are solid riddles, questions that mankind has been trying to answer for half a thousand years, and will look for answers to them for a very long time.

The purpose of our abstract is to study the features of the work of Leonardo da Vinci.

In the process of writing the work, we set ourselves the following tasks:

1. consider the biography of Leonardo da Vinci;

2. analyze the early period of creativity;

3. explore mature period great artist;

4. determine the phenomenon of mastery of Leonardo da Vinci.

1. The birth of the great Leonardo.

At the end of the Middle Ages, a star rose in Italy, illuminating all subsequent development European civilization. Painter, engineer, mechanic, carpenter, musician, mathematician, pathologist, inventor - this is not a complete list of the facets of universal genius. Archaeologist, meteorologist, astronomer, architect... All this is Leonardo da Vinci. He was called a sorcerer, servant of the devil, Italian Faust and divine spirit. He was ahead of his time by several centuries. Surrounded by legends during his lifetime, the great Leonardo is a symbol of the boundless aspirations of the human mind.

Leonardo da Vinci passed from one royal court to another during his lifetime, like a family jewel. Misunderstood by his contemporaries, he was infinitely lonely. The "divine" master lived and suffered like an ordinary earthly person.

April 15" href="/text/category/15_aprelya/" rel="bookmark"> April 15, 1452 in the picturesque Tuscan town of Vinci. His parents were the 25-year-old notary Piero and his beloved, a peasant woman Katerina. Leonardo spent the first years of his life together with his mother. His father soon married a rich and noble girl, but this marriage turned out to be childless, and Piero took his three-year-old son to be raised. Separated from his mother, Leonardo tried all his life to recreate her image in his masterpieces. In Italy of that time, to illegitimate children treated almost like legitimate heirs. powerful people the cities of Vinci took part in the further fate of Leonardo. Now it is difficult to say whether any of them guessed that he was dealing with a future genius. When Leonardo was 13, his stepmother died in childbirth. The father remarried - and again soon became a widower.

He lived for 78 years, was married four times and had 12 children. Pierrot was with younger brother, Francesco. While his father disappeared at work, the boy was brought up by his uncle, a philosopher by way of thinking and a slacker by occupation. The spirit of freedom, instilled in Leonardo from childhood by the frivolous dreamer Francesco, may have subsequently prompted the artist to abandon unfinished masterpieces and strive for new heights. The father tried to introduce Leonardo to the family profession, but to no avail: the son was not interested in the laws of society.

There is a legend about the beginning of the path of a great artist. It was as if a peasant turned to Father Leonardo. He gave the notary a round fig-wood shield and asked him to find an artist who could paint this shield. Piero did not look for a specialist and entrusted the work to his son. Leonardo decided to portray something "terrible". He brought to his room many "models", snakes and bizarre insects, and wrote a fantastic dragon on the shield. The stunned father then sent Leonardo to study with the best painter in Tuscany, Andrea del Verrocchio. So the young man found himself in the famous art workshop of that time.

2. Early period of creativity.

Leonardo's first dated work (1473, Uffizi) is a small sketch of a river valley seen from a gorge; on one side there is a castle, on the other - a wooded hillside. This sketch, made with quick strokes of the pen, testifies to the artist's constant interest in atmospheric phenomena, about which he later wrote extensively in his notes. The landscape depicted from a high vantage point overlooking the floodplain was a common device for Florentine art of the 1460s (although it always served only as a backdrop for paintings). A silver pencil drawing of an ancient warrior in profile shows Leonardo's full maturity as a draftsman; it skillfully combines weak, flaccid and tense, elastic lines and attention to surfaces gradually modeled by light and shadow, creating a lively, quivering image.

Leonardo da Vinci was not only a great painter, sculptor and architect, but also a brilliant scientist who studied mathematics, mechanics, physics, astronomy, geology, botany, anatomy and physiology of humans and animals, consistently pursuing the principle of experimental research. In his manuscripts there are drawings of flying machines, a parachute and a helicopter, new designs and screw-cutting machines, printing, woodworking and other machines, anatomical drawings that are accurate, thoughts related to mathematics, optics, cosmology (the idea of ​​the physical homogeneity of the universe) and other sciences.

By 1480, Leonardo was already receiving large orders, but in 1482 he moved to Milan. In a letter to the ruler of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, he introduced himself as an engineer and military expert, as well as an artist. The years spent in Milan were filled with varied pursuits. Leonardo painted several paintings and famous fresco The Last Supper, which has come down to us in a dilapidated form. He wrote this composition on the wall of the refectory of the Milanese monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Striving for the greatest colorful expressiveness in wall painting, he made unsuccessful experiments with paints and ground, which caused its rapid damage. And then rough restorations and ... soldiers of Bonaparte completed the job. After the occupation of Milan by the French in 1796, the refectory was turned into a stable, the fumes of horse manure covered the painting with thick mold, and the soldiers entering the stable amused themselves by throwing bricks at the heads of Leonard's figures.

Fate turned out to be cruel to many of the creations of the great master. Meanwhile, how much time, how much inspired art and how much fiery love Leonardo invested in the creation of this masterpiece. But, despite this, even in a dilapidated state, "The Last Supper" makes an indelible impression. On the wall, as if overcoming it and taking the viewer into the world of harmony and majestic visions, the ancient gospel drama of deceived trust unfolds. And this drama finds its resolution in a general impulse directed towards the main character - a husband with a mournful face, who accepts what is happening as inevitable. Christ had just said to his disciples, "One of you will betray me." The traitor sits with the others; the old masters depicted Judas seated separately, but Leonardo brought out his gloomy isolation much more convincingly, shrouding his features with a shadow. Christ is submissive to his fate, full of consciousness of the sacrifice of his feat. His tilted head with lowered eyes, the gesture of his hands are infinitely beautiful and majestic. A charming landscape opens through the window behind his figure. Christ is the center of the whole composition, of all that whirlpool of passions that rage around. His sadness and calmness are, as it were, eternal, natural - and in this deep meaning drama shown.

The undated painting of the Annunciation (mid-1470s, Uffizi) was only attributed to Leonardo in the 19th century; perhaps it would be more correct to consider it as the result of a collaboration between Leonardo and Verrocchio. There are several weak points in it, for example, a too sharp perspective reduction of the building on the left or a poorly developed scale ratio of the figure of the Mother of God and the music stand. Otherwise, however, especially in the subtle and soft modeling, as well as in the interpretation of a foggy landscape with a mountain looming in the background, the picture belongs to the hand of Leonardo; this can be inferred from studying it more late works. The question of whether the compositional idea belongs to him remains open.

In Milan, Leonardo began making recordings; around 1490 he focused on two disciplines: architecture and anatomy. He sketched several options for the design of the central-domed temple (an equal-ended cross, the central part of which is covered by a dome) - a type of architectural structure that Alberti had previously recommended for the reason that it reflects one of the ancient types of temples and is based on the most perfect form - circle.

Leonardo drew a plan and perspective views of the entire structure, in which the distribution of masses and the configuration of the internal space are outlined. Around this time, he obtained a skull and made a cross section, opening the sinuses of the skull for the first time. The notes around the drawings indicate that he was primarily interested in the nature and structure of the brain. Of course, these drawings were intended for purely research purposes, but they are striking in their beauty and resemblance to sketches. architectural projects in that both on those and on others there are partitions dividing parts of the internal space. In addition to all this, he did not spare his time, even to the extent that he drew ties from ropes in such a way that it was possible to trace from one end to the other all their interlacing, which filled the whole circle at the end. One of these drawings, the most complex and very beautiful, can be seen in the engraving, and in the middle of it are the following words: Leonardus Vinci Academia.

As an architect, Leonardo da Vinci designed various options of the “ideal” city and the projects of the central-domed temple, which had a great influence on the contemporary architecture of Italy. After the fall of Milan, Leonardo da Vinci's life was spent in constant travel (, 1507 - Florence; 1500 - Mantua and Venice; 1506 - Milan; - Rome; - France).

In Florence, he worked on the painting of the Great Council Hall in the Palazzo Vecchio “The Battle of Anghiari” (not finished, known from copies from cardboard), standing at the origins of European battle genre new time. In the portrait of "Monna Lisa" or "La Gioconda" (circa 1503, Louvre, Paris), he embodied the lofty ideal of eternal femininity and human charm; an important element of the composition was a cosmically vast landscape, melting into a cold blue haze. TO late works Leonardo da Vinci includes projects for the monument to Marshal Trivulzio (), the altarpiece “St. Anna with Mary and the Christ Child” (near the Louvre, Paris), which completes the search for a master in the field of light-air perspective and harmonic pyramidal construction of the composition, and “John the Baptist” (near the Louvre, Paris), where the somewhat sugary ambiguity of the image indicates an increase in crisis moments in the artist's work. In a series of drawings depicting a universal catastrophe (the so-called cycle with the “Flood”, Italian pencil, pen, near, Royal Library, Windsor), reflections on the insignificance of man in front of the power of the elements are combined with rationalistic ideas about the cyclic nature of natural processes.

The most important source for studying the views of Leonardo da Vinci are his notebooks and manuscripts (about 7 thousand sheets), excerpts from which were included in the “Treatise on Painting”, compiled after the death of the master by his student F. Melzi and which had a huge impact on European theoretical thought and artistic practice. In the dispute between the arts, Leonardo da Vinci gave the first place to painting, understanding it as a universal language capable of embodying all the diverse manifestations of the rational principle in nature. As a scientist and engineer, he enriched almost all areas of science of that time. Leonardo da Vinci, a prominent representative of the new natural science based on experiment, paid special attention to mechanics, seeing in it master key to the secrets of the universe; his brilliant constructive guesses were far ahead of his contemporary era (projects of rolling mills, machines, submarines, aircraft).

The observations he collected on the influence of transparent and translucent media on the color of objects led to the establishment in art High Renaissance scientifically based principles of aerial perspective.

Studying the device of the eye, Leonardo da Vinci made the right guesses about the nature of binocular vision. In anatomical drawings, he laid the foundations of modern scientific illustration, and also studied botany and biology. A tireless experimental scientist and brilliant artist, Leonardo da Vinci became a universally recognized symbol of the Renaissance.

3. Mature and late period of da Vinci's work.

Although Leonardo went to Milan in hopes of a career as an engineer, the first commission he received in 1483 was to make part of an altarpiece for a chapel. Immaculate Conception– Madonna in the Grotto (Louvre; attribution to Leonardo of a later version from the National Gallery in London is disputed).

The kneeling Mary looks at the Christ Child and the little John the Baptist, while the angel pointing at John looks at the viewer. The figures are arranged in a triangle, in the foreground. It seems that the figures are separated from the viewer by a light haze, the so-called sfumato (vague and fuzzy contours, soft shadow), which is now becoming a characteristic feature of Leonardo's painting. Behind them, in the semi-darkness of the cave, stalactites and stalagmites and slowly flowing waters shrouded in mist are visible. The landscape seems fantastic, but Leonardo's statement that painting is a science should be remembered. As can be seen from the drawings, simultaneous with the picture, he was based on careful observations of geological phenomena. This also applies to the depiction of plants: one can not only identify them with a certain species, but also see that Leonardo knew about the property of plants to turn towards the sun.

In the mid-1480s, Leonardo painted a painting of a Lady with an Ermine (Krakow Museum), which may be a portrait of Lodovico Sforza's favorite, Cecilia Gallerani.

The contours of the figure of a woman with an animal are outlined by curves of lines that are repeated throughout the composition, and this, combined with muted colors and delicate skin tones, creates the impression of perfect grace and beauty. The beauty of the Lady with the Ermine contrasts strikingly with the grotesque sketches of freaks in which Leonardo explored the extreme degrees of anomalies in the structure of the face.

In Milan, Leonardo began making recordings; around 1490 he focused on two disciplines: architecture and anatomy. He sketched several options for the design of the central-domed temple (an equal-ended cross, the central part of which is covered by a dome) - a type of architectural structure that Alberti had previously recommended for the reason that it reflects one of the ancient types of temples and is based on the most perfect form - circle. Leonardo drew a plan and perspective views of the entire structure, in which the distribution of masses and the configuration of the internal space are outlined. Around this time, he obtained a skull and made a cross section, opening the sinuses of the skull for the first time. The notes around the drawings indicate that he was primarily interested in the nature and structure of the brain. Of course, these drawings were intended for purely research purposes, but they are striking in their beauty and similarity with the sketches of architectural projects in that both of them depict partitions separating parts of the interior space.

Living in Milan, Leonardo Vinci constantly worked on the project of a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, father of Lodovico, which, when finished, was to be placed on a six-meter pedestal and cast from 90 tons of bronze. In a twist of fate that recalled Leonardo's interest in military affairs, the bronze intended for the monument was used to cast cannons, and his clay model was destroyed in 1499 during the French invasion.

Leonardo's reflections on space, linear perspective and the expression of various emotions in painting resulted in the creation of the Last Supper fresco, painted in an experimental technique on the far end wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan in 1495–1497.

With the help of illusionistic means, Leonardo expanded the real space of the hall into an area of ​​picturesque space, with a high table at which Christ and the apostles sit. He portrayed the moment when Christ said, “Truly, I say to you that one of you will betray me” as a psychological explosion. Christ is the center of the composition, around which a storm of emotions gathers. All means are used to bring the eye to the figure of Christ: the main colors of the clothes (red and blue), the silhouette that stands out against the background of the window. The figure of Judas (fourth from the right of Christ) has been moved from its usual place on the outside of the table; his image, along with the rest of the apostles, further enhances the drama of what is happening. The twelve apostles are divided into four groups of three and are depicted bowing to Christ or recoiling from him. Since the arrangement of thirteen people on one side of the table is somewhat unnatural, their direct juxtaposition raises the emotional intensity, and the perspective that goes into the depths (the room is depicted in the form of a trapezoid) creates the effect of pushing the figures towards the viewer. Perhaps drawing inspiration from his friend Luca Pacioli (c. 1445–1517), for whose book On Divine Proportion (1509) Leonardo Vinci made several illustrations, he built the composition of the fresco according to a system of proportions similar to the ratios of musical intervals; this idea subsequently formed the basis of the work of the architect Andrea Palladio.

Activities of Leonardo da Vinci in the first decade of the XVI century. was as diverse as in other periods of his life. Despite his passion for mathematics, he continued to paint. At this time, the painting of the Madonna and Child with St. Anna, and around 1504 Leonardo began work on his famous painting Mona Lisa, portrait of the wife of a Florentine merchant. This portrait (it is in the Louvre) is a further development of the type that appeared earlier in Leonardo: the model is depicted waist-high, in a slight turn, the face is turned towards the viewer, folded hands limit the composition from below.

The soulful hands of Mona Lisa are as beautiful as the slight smile on her face and the primeval rocky landscape in the misty distance. Gioconda is known as the image of a mysterious, even fatal woman, but this interpretation belongs to the 19th century. It is more likely that for Leonardo this painting was the most difficult and successful exercise in the use of sfumato, and the background of the painting is the result of his research in the field of geology. Regardless of whether the subject was secular or religious, the landscape, exposing the "bones of the earth", is constantly found in the work of Leonardo.

Mona Lisa was created at a time when Leonardo Vinci was so absorbed in the study of the structure of the female body, anatomy and the problems associated with childbirth that it is almost impossible to separate his artistic and scientific interests. During these years, he sketched a human embryo in the uterus and created the last of several versions of Leda's painting based on the ancient myth of the birth of Castor and Pollux from the union of the mortal girl Leda and Zeus, who took the form of a swan. Leonardo was engaged comparative anatomy and was interested in analogies between all organic forms.

Military installations and public work. Of all the sciences, Leonardo was most interested in anatomy and military affairs. For almost all of his patrons, he created projects for defensive structures, which they urgently needed, since at the end of the 15th century. the improvement of the cannons made the old-style vertical walls obsolete. Cannon protection required sloping walls, earthen ramparts, and a variety of devices with which a successful defensive crossfire could be carried out. Leonardo created many projects, including an innovative design for a fortress with low tunnels arranged in concentric circles with loopholes. Like almost all of his projects in this area, it was not implemented.

The most important of Leonardo's public commissions was also related to the war. In 1503, perhaps at the urging of Niccolo Machiavelli, he was commissioned to paint a fresco of approximately 6x15 m depicting the Battle of Anghiari for the Great Council Hall in the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence. In addition to this fresco, the Battle of Kashin, commissioned by Michelangelo, was to be depicted; both plots are the heroic victories of Florence. This commission allowed the two artists to continue the tense rivalry that began in 1501.

None of the frescoes was finished, as both artists soon left Florence, Leonardo again for Milan, and Michelangelo for Rome; preparatory cardboards have not been preserved. In the center of Leonardo's composition (known from his sketches and copies from the central part apparently completed by that time) was an episode with a battle for the banner, where horsemen fiercely fight with swords, and fallen soldiers lie under the feet of their horses. Judging by other sketches, the composition should have consisted of three parts, with the battle for the banner in the center. Since there is no clear evidence, the surviving paintings of Leonardo and fragments of his notes suggest that the battle was depicted against the backdrop of a flat landscape with a mountain range on the horizon.

Leonardo made several sketches for the Madonna and Child with St. Anna. This idea first arose in Florence. Perhaps around 1505 a cardboard was created (London, National Gallery), and in 1508 or a little later - a picture now in the Louvre.

The Madonna sits on the lap of St. Anna and stretches out his hands to the Christ Child holding a lamb; free, rounded shapes of figures, outlined smooth lines, constitute a single composition.

John the Baptist depicts a man with a gentle smiling face that emerges from the semi-darkness of the background; he addresses the viewer with a prophecy about the coming of Christ.

The later series of drawings of the Flood (Windsor, Royal Library) depict cataclysms, the power of tons of water, hurricane winds, rocks and trees turning into chips in a whirlwind of a storm. The notes contain many passages about the Flood, some of them poetic, some of them dispassionately descriptive, and some of them scientific in the sense that they deal with issues such as the eddying movement of water in a whirlpool, its power and trajectory.

For Leonardo, art and research were complementary aspects of the constant desire to observe and record the appearance and internal structure of the world. It can definitely be argued that he was the first among scientists whose studies were supplemented by art.

Some of the most famous paintings by Leonardo da Vinci are presented in the Appendix.

4. The phenomenon of mastery of Leonardo da Vinci.

Perhaps the most phenomenal property of Leonardo da Vinci is versatility. The omniscience of his genius made his contemporaries suspect the master of witchcraft, and led his descendants to the idea that there could not have been without the intervention of extraterrestrial civilizations.

Leonardo is a recognized master of landscape. The wonderful world on his canvases was the fruit of a deep knowledge of the real world. In his work, the genius combined scientific data from various fields: physics, astronomy, geodesy, botany, medicine.

Leonardo, considered the most versatile genius in the history of mankind, happily combined science and art in his work.

It is not difficult to guess that when depicting people and animals, Leonardo widely used scientific methods. The master was convinced that by understanding the mechanism of the movement of the body and the forms of its existence, one can comprehend its inner spiritual essence. The perfection of the figures on the canvases of Leonardo is the result of a scrupulous study of anatomy. Opening the bodies of the dead, he examined every organ. He was equally interested in the structure of bones and the structure of the brain.

A humanist of the highest order, he attended executions to observe the faces of criminals, distorted by pain and fear. The results of his observations of Leonardo are contained in many anatomical drawings. The author of the legendary Mona Lisa smile was a great connoisseur of the facial muscles associated with the movement of the lips.

The further the era of Leonardo da Vinci recedes into the past, the more his fame grows. Growing up, the world is approaching understanding brilliant prophecies. The work of Leonardo da Vinci opened a qualitatively new stage in the history of the landscape. In medieval Europe, the image of nature was not as common as, for example, in China, where the landscape on silk had a rich cultural tradition. The ever-changing nature in China was considered the embodiment of world law, while in Europe the laws of being were allegorically conveyed in biblical stories.

In the works of Leonardo, the landscape appears as an important part not only of the composition, but also of the spiritual atmosphere of the work. The ghostly landscape in the background of the Mona Lisa emphasizes the overall mystical sound of the canvas. In the depiction of nature, Leonardo da Vinci solved a number of tasks that were revolutionary at that time: perspective, volume, and the play of chiaroscuro. He brought to the landscapes the spirituality characteristic of his Madonnas. Although the nature of Leonardo never became the only "plot" of the picture, he paved the way for the separation of the landscape into an independent genre.

The secrets of the "Mona Lisa" are not limited to the secret model and the mystery of the elusive smile. Some of the techniques used by the master to create this masterpiece remain unexplored to this day. The technology of creating a picture on a tree is incredibly complex. After the “primer” of the panel, Leonardo applied the background, and then began to write out the details layer by layer. Leonardo's strokes were so small that neither a microscope nor an X-ray can detect brush marks. Light and shadows pass into each other without boundaries: from the gloomy twilight in the foreground to the foggy vanishing distance. This is the sfumato method. In terms of painting technique, the Mona Lisa is still considered unsurpassed.

Leonardo's diaries contain not only drawings, but also deep philosophical reflections. After the death of the master, his student Francesco Melzi compiled a “Treatise on Painting” from various fragments of manuscripts. This compilation aesthetic views The artist played a huge role in the theory of art. Leonardo opposed the generally accepted point of view of his time that painting is an art of a purely applied nature. In the "dispute of the arts" his sympathies were entirely on the side of painting, which he understood as a universal language capable of expressing the fullness of life. Therefore, painting should be considered not as a craft, not as an art, but as a science. “Painting is the philosophy of the artist,” said Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo invented many mechanisms, types of weapons and mobile devices, anticipating the appearance of an airplane, helicopter, submarine, car. Unfortunately, most of Leonardo's ideas were not realized during the life of the master. The main reason was the shortage or lack of the necessary raw materials. “If I had the right material…” Leonardo sighed. Since the master's manuscripts were lost for a long time, completely different people are considered the authors of his inventions. True, they came to the ideas of Leonardo with a lag of centuries. Looking at the drawings, it is easy to see that many mechanisms are based on the principle of a chain transmission, when the gears set each other in motion. From this discovery - one step to the idea of ​​mechanization of manual labor. So, several centuries before the industrial revolution, Leonardo predicted mass production for mankind.

In 1485, after a terrible plague in Milan, Leonardo proposed to the authorities a project of an ideal city with certain parameters, layout and sewerage system. The Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, rejected the project. Centuries passed, and the authorities of London recognized Leonardo's plan as the perfect basis for the further development of the city. In modern Norway there is an active bridge designed by Leonardo da Vinci. Tests of parachutes and hang gliders, made according to the sketches of the master, confirmed that only the imperfection of the materials did not allow him to take to the skies. With the advent of aviation, the most cherished dream the great Florentine became a reality.

At the Roman airport, bearing the name of Leonardo da Vinci, a gigantic statue of a scientist with a model of a helicopter in his hands is installed. “The one who aspires to the star does not turn around,” wrote the divine Leonardo.

CONCLUSION

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, scientist and engineer. The founder of the artistic culture of the High Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci developed as a master, studying in Florence with A. del Verrocchio. The methods of work in the workshop of Verrocchio, where artistic practice was combined with technical experiments, as well as friendship with the astronomer P. Toscanelli, contributed to the emergence scientific interests young da Vinci. Wherever Leonardo turned his thoughts, his mind and his daring, he showed so much divinity in his creations that no one could ever equal him in the ability to bring to perfection his spontaneity, liveliness, kindness, attractiveness and charm.

Leonardo was an excellent draftsman. In his drawings, he sought to comprehend the laws of the depicted phenomenon. Here are numerous sketches and designs of machines and unknown devices, and trees, and flowers, and individual branches, and flowing or stagnant water, clouds and clouds. The drawings most fully manifested the versatility of interests and talents of Leonardo. The art, scientific and theoretical studies of Leonardo da Vinci, his very versatile personality had a huge impact on the entire development of European culture.

Leonardo died at Amboise on May 2, 1519; his paintings by this time were scattered mainly in private collections, and the notes lay in various collections almost in complete oblivion for several more centuries.

The loss of Leonardo beyond measure saddened everyone who knew him, because there was never a person who would bring so much honor to the art of painting. This is a master who truly lived his whole life with great benefit for mankind.

Yes, all his work is solid questions, which can be answered all his life, and will remain for subsequent generations.

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

2. Batkin da Vinci and features of the Renaissance creative thinking. - M., 1990.

3. Beschastnov. - M.: Vlados, 2004. - 224 p.,

4. Gastev da Vinci. - M., 1984.

6. art. – M.: 2001.

7. Ilyina arts. Western European art. - M., " graduate School" 1983.

8. Lazarev da Vinci. L. - M., 1952.

9. Leonardo da Vinci. Masterpieces of graphics / Ya. Pudik. – M.: Eksmo, 2008.

10. Painting. - M.: Rosmen, 2004. - 127 p.

11., Leonardo da Vinci, 2nd ed. - Kharkov, 1900.

12. Taish J., Barr T. Leonardo da Vinci for Dummies = Da Vinci For Dummies. - M .: "Williams", 2006.

13., Ershova art - M .: Education, 2002.

APPLICATION

Madonna Litta", circa 1491

Lady with an Ermine"

Portrait of a musician" 1490

Mona Lisa (La Gioconda)

Madonna Benois" 1478

Portrait of an unknown woman" circa 1490

Madonna in the Rocks" ca. 1511

The Last Supper"
(central fragment)

Taish J., Barr T. Leonardo da Vinci for Dummies = Da Vinci For Dummies. - M .: "Williams", 2006.

Painting. - M .: Rosmen, 2004. - 127 p.

Ilyin Arts. Western European art. - M., "Higher School" 1983.

Batkin da Vinci and features of the Renaissance creative thinking. - M., 1990.

Gastev da Vinci. - M., 1984.

Ershova art - M .: Education, 2002.

Lazarev da Vinci. L. - M., 1952.

Gastev da Vinci. - M., 1984.

Leonardo da Vinci. Masterpieces of graphics / Ya. Pudik. – M.: Eksmo, 2008.

Gol N. My very first encyclopedia. The world around us. - M.: Astrel, 2007. - 143 p.

Beschastnov. - M.: Vlados, 2004. - 224 p.,

Gol N. My very first encyclopedia. The world around us. - M.: Astrel, 2007. - 143 p.

"100 People Who Changed the Course of History" Leonardo da Vinci Weekly Edition. – Issue No. 1.

"100 People Who Changed the Course of History" Leonardo da Vinci Weekly Edition. – Issue No. 1.

Leonardo da Vinci, 2nd ed. - Kharkov, 1900.