Leonardo da Vinci early years. Youth in Florence

Leonardo da Vinci is an Italian scientist, inventor, artist and writer. One of the brightest representatives of the Renaissance. Many researchers consider him the most brilliant person of all times and peoples.

Biography

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the small village of Anchiano, not far from Florence. His father Piero was a notary, his mother Katerina was a simple peasant woman. Shortly after Leonardo's birth, his father left the family, marrying a wealthy woman. Leonardo spent his first years with his mother. Then the father, who could not have children with his new wife, took the boy to be brought up with him. When he was 13 years old, his stepmother died. The father remarried and became a widower again. His attempts to interest his son in the notarial business were unsuccessful.

At a young age, Leonardo began to demonstrate the extraordinary talent of the artist. His father sends him to Florence, to the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio. Here he mastered the humanities, chemistry, drawing, metallurgy. The apprentice was actively engaged in sculpture, drawing, modeling.

When Leonardo was 20 years old (in 1473), the Guild of St. Luke awarded Leonardo da Vinci the qualification of a master. Then Leonardo had a hand in creating the painting "The Baptism of Christ", which was painted by his teacher Andrea del Verrocchio. Da Vinci's brush belongs to part of the landscape and an angel. Already here the nature of Leonardo as an innovator is manifested - he uses oil paints, which were a novelty in Italy at that time. Verrocchio instructs a talented student to deal with orders for paintings, while he focuses on sculpture. Leonardo's first self-painted painting was Enlightenment.

After this, a period of life begins, which is characterized by the artist's passion for the image of the Madonna. He creates paintings "Madonna Benois", "Madonna with a Carnation", "Madonna Litta". A number of unfinished sketches on the same subject have been preserved.

In 1481, the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto commissioned Leonardo to paint The Adoration of the Magi. Work on it was interrupted and abandoned. Already at that time, da Vinci was "famous" for his tendency to suddenly leave work unfinished. The Medici family, ruling in Florence, did not favor the artist, so he decided to leave the city.

In 1482, Leonardo went to Milan to the court of Lodovico Sforza, where he played the lute. The artist hoped to get a reliable patron in the person of Sforza, offering his services as an inventor of weapons for this. However, Sforza was not a fan of open conflicts, but of intrigue and poisoning.

In 1483, da Vinci received his first order in Milan - for the painting of the altar from the Franciscan brotherhood of the Immaculate Conception. Three years later, the work was completed, and then another 25 years of litigation lasted over payment for the work.

Soon orders begin to arrive from Sforza. Leonardo becomes a court painter, paints portraits and works on a statue of Francesco Sforza. The statue itself was never completed - the ruler decided to use bronze for the manufacture of cannons.

In Milan, Leonardo begins to create a "Treatise on Painting". This work lasted until the death of a genius. Da Vinci invents a rolling mill, a machine for the production of files, a loom for making cloth. All these valuable inventions did not interest Sforza. Also during this period, Leonardo creates sketches of temples, takes part in the construction of the Milan Cathedral. He developed the city sewer system, carried out land reclamation work.

In 1495, work begins on The Last Supper, which ends after 3 years. In 1498, the painting of the Sala delle Asse in the Castello Sforzesco ends.

In 1499, Sforza loses power, Milan is captured by French troops. Leonardo had to leave the city, and the next year he returned to Florence. Here he paints the paintings "Madonna with a spindle" and "St. Anna with Mary and the baby."

In 1502, Leonardo became an architect and chief engineer in the service of Cesare Borgia. During this period, da Vinci designs canals to drain swamps, creates military maps.

In 1503, work began on the portrait of Mona Lisa. For the next decade, Leonardo wrote little, trying to devote more time to anatomy, mathematics and mechanics.

In 1513, Leonardo comes under the patronage of Giuliano Medici and comes with him to Rome. Here, for three years, he studied the manufacture of mirrors, mathematics, explores the human voice and creates new paint formulations. In 1517, after the death of the Medici, Leonardo became a court painter in Paris. Here he works on land reclamation, hydrography and very often communicates with King Francis I.

On May 2, 1519, at the age of 67, Leonardo da Vinci died. His body was buried in the church of Saint Florentin, but the grave was lost during many years of wars.

Main achievements of da Vinci

• Leonardo's contribution to the development of world artistic culture is extremely important. He became the founder of a new painting technique.
• Ring pistol lock.
• Tank.
• Parachute.
• Bike.
• Portable military bridges.
• Catapult.
• Spotlight.
• Telescope.
• Robot.
• Leonardo left a huge legacy in literature. Most of his works have survived to this day poorly ordered, and often written in cryptography.

Important dates in da Vinci's biography

• April 15, 1452 - birth in Anchiano.
• 1466 - the beginning of work in the workshop of Verrocchio.
• 1472 - becomes a member of the Florentine Guild of Artists. Starts work on the paintings "The Annunciation", "The Baptism of Christ", "Madonna with a Vase".
• 1478 - opening of his own workshop.
• 1482 - moving to Milan to the court of Lodovico Sforza.
• 1487 - work on a winged machine - an ornithopter.
• 1490 - the creation of the famous drawing "Vitruvian Man".
• 1495-1498 - the creation of the fresco "The Last Supper".
• 1499 - departure from Milan.
• 1502 - service with Cesare Borgia.
• 1503 - arrival in Florence. The beginning of work on the painting "Mona Lisa". Finished in 1506.
• 1506 - service with the French king Louis XII.
• 1512 - "Self-portrait".
• 1516 - moving to Paris.
• May 2, 1519 - died in the castle of Clos Luce in France.

• He masterfully played the lyre.
• He was the first to scientifically explain the blue of the sky.
• Worked equally well with both hands.
• Most researchers tend to believe that da Vinci was a vegetarian.
• Leonardo's diaries are written in mirror image.
• Was fond of cooking. He created his signature dish "From Leonardo", which was highly appreciated at the court worlds.
• In the computer game Assassin\'s Creed 2, da Vinci is presented as a minor character who helps the main character with his inventions.
• Despite a good home education, Leonardo felt a lack of knowledge of Latin and Greek.
• According to some suggestions, Leonardo loves carnal pleasures with men. Once he was sued for harassing a posing boy. However, da Vinci was acquitted.
• Leonardo was the first to establish that the light of the moon is the light of the sun reflected from the earth.
• Compiled a list of synonyms for the word "penis". And a very long list.

The personality and work of Leonardo da Vinci has always aroused great interest. Leonardo was too extraordinary a figure for his time. Books and articles are printed, feature films and documentaries are released. Art critics turn to scientists and mystics in an attempt to find the key to the mystery of the genius of the great master. There is even a separate direction in science that explores the heritage of the painter. Museums are opened in honor of Leonardo da Vinci, thematic exhibitions are constantly held around the world, breaking all attendance records, and the Mona Lisa looks at the crowds of tourists all day because of the armored glass. Real historical facts and legends, scientific achievements and fiction are closely intertwined around the name of one genius.

The fate of the great master

The future great artist and scientist was born on April 14, 1452 from the extramarital affair of a wealthy notary Sir Piero with either a peasant woman or a tavern owner from the town of Vinci. The boy was named Leonardo. Katerina, that was the name of the artist's mother, was engaged in raising her son for the first five years of his life, after which the father took the boy to his house.

Although Piero was legally married, he had no other children besides Leonardo. Therefore, the appearance of a child in the house was greeted warmly and cordially. The only thing that the artist remained deprived of, being fully supported by his father, is the right to inheritance. Leonardo's early years passed serenely, surrounded by the picturesque mountainous nature of Tuscany. He will carry admiration and love for his native land through his whole life, perpetuating its beauty in his landscapes.

The peace and quiet of provincial life ended with the family moving to Florence. Life began to play, seething with all the colors of the real metropolis of that time. The city was ruled by representatives of the Medici family, patrons known for their generosity, who created ideal conditions for the development of arts in their patrimony.

During their reign, Florence became the cradle of the cultural and scientific revolution known as the Renaissance. Once here, young Leonardo found himself in the very center of events, when the city was approaching the apogee of its heyday and glory, the peak of greatness, of which the young artist became an integral part.

But greatness was ahead, but for now, the future genius simply needed to get an education. Being an illegitimate son, he could not continue the work of his father, as well as become, for example, a lawyer or a doctor. Which, in general, did not harm the fate of Leonardo in any way.

From an early age, the young man showed extraordinary artistic abilities. Piero could not ignore this when he made a decision regarding the fate of his only son. Soon, the father sent the eighteen-year-old Leonardo to study at a very successful and advanced painting workshop. The famous painter Andrea del Verrocchio became the artist's mentor.

A talented and broad-minded sculptor and artist, Verrocchio did not preach medieval aesthetic views, but tried to keep up with the times. He was keenly interested in samples of ancient art, which he considered unsurpassed, in his work he sought to revive the traditions of Rome and Greece. Nevertheless, recognizing and respecting progress, Verrocchio made extensive use of the technical and scientific achievements of his time, thanks to which painting was increasingly approaching realism.

Flat, sketchy images of the Middle Ages retreated, giving way to the desire to completely and completely imitate nature in everything. And for this it was necessary to master the techniques of linear and aerial perspective, to understand the laws of light and shadow, which meant the need to master mathematics, geometry, drawing, chemistry, physics and optics. Leonardo studied with Verrocchio the basics of all the exact sciences, simultaneously mastering the technique of drawing, modeling and sculpture, acquiring skills in working with plaster, leather and metal. His talent was revealed so quickly and clearly that soon the young talent went far from his teacher in terms of skill and quality of painting.

Already at the age of twenty, in 1472, Leonardo became a member of the honorary Florentine Guild of Artists. And even the absence of his own workshop, which he acquired only a few years later, did not prevent him from starting his own path as an independent master. Despite the obvious engineering abilities and a remarkable talent for the exact sciences, society saw in the artist only a craftsman who did not yet have great prestige. The ideals of freedom and creativity were still far away.

The fate of the artist of the 15th century depended entirely on influential patrons. So Leonardo throughout his life had to look for a place of service with the powerful of this world, and the execution of individual secular and church orders was based on the principle of a simple trade agreement.

The first ten years of the artist's life were spent in creative searches and work on a few orders. Until, one day, Leonardo heard a rumor that the Duke of Sforza, the ruler of Milan, needed a court sculptor. The young man immediately decided to try his hand.

The fact is that Milan at that time was one of the largest centers of weapons production, and Leonardo was immersed in his latest hobby - the development of drawings of original and ingenious machines and mechanisms. Therefore, the possibility of moving to the capital of engineering was very inspiring to him. The artist wrote a letter of recommendation to the Duke of Sforza, in which he dared to offer himself not only as a sculptor, painter and architect, but also as an engineer, claiming that he could build ships, armored vehicles, catapults, cannons and other military equipment. The duke was impressed by Leonardo's self-confident letter, but only partially satisfied him: he likes the position of sculptor to the artist. The first task of the new court sculptor was to make a bronze statue of a horse, intended to decorate the Sforza family crypt. The funny thing is that, due to a variety of circumstances, during the seventeen years that Leonardo spent at the Milanese court, the horse was never cast. But the interest of the young talent in military affairs, mechanics and technology in weapons workshops only grew. Almost all of Leonardo's inventions date back to this period.

During his life, the brilliant da Vinci created numerous drawings of weaving, printing and rolling machines, metallurgical furnaces and woodworking machines. He was the first to come up with the idea of ​​a helicopter propeller, ball bearings, a slewing crane, a piling mechanism, a hydraulic turbine, a wind speed gauge, a telescopic fire ladder, an adjustable wrench, a gearbox. Leonardo developed models of all kinds of military vehicles - a tank, a catapult, a submarine. In his sketches there are prototypes of a searchlight for a diving bell, an excavator, a bicycle, flippers. And also, his most famous designs, based on a painstaking study of the flight technique of birds and the structure of a bird's wing - an aircraft that is very reminiscent of a hang glider, and a parachute.

Unfortunately, Leonardo did not have a chance to see the embodiment of the vast majority of his ideas during his lifetime. The time for them had not yet come, there was no necessary raw materials and materials, the creation of which was also foreseen by the genius of the 15th century. Throughout his life, Leonardo da Vinci had to put up with the fact that his grandiose designs were too far ahead of the era. Only at the end of the 19th century, many of them will receive their implementation. And, of course, the master did not suspect that both in the 20th and in the 21st century, millions of tourists would admire these inventions in special museums dedicated to his work.

In 1499 Leonardo left Milan. The reason was the capture of the city by French troops led by Louis XII, who lost power, the Duke of Sforza fled abroad. For the artist began not the best period in his life. For four years, he constantly moved from place to place, never staying anywhere for a long time. So far, in 1503, at the age of fifty, he again had to return to Florence - the city where he once worked as a simple apprentice, and now, being at the peak of his skill and fame, he worked on creating his ingenious "Mona Lisa".

True, da Vinci nevertheless returned to Milan, after several years of work in Florence. Now, he was there the court painter of Louis XII, who at that time controlled the entire Italian north. Periodically, the artist returned to Florence, fulfilling one or another order. Leonardo's ordeal ended in 1513, when he moved to Rome to the new patron Giuliano Medici, brother of Pope Leo X. For the next three years, da Vinci was mainly engaged in science, engineering commissions and technical experiments.

Already at a very advanced age, Leonardo da Vinci moved again, this time to France, at the invitation of Francis I, who replaced Louis XII on the throne. The rest of the life of the ingenious master passed in the royal residence, the castle of Lmboise, surrounded by the highest honor from the monarch. The artist himself, despite the numbness of his right hand and the constantly deteriorating state of health, continued to make sketches and engage in students who replaced his family, which the master never created during his lifetime.

The gift of the observer and scientist

From early childhood, Leonardo had a rare talent for observation. From early childhood until the end of his life, the artist, fascinated by the phenomena of nature, could peer into the flame of a candle for hours, follow the behavior of living beings, study the movement of water, the growth cycles of plants and the flight of birds. A lively interest in the world around him gave the master a lot of invaluable knowledge and the keys to many secrets of nature. “Nature arranged everything so perfectly that everywhere you find something that can give you new knowledge,” said the master.

During his life, Leonardo made transitions through the highest alpine passes to explore the nature of atmospheric phenomena, traveled through mountain lakes and rivers to study the properties of water. Throughout his life, Leonardo carried a notebook with him, in which he entered everything that attracted his attention. He attached particular importance to optics, believing that the painter's eye is a direct tool of scientific knowledge.

Refusing to follow the road beaten by his contemporaries, Leonardo was looking for his own answers to the questions of harmony and proportionality of all things (the world around him and man himself) that worried him. The artist realized that if he wants to capture the person himself and the world around him in his works, without distorting their essence, he must study the nature of both as deeply as possible. Starting with the observation of visible phenomena and forms, he gradually delved into the processes and mechanisms that govern them.

Mathematical knowledge helped the painter to understand that any object or object is a whole, which inevitably consists of many parts, the proportionality and correct arrangement of which gives rise to what is called harmony. The incredible discovery of the painter was that the concepts of "nature", "beauty" and "harmony" are inextricably linked with a specific law, following which absolutely all forms in nature are formed, starting from the most distant stars in the sky, and ending with flower petals. Leonardo realized that this law can be expressed in the language of numbers, and using it, create beautiful and harmonious works in painting, sculpture, architecture and any other field.

In fact, Leonardo managed to discover the principle by which the Creator of Being himself created this world. The artist called his discovery "Golden, or Divine Proportion". This law was already known to the philosophers and creators of the ancient world, in Greece and Egypt, where it was widely used in a variety of art forms. The painter followed the path of practice, and preferred to acquire all his knowledge from his own experience of interaction with nature and the world.

Leonardo did not skimp on sharing his discoveries and achievements with the world. Even during his lifetime, he worked together with the mathematician Luca Pocioli on the creation of the book "Divine Proportion", and after the death of the master, the treatise "The Golden Section", completely based on his discoveries, saw the light. Both books are written about art in the language of mathematics, geometry and physics. In addition to these sciences, the artist at various times was seriously interested in the study of chemistry, astronomy, botany, geology, geodesy, optics and anatomy. And all in order, in the end, to solve the problems that he set himself in art. It was through painting, which Leonardo considered the most intellectual form of creativity, that he sought to express the harmony and beauty of the surrounding space.

Life on canvas

Looking at the creative heritage of the great painter, one can clearly see how the depth of Leonardo's penetration into the foundations of the foundations of scientific knowledge about the world filled his paintings with life, making them more and more truthful. It seems that you can easily start a conversation with the people depicted by the master, turn the objects painted by him in your hands, and enter the landscape and get lost. In the images of Leonardo, mysterious and surprisingly realistic at the same time, depth and spirituality are obvious.

To understand what Leonardo considered a real, living creation, one can draw an analogy with photography. Photography, in fact, is only a mirror copy, a documentary evidence of life, a reflection of the created world, unable to achieve its perfection. From this point of view, the photographer is the modern incarnation of the one about whom Leonardo said: “The painter who sketches senselessly, guided only by practice and the judgment of the eye, is like an ordinary mirror that imitates all the objects opposed to it, knowing nothing about them.” A real artist, according to the master, studying nature and recreating it on the canvas, must surpass it, "inventing countless forms of herbs and animals, trees and landscapes."

The next stage of mastery and a unique gift of a person, according to Leonardo, is fantasy. “Where nature has already finished producing its species, man himself begins to create from natural things, with the help of this same nature, countless types of new things.” The development of the imagination is the first and most basic thing that an artist should do, according to da Vinci, this is what he writes about on the pages of his manuscripts. In the mouth of Leonardo, this sounds like Truth with a capital letter, because he himself has repeatedly proved this with his whole life and creative heritage, which includes so many brilliant conjectures and inventions.

The indefatigable desire for knowledge of Leonardo touched almost all areas of human activity. During his life, the master was able to prove himself as a musician, poet and writer, engineer and mechanic, sculptor, architect and urbanist, biologist, physicist and chemist, expert in anatomy and medicine, geologist and cartographer. Da Vinci's genius even found its way into creating recipes, designing clothes, compiling games for palace entertainment, and designing gardens.

Leonardo boasted not only an unusually versatile knowledge and a wide range of skills, but also an almost perfect appearance. According to contemporaries, he was a tall, handsome man, beautifully built and endowed with great physical strength. Leonardo sang excellently, was a brilliant and witty storyteller, danced and played the lyre, had refined manners, was courteous and simply charmed people with his mere presence.

Perhaps it was precisely this originality of his in almost all spheres of life that caused such a cautious attitude towards him of the conservative majority, who perceive innovative ideas with apprehension. For his genius and out-of-the-box thinking, he was repeatedly branded as a heretic and even accused of serving the devil. Apparently this is the fate of all geniuses who come into our world to break the foundations and lead humanity forward.

In word and deed, denying the experience of past generations, the great painter said that "the picture of the painter will not be perfect enough if he takes the pictures of others as an inspiration." This also applied to all other areas of knowledge. Leonardo paid great attention to experience as the main source of ideas about man and the world. “Wisdom is the daughter of experience”, said the artist, it cannot be acquired just by studying books, because those who write them are just intermediaries between people and nature.

Each person is a child of nature and the crown of creation. Countless possibilities of knowing the world are open to him, inextricably linked with every cell of his body. Through the study of the world, Leonardo knew himself. The question that torments many art historians is what interested da Vinci more - painting or knowledge? Who was he in the end - an artist, a scientist or a philosopher? The answer, in fact, is simple, like a true creator, Leonardo da Vinci harmoniously combined all these concepts in one. After all, you can learn to draw, be able to use a brush and paints, but this will not make you an artist, because real creativity is a special state of feelings and attitude to the world. Our world will reciprocate, become a muse, reveal its secrets and allow only those who truly love it to penetrate into the very essence of things and phenomena. From the way Leonardo lived, from everything he did, it is obvious that he was a man passionately in love.

Images of the Madonna

The work "The Annunciation" (1472-1475, Louvre, Paris) was written by a young painter at the very beginning of his career. The painting depicting the Annunciation was intended for one of the monasteries not far from Florence. It gave rise to much controversy among researchers of the great Leonardo. Doubts relate in particular to the fact that the work is a completely independent work of the artist. It must be said that such disputes over authorship are not uncommon for many of Leonardo's works.

Executed on a wooden panel of impressive dimensions - 98 x 217 cm, the work shows the moment when the archangel Gabriel, who descended from heaven, tells Mary that she will give birth to a son whom Jesus will name. It is traditionally believed that Mary at this time is just reading the very passage of the prophecies of Isaiah, which mentions the future fulfillment. It is no coincidence that the scene is depicted against the backdrop of a spring garden - the flowers in the archangel's hand and under his feet symbolize the purity of the Virgin Mary. And the garden itself, surrounded by a low wall, traditionally refers us to the sinless image of the Mother of God, fenced off by her purity from the outside world.

An interesting fact is connected with the wings of Gabriel. It is clearly visible in the picture that they were completed later - an unknown artist lengthened them in a very rough pictorial manner. The original wings that Leonardo depicted remained distinguishable - they are much shorter and were probably copied by the artist from the wings of a real bird.

In this work, if you look closely, you can find several mistakes made by the still inexperienced Leonardo in building perspective. The most obvious of which is Mary's right hand, visually located closer to the viewer than her entire figure. There is no softness in the draperies of the clothes yet, they look too heavy and frozen, as if made of stone. Here we must take into account that this is how Leonardo was taught by his mentor Verrocchio. This angularity and sharpness is characteristic of almost all the works of artists of that time. But in the future, on the way to finding his own pictorial realism, Leonardo will develop himself and lead all other artists.

In the painting “Madonna Litta” (circa 1480, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg), Leonardo managed to create an incredibly expressive female image with the help of almost a single gesture. On the canvas, we see a thoughtful, tender and peaceful mother, admiring her child, concentrating in this look all the fullness of feelings. Without such a special tilt of the head, so characteristic of many works of the master, which he studied for hours creating dozens of preparatory drawings, much of the impression of boundless maternal love would be lost. Only the shadows in the corners of Maria's lips seem to hint at the possibility of a smile, but how much tenderness this gives to the whole face. The work is quite small in size, only 42 x 33 cm, it is most likely that it was intended for domestic worship. Indeed, in Italy of the 15th century, picturesque images of the Madonna and Child were quite popular; wealthy citizens often ordered them from artists. Presumably, the "Madonna Litta" was originally written by a master for the rulers of Milan. Then, having changed several owners, she moved into a private family collection. The modern name of the work comes from the name of Count Litta, who owned a family art gallery in Milan. In 1865, it was he who sold it to the Hermitage along with several other paintings.

In the right hand of the baby Jesus, a chick, invisible at first sight, is almost hidden, serving in the Christian tradition as a symbol of the Son of God and His childhood. There are disputes around the canvas, caused by too clear contours of the drawing and some unnatural posture of the child, which leads many researchers to assume that one of Leonardo's students took an active part in creating the picture.

The first painting, in which the revealed talent of the master is visible, was the canvas “Madonna in the Grotto” (circa 1483, Louvre, Paris). The composition was commissioned for the altar of the chapel in the Milanese church of St. Francis and was supposed to be the central part of the triptych. The order was divided among three masters. One of them created the side panels with the image of angels for the altarpiece, the other - a carved frame of the finished piece of wood.

The churchmen entered into a very detailed contract with Leonardo. It stipulated the smallest details of the picture, down to the style and technique of execution of all elements and even the color of the clothes, from which the artist should not deviate a single step. So, a work was born that tells about the meeting of the baby Jesus and John the Baptist. The action takes place in the depths of the grotto, in which the mother and son are hiding from the persecutors sent by King Herod, who saw in the Son of God a direct threat to his power. The Baptist rushes to Jesus, folding his palms in prayer, he, in turn, blesses him with a gesture of his hand. The silent witness of the sacrament is the angel Uriel, looking towards the viewer. From now on, he will be called to protect John. All four figures are so skillfully arranged in the picture that they seem to form a single whole. I would like to call the whole composition “musical”, there is so much tenderness, harmony and smoothness in its characters, united by gestures and glances.

This work was given to the artist is very difficult. The time frame was strictly stipulated in the contract, but, as often happened with the painter, he failed to meet them, which led to litigation. After much litigation, Leonardo had to write another version of this composition, now stored in the National Gallery in London, we know it as "Madonna in the Rocks".

The famous fresco of the Milanese monastery

Within the walls of the Milanese monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie, or rather in its refectory, one of the greatest masterpieces of painting and the main national treasure of Italy is stored. The legendary fresco "The Last Supper" (1495-1498) occupies a space of 4.6 x 8.8 m, and describes the dramatic moment when, surrounded by disciples, Christ utters the sad prophecy "One of you will betray me."

The painter, who was always attracted by the study of human passions, wanted to capture ordinary people in the images of the apostles, and not historical characters. Each of them responds to the event in its own way. Leonardo made it his task to convey the psychological atmosphere of the evening with maximum realism, to convey to us the various characters of its participants, exposing their spiritual world and conflicting experiences with the accuracy of a psychologist. In the variety of faces of the characters in the picture and their gestures, there is a place for almost all emotions from surprise to furious anger, from confusion to sadness, from simple disbelief to deep shock. The future traitor Judas, whom traditionally all artists had previously separated from the general group, in this work sits with the rest, clearly distinguished by a gloomy expression on his face and a shadow that seems to have enveloped his entire figure. Given the principle of the golden ratio discovered by him, Leonardo verified the location of each of the students with mathematical accuracy. All twelve apostles are divided into four practically symmetrical groups highlighting the figure of Christ in the center. Other details of the picture are designed not to distract attention from the characters. So, the table is deliberately made excessively small, and the room itself, in which the meal takes place, is strict and simple.

While working on The Last Supper, Leonardo experimented with paints. But, unfortunately, the composition of primer and paint he invented, for which he combined oil and tempera, turned out to be completely unstable. The consequence of this was that just twenty years after writing, the work began to deteriorate rapidly and irreversibly. The stable that Napoleon's army set up in the room where the fresco was located exacerbated an already existing problem. As a result, almost from the beginning of its history to the present day, restoration work has been carried out on this monumental canvas, only thanks to which it still manages to be preserved.

Zav Xu his long life, Leonardo da Vinci created no more than twenty paintings, some of which remained unfinished. Such surprising for that time not fecundity alerted customers, but the slowness with which the master used to work on his paintings became a byword. The memories of the monk of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, who watched the work of the painter on the famous fresco "The Last Supper", remained. This is how he described Leonardo's working day: early in the morning, the artist climbed onto the scaffolding erected around the picture, and could not part with the brush until late at night, completely forgetting about food and rest. But another time, he spent hours, days on end, intently examining his creation, without applying a single stroke. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of the master, due to an unsuccessful experiment and materials, the fresco from the Milan monastery became one of the artist's greatest disappointments.

Mysterious Mona Lisa

But the painting "Mona Lisa" took a huge place in his life. From the very moment of writing the famous canvas and until the end of his life, Leonardo will be inseparable from him, as with his most priceless treasure. What is the secret of the grandiose impression that this small picture (only 77x53 cm) makes, has been wondering for centuries by millions of viewers who have seen it at least once.

It is extremely surprising that in the records of Leonardo da Vinci there is not a single mention of this portrait. There is no information about who commissioned him to work on the canvas, or who served as a model for him, or how the process of its creation went. The artist, who spent his whole life making records of everything in the world, never once mentioned the owl's greatest creation.

There is absolutely no documentary evidence, but the inquisitive minds of specialists have advanced unusually far in their conjectures. At different times, the Duchess Matui Isabella d'Este, whose portraits Leonardo worked at that time, then a certain Florentine lady named Pacifica Brandano, who was the mistress of the noble philanthropist Giuliano Medici, became candidates for the heroine of the canvas. A number of researchers assure that no model at all and Leonardo created an ideal collective image of a woman. Others are sure that he recreated from memory the features of his mother. Still others prove that this is a young man in women's attire, who was a student, and possibly a lover of the painter himself - Gnan Giacomo Caproti, who was next to Leonardo for the last 26 years (by the way, it was to him that the artist bequeathed the painting.) Well, the last, of the most popular versions, tells us that the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci himself.

Absolutely all guesses, have no real evidence. There is also an official version. It claims that the painting depicts the wife of the wealthy Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, Lisa Gherardini. The exact date of the creation of the painting is also not known, it is believed that the work on the Gioconda took place between 1503 and 1513. Presumably, the future Mona Lisa, and then just Lisa Gherardini, began to pose when she was about twenty-four years old. The prefix "mona", again, presumably, is nothing more than an abbreviation of the word "madonna", which in Italian means "lady, madam."

revived image

The entire Renaissance was characterized by the proclamation of man as the crown of nature, its most perfect creation. As a result, in painting, which sought to imitate nature in everything, the true indicator of the artist's skill is precisely the ability to depict a person. Moreover, it was important to convey not only the characteristic features of the external appearance of the model. The most important was the ability to reveal the personality of the person being portrayed. This is where questions and searches begin, how to show the invisible, how to convey in the picture the temperament and hidden spiritual qualities inherent in the characters?

Leonardo, of course, had his own answer to these questions. The artist advised to write characters with such gestures that would reflect their state of mind. “If the figures do not make certain gestures, moreover, such that the members of the body would express the representation of their soul, then these figures are doubly dead: mostly dead because painting itself does not live, but is only an expression of living objects without life, if they are not joined by the vitality of the movement (gesture), then they turn out to be dead one more time, ”the master considered.

At the same time, it is not necessary to resort to complex angles and intricate movements, the painter himself never did this. Leonardo managed to achieve the heights of skill in creating saturation and depth of the image with the almost complete absence of external movement. The Mona Lisa's face is illuminated by a barely perceptible smile, which gives it some special expression. In a woman looking from a portrait, everything is simple, natural and at the same time very mysterious. She either thinks about something, or remembers something. Leonardo created, without exaggeration, a completely living face of a living person. He managed not to copy, but to recreate his model on canvas, showing such a lively and spiritual image that it is almost frightening. One gets the feeling that it is not the viewer who is looking at the Mona Lisa, but she herself is looking at him with a deep, meaningful look. Many argue that, being in the same room with the painting, it seems that the gaze of the Mona Lisa is always directed at the viewer, no matter where he moves. Some also argue that the face of the Gioconda changes, depending on which angle you look at it from. It turns out that this is not a picture, but the real presence of the heroine, created by the greatest genius of Leonardo da Vinci.

Unrivaled craftsmanship

How did the painter manage to create such an amazing effect? How to make a layer of paint on a flat surface of a wood panel take on a life of its own? What kind of magic did Leonardo apply, using only a brush and a palette, so that millions of viewers would believe in the Gioconda as a real one?!

Art critics carefully studied the picture. If we talk about the technique of its execution, then it should be noted here that the work is made with almost transparent, unusually thin layers of applied color, covering the original drawing. When the previous coating dried up, the master applied the next, and so, many, many times, showing enviable patience and virtuosity.

The result of such painstaking work, this unusually multi-layered painting, was such a smooth transition of some colors into others that the original contour lines of the picture seemed to be dissolved. And it is precisely this lack of boundaries between light and shadow, softly merging with each other, that creates a feeling of living volume. Another incredible achievement of Leonardo was the image of the thickness of the air, unprecedented for the painting of that time. The artist fills the space of the picture with a barely noticeable haze, thanks to which depth appears in the work.

This effect of haze, diffused soft light, Leonardo called the Italian term "sfumato". The artist's brush strokes were so small that neither an X-ray nor a microscope can detect any traces of his work, nor determine the number of layers of paint applied. Many artists for hundreds of years have tried to repeat Leonardo's technique, but none of them succeeded. Until now, "Mona Lisa" is considered unsurpassed in terms of painting technique.

And all this even despite the fact that we have the opportunity to see a rather changed picture. The masterpiece of the great Leonardo has been around for many years, during which time there have been some changes, in particular in the color palette of the canvas. The first biographer of the painter, Giorgio Vasari, who lived in the 16th century, in his descriptions of the work, mentions with admiration the crimson shades in the color scheme of the palette used to paint the face of Lisa Gherardini. Today, nothing like this can be seen in the picture.

The ratio of colors in the painting was also influenced by the lacquer coatings that, after Leonardo, were applied to the surface of the masterpiece in order to ensure its better preservation, they also created a blurred effect. Now we are looking at the image of a lady, which seems to shine through the thickness of the sea water. The composition of the painting has also undergone changes - two columns that were previously located on the sides of the main figure were completely lost. But these architectural elements completely changed the perception of the composition, because thanks to them it was immediately clear that the heroine of the picture was sitting on the balcony of the track, and not at all suspended in space, as it sometimes seems.

Laws of harmony

When creating a masterpiece, Leonardo naturally used the law of the “golden proportion” discovered by him. All elements of the picture are arranged in a strictly defined way. They follow the law of divine, harmonious proportion. The figure of Gioconda corresponds to the rule of the "golden triangle" with mathematical precision, ideally corresponding to all parts of the regular star pentagon. From the point of view of the viewer, who distinguishes the surrounding objects by shape, this is very important, although it is not realized by the person himself.

Very often, intuitively, we consider attractive and are drawn to precisely those forms that obey the law of proportion. The ancient sages and masters knew this, and modern scientists have proven it experimentally. This law applies not only to painting, but also to psychology, industrial design. The creation of forms and images for modern advertising is based on the law of harmony, we just do not know about it and do not think about it.

The magic of true art

You can write a lot about the magic and improbability of Leonardo's masterpiece, but words are just words to understand what Mona Lisa is, you need to see it. Only by looking into her eyes, you can feel everything that art critics, critics and ordinary people write about her.

Unfortunately, photographs and reproductions erase the life from the face of the Mona Lisa, and the magic of her image disappears without a trace. Photography gives only a general idea of ​​the work, it is only a hindrance for those who dream of enjoying communication with living creations. Photography is only an intermediary, like any reasoning about the masterpiece of numerous art critics. Not a single book will tell you what the motionless Mona Lisa will tell you personally. As the great creator of the picture himself said: "Who can go to the source, should not go to the jug." No amount of knowledge will help to feel; in dealing with true, living works of art, only one's own spiritual sensitivity is needed. In a meeting with the "Mona Lisa" everyone will have to independently look for the solution to her secrets. It has been proven that in different people it evokes a variety of feelings and associations, in some it revives personal memories, in others it leads to reflection. Some are sure that it is sad, others that it is thoughtful, third it seems crafty, and some even sinister. Well, someone will decide that she does not smile at all, and all her mystical mystery is fiction.

Reflection of the great Leonardo

The popular fact that when Leonardo's self-portrait is superimposed on the image of the Mona Lisa, the upper part of the face almost completely coincides can be explained from a scientific point of view. Art critics say that just as the Creator put a soul into a person, a painter puts a piece of himself into his creation. Feeling how incredibly strongly he is connected literally with each of his own works, Leonardo da Vinci repeatedly argued that “the created figures very often resemble their masters. This happens because our judgment is what moves our hand when creating all the outlines of this figure.

Looking at a work of art, the observer not only sees what is depicted on it. The most important thing that happens - he comes into contact with the inner world of the painter and recognizes him. Perhaps that is why the restrained, almost ephemeral smile of the Mona Lisa excites the hearts and minds of people with its incomprehensibility for so long? It feels all the wisdom of knowing the true nature of the surrounding objects, accumulated by Leonardo da Vinci. Perhaps, through his favorite brainchild, the artist himself looks at us with a slight grin. It seems that the whole experience of the world, embodied in the form of a woman, is collected in this small portrait. To penetrate the secret of the Gioconda is the same as to comprehend the genius who created it.

And in Rome, and in Milan, and in his last refuge, the French Amboise, Leonardo never parted with this canvas. And after his death, he bequeathed the "Mona Lisa" to his assistant and student, who soon sold the painting to an ardent admirer and last patron of the master, the French king Francis I.

Entire generations of monarchs admired the painting in Versailles, until Louis XV ordered it to be moved to the palace vault. After the French Revolution, Napoleon moved the masterpiece to his private bedroom in the Tuileries Palace. Later, the Mona Lisa ended up in the Napoleon Museums in the Louvre. From where she was abducted on August 21, 1911. The thief was an Italian, who immensely revered the works of the great master, named Vincenzo. He dreamed of returning the canvas to the artist's homeland and for almost three years hid the masterpiece in his own house. All this time, until her return to the Louvre, Mona Lisa did not leave the covers of magazines and newspapers around the world. So, already at the beginning of the 20th century, the Mona Lisa became the most recognizable work in the history of world art, and disputes and talk about it continue to this day.

Looking at yourself

Renaissance artists used to place an image of themselves somewhere in the back of the paintings they were working on. Perhaps Leonardo was no exception and depicted himself in the role of a young shepherd in a preparatory drawing for the canvas "The Adoration of the Magi". Among other things, there is an opinion that he often captured his features in order to study the proportions of the human face. However, all this is just speculation with no indisputable evidence. The only portrait of the artist, whose authenticity is not in doubt - "Self-Portrait" (Royal Library, Turin), written around 1515, 33 x 21 cm in size, which is now printed in every illustrated edition dedicated to the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci.

One of the 16th-century artists, Giovanni Lomazzo, described him as follows: “His head was covered with such long hair, and his eyebrows were so thick and his beard so impressive that he seemed to be a true personification of the noblest learning, which the ancient Prometheus and the druid Hermes used to be.”

The master created his "Self-portrait" when he was already about sixty years old. Leonardo spent his whole life studying the world around him, nature and people, and now, when his creative and life path was drawing to a close, the moment had come to look at himself. The artist did this not just like looking in a mirror, but looked at himself from the position of an artist who is able to penetrate into the deep essence of things and capture what he saw and learned on the flat surface of the sheet with confident hand movements.

This self-portrait, better than anything else, exposes the master not only in front of others, but, first of all, in front of himself. Only a few lines were sketched by Leonardo with a piece of red sanguine, but it seems he could not be more honest. Only youth is the time for narcissism, maturity is useless. Before us appears a man with the look of a sage, his features are severe and at the same time calm. His image does not look like a tired old man, but rather like a genius with incredible inner strength, whose soul is still full of passion. Leonardo is serious, focused and as if full of determination. This quick drawing was able to convey the finished image, to which there is nothing more to add. The fate of the drawing was not known for a long time. It was discovered only towards the end of the 19th century, when the Italian monarch Charles Albert of Savoy bought it from an unknown collector and transferred it to the Royal Library of Turin for preservation.

The great Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519. Centuries later, the master remains a symbol of the boundless aspirations of the human mind, a creator, genius and visionary, endowed with almost superhuman abilities. All attempts to penetrate the secrets that the artist left as a legacy to people are akin to the desire to understand the essence of art itself, as the highest manifestation of man.

Zhuravleva Tatiana

In the Renaissance, there were many brilliant sculptors, artists, musicians, inventors. Leonardo da Vinci stands out from their background. He created musical instruments, he owns many engineering inventions, painted paintings, sculptures and much more.

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

Facts from the biography

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 friendly character from an early age, and he quickly became a favorite in the family.

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

1. At the age of 14, he entered the workshop of Verrocchio, where he studied drawing and sculpture.
2. In 1480 he moved to Milan, where he founded the Academy of Fine Arts.
3. In 1499, he leaves Milan and begins to move from city to city, where he builds 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 becomes the court sage.

Leonardo died in 1519. As he believed, nothing of what he started was completed to the end.

creative way

The work of Leonardo da Vinci, whose brief biography 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 “Madonna Benois”, “Annunciation” were painted. Despite his young age, the painter has already demonstrated high skill in his paintings.
2. The mature period of Leonardo's creativity flowed in Milan, where he planned to make a career as an engineer. The most popular work written at this time was The Last Supper, at the same time he began work on the Mona Lisa.
3. In the late period of creativity, the painting "John the Baptist" and a series of drawings "The Flood" were created.

Painting has always complemented science for Leonardo da Vinci, as he sought to capture reality.

inventions

The contribution to science of Leonardo da Vinci cannot be fully conveyed by a short biography. 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 explored the fall of the body, the centers of gravity of the pyramids, and much more.
2. He invented a car made of wood that was powered by two springs. The mechanism of the car was provided with a brake.
3. He came up with a spacesuit, fins and a submarine, as well as a way to dive to depth without using a spacesuit with a special gas mixture.
4. The study of dragonfly flight has 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 engaged in developments in the military industry. One of his proposals was chariots with cannons. He came up with a prototype of an armadillo and a tank.
6. Leonardo da Vinci made many developments in construction. Arched bridges, drainage machines and cranes are all his inventions.

There is no other person 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 the past era. Although Leonardo da Vinci should not be called 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 present ideas open, but to wait a bit until humanity “ripens, grows up” to them. Equally well-versed in both hands, da Vinci wrote with his left, in the smallest font, and even from right to left, and often in mirror image. Riddles, metaphors, rebuses - this is what is found on every line, in every work. Never signing his works, the Master left his signs visible only to an attentive researcher. For example, after many centuries, scientists discovered that looking closely at his paintings, you can find the symbol of a bird taking off. Or the famous "Madonna Benois", found among itinerant actors who carried the canvas as a home icon.

Sfumato

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

Look at the famous picture - the smile of "Mona Lisa" from different angles is either gentle, or slightly arrogant and even predatory. The knowledge gained through the study of many sciences gave the Master the opportunity to invent perfect mechanisms that are only becoming available now. For example, this is the effect of wave propagation, the penetrating power of light, oscillatory motion ... and a lot of things still have to be analyzed 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 a third follows from two conclusions of the mind, is the inevitability of any analogy. And in quirkiness and drawing absolutely mind-blowing parallels to da Vinci, there are still no equals. One way or another, all his works have some ideas that do not fit with each other: the famous illustration of the "golden section" is one of them. With limbs apart and divorced, a person fits into a circle, with closed limbs into a square, and slightly raising his hands into a cross. It was such a kind of "mill" that gave the Florentine sorcerer 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

Definition means the opposition of opposites and the creation of a certain kind 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 contraposto style, forming a visual understanding of the movement.

incompleteness

This is perhaps one of the Master's favorite "tricks". None of his works are finite. To complete is to kill, and da Vinci loved each of his offspring. Slow and meticulous, the hoaxer of all time could make a couple of brush strokes and go to the valleys of Lombardy to improve the landscapes there, switch to creating the next masterpiece device or something else. Many works were spoiled by time, fire or water, but each of the creations, at least something meaningful, was and is “incomplete”. By the way, it is interesting that even after damage, Leonardo da Vinci never corrected his paintings. Having created his own paint, the artist even deliberately left a “window of incompleteness”, believing that life itself would 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 a person, on the world. The works of art were based on religious ideas and themes: the affirmation of the views on the world that the church taught, the depiction of plots 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 image of the "saints" was very far from the images of genuine living people, therefore, schemes, artificiality, and staticness dominated 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 have already begun searching for new methods of representation, began to study the laws of perspective, thought a lot about the problems of achieving expressiveness of the image.

However, these searches for something 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, then into naturalism, which is just as dangerous for genuine 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 to clearly, clearly and definitely establish the essence and tasks of art. Art should be deeply vital, realistic. It must come from a deep, thorough study of reality and nature. It must be deeply truthful, must depict reality as it is, without any artificiality or falsehood. Reality, nature is beautiful in itself and does not need any embellishment. An artist must carefully study nature, but not for blind imitation of it, not for simple copying of it, but in order to, having understood the laws of nature, the laws of reality, create works; strictly comply with these laws. To create new values, the values ​​of the real world - this is the purpose of art. This explains the desire of Leonardo to link art and science. Instead of simple, random observation, he considered it necessary to systematically, persistently study the subject. It is known that Leonardo never parted with the album and entered drawings and sketches into it.

They say that he loved to walk the streets, squares, markets, noting everything interesting - people's postures, faces, their expressions. Leonardo's second requirement for painting is the requirement for the veracity of the image, its vitality. The artist must strive for the most accurate transmission of the real in all its richness. In the center of the world stands a living, thinking, feeling person. It is he who 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 in order to see how people laugh, how the same event causes people have different experiences. If before Leonardo there was no real man in painting, now he has become dominant in the art of the Renaissance. Hundreds of drawings by Leonardo 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 of an artistic depiction. And this is the strength and charm of Leonardo's painting. Forced by the conditions of the time to paint mainly on religious subjects, because his customers were the church, feudal lords and wealthy merchants, Leonardo imperiously subordinates these traditional subjects to his genius and creates works of universal significance. The Madonnas painted by Leonardo are, first of all, 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 the babies in his paintings are healthy, full-cheeked, playful boys, in whom there is not a single gram of “holiness”.

His apostles in The Last Supper are living people of different ages, social status, and different characters; in appearance they are Milanese artisans, peasants, and intellectuals. In striving for the truth, the artist must be able to generalize the individual he has found, he must create the typical. Therefore, even drawing portraits of certain historically known people, such as, for example, Mona Lisa Gioconda - the wife of a ruined aristocrat, Florentine merchant Francesco del Gioconda, Leonardo gives them, along with individual portrait features, typical, common to many people. That is why the portraits painted by him outlived 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 catch up with nature." For the first time, it was in the works of Leonardo that the picture as such lost its static character, became a window to the world. When you look at his picture, the feeling of what is painted, enclosed in a frame, is lost and it seems that you are looking through an open window, revealing to the viewer something new, unseen. Demanding the expressiveness of the picture, Leonardo resolutely opposed the formal play of colors, against the passion for form at the expense of content, against what so vividly characterizes decadent art.

The form for Leonardo 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 the composition of the picture, the problems of placing figures, and individual details. Hence the composition, so beloved by him, of placing figures in a triangle - the simplest geometric harmonic figure - a composition that allows the viewer to capture the whole picture as a whole. Expressiveness, truthfulness, accessibility - these are the laws of real, truly folk art, formulated by Leonardo da Vinci, the laws that he himself embodied in his brilliant works. Already in his first major painting, Madonna with a Flower, Leonardo showed in practice what the principles of art he professed meant. Striking in this picture, first of all, is its composition, the surprisingly harmonious distribution of all the elements of the picture, which make up a single whole. The image of a young mother with a cheerful child in her arms is deeply realistic. The deeply felt blue of the Italian sky through the window slit is incredibly skilfully conveyed. Already in this picture, Leonardo demonstrated the principle of his art - realism, the image of a person in the deepest accordance with his true nature, the image is not an abstract scheme, which taught and what medieval ascetic art did, namely, a living, feeling person.

These principles are even more clearly expressed in the second major painting by Leonardo "Adoration of the Magi" in 1481, in which not a religious plot is significant, but a masterful depiction of people, each of whom has his own, individual face, his own pose, expresses his own feeling and mood. Life truth is the law of Leonardo's painting. The most complete disclosure of the inner life of a person 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 perfection is complemented by an unusually masterful use of colors, the harmony of light and shadows. The expressiveness, the expression of the picture reaches its perfection thanks 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: postures, facial expressions; even such details as an overturned bowl or knife; all this in its sum constitutes a single whole. The richness of colors in this picture is combined with the subtle use of chiaroscuro, which emphasizes the significance of the event depicted in the picture. The subtlety of perspective, the transfer of air, colors make this picture a masterpiece of world art. Leonardo successfully solved many 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 that weighed on art, broke them and discarded them; he managed to expand the narrow limits that the then ruling clique of churchmen limited the creative power of the artist, and instead of the hackneyed gospel stereotyped scene, show a huge, purely human drama, show living people with their passions, feelings, experiences. And in this picture, the great, life-affirming optimism of the artist and thinker Leonardo again appeared.

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, the unusually relief transfer of facial features, individual details, costume, combined with a masterfully painted landscape, that gives this picture a special expressiveness. Everything in her - from the mysterious half-smile playing on her face to calmly folded hands - speaks of a great inner content, a great spiritual life of this woman. Leonardo's desire to convey the inner world in the external manifestations of spiritual movements is 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 sought 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 subject to a single idea underlying it. It was a desire to show the rise of all the forces of a person in battle, the tension of all his feelings, brought together to achieve victory.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), 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 with Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. 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 of the scientific interests of the young da Vinci. In his early works (the head of an angel in Verrocchio's Baptism, after 1470, the Annunciation, circa 1474, both in the Uffizi; the so-called Benois Madonna, circa 1478, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg), the artist, developing the traditions of the art of the Early Renaissance, emphasized the smooth volume of forms with soft chiaroscuro, sometimes enlivened faces with a barely perceptible smile, achieving with its help the transfer of subtle states of mind.

Recording the results of countless observations in sketches, sketches and field studies performed in various techniques (Italian and silver pencils, sanguine, pen, etc.), Leonardo da Vinci achieved, sometimes resorting to an almost caricatured grotesque, sharpness in the transfer of facial expressions, and physical features and movement of the human body of young men and women brought into perfect harmony with the spiritual atmosphere of the composition.

In 1481 or 1482, Leonardo da Vinci entered the service of the ruler of Milan, Lodovico Moro, acting as a military engineer, hydraulic engineer, and organizer of court holidays. For over 10 years he worked on the equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza, the father of Lodovico Moro (a life-size clay model of the monument was destroyed when Milan was taken by the French in 1500).

In the Milan period, Leonardo da Vinci created the “Madonna in the Rocks” (1483-1494, Louvre, Paris; the second version - about 1497-1511, National Gallery, London), where the characters are presented surrounded by a bizarre rocky landscape, and the finest chiaroscuro plays the role of spiritual beginning, emphasizing the warmth of human relations. In the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, he completed the wall painting “The Last Supper” (1495-1497; due to the peculiarities of the technique used during the work of Leonardo da Vinci on the fresco - oil with tempera - it was preserved in a badly damaged form; restored in the 20th century ), which marks one of the pinnacles of European painting; its high ethical and spiritual content is expressed in the mathematical regularity of the composition, which logically continues the real architectural space, in a clear, strictly developed system of gestures and facial expressions of the characters, in the harmonious balance of forms.

Being engaged in architecture, Leonardo da Vinci developed various versions of the “ideal” city and projects of the central-domed temple, which had a great influence on the contemporary architecture of Italy. After the fall of Milan, the life of Leonardo da Vinci passed in incessant moving (1500-1502, 1503-1506, 1507 - Florence; 1500 - Mantua and Venice; 1506, 1507-1513 - Milan; 1513-1516 - Rome; 1517-1519 - France) . In his native Florence, he worked on the painting of the Great Council Hall in the Palazzo Vecchio “The Battle of Anghiari” (1503-1506, not finished, known from copies from cardboard), standing at the origins of the European battle genre of modern times. In the portrait of "Mona Lisa" or "La Gioconda" (circa 1503-1505, 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.

The late works of Leonardo da Vinci include projects for the monument to Marshal Trivulzio (1508-1512), the altarpiece “Saint Anna and Mary with the Christ Child” (circa 1507-1510, Louvre, Paris), completing the search for a master in the field of light-air perspective and harmonic pyramidal construction compositions, and "John the Baptist" (circa 1513-1517, Louvre),

where the somewhat sugary ambiguity of the image testifies to the growing moments of crisis in the artist's work. In a series of drawings depicting a universal catastrophe (the so-called cycle with the “Flood”, Italian pencil, pen, circa 1514-1516, 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. The image of Leonardo da Vinci would be perceived by us one-sidedly, without taking into account the fact that his artistic activity turned out to be inextricably linked with scientific activity. In essence, Leonardo da Vinci represents in its way the only example of a great artist for whom art was not the main business of life.

If in his youth he paid primary attention to painting, then over time this ratio changed in favor of science. It is difficult to find such areas of knowledge and technology that would not have been enriched by his major discoveries and bold ideas. Nothing gives such a vivid idea of ​​the extraordinary versatility of Leonardo da Vinci's genius as many thousands of pages of his manuscripts. The notes contained in them, combined with countless drawings that give Leonardo da Vinci's thoughts a plastic materialization, cover all being, all areas of knowledge, being, as it were, the clearest evidence of the discovery of the world that the Renaissance brought with it. In these results of his tireless spiritual work, the diversity of life itself is clearly felt, in the knowledge of which the artistic and rational principles appear in Leonardo da Vinci in an indissoluble unity.

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 the main 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 coloring of objects led to the establishment of scientifically based principles of aerial perspective in the art of the High Renaissance. 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.

And as a contrast to this creative activity full of the highest tension, Leonardo's life fate, his endless wanderings, connected with the impossibility of finding favorable conditions for work in Italy at that time. Therefore, when the French king Francis I offered him a position as a court painter, Leonardo da Vinci accepted the invitation and arrived in France in 1517. In France, during this period, especially actively joining the culture of the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci was surrounded at court with universal reverence, which, however, was more of an external character. The artist's strength was running out, and two years later, on May 2, 1519, he died in the castle of Cloux (near Amboise, Touraine) in France.

You will find a message about the Italian scientist and artist, inventor and scientist, musician and writer, as well as a representative of the art of the Renaissance, in this article.

Message about Leonardo da Vinci briefly

The great genius was born in the village of Anchiato near the town of Vinci on April 15, 1452. His parents were unmarried, and he spent the first years of his life with his mother. After that, the father, a well-to-do notary, took his son into his family. The young man in 1466 enters the workshop of the Florentine artist Verrocchio as an apprentice. Among his hobbies are drawing, modeling, sculpture, work with leather, metal and plaster. In 1473, in the Guild of St. Luke, he received the qualification of a master.

The beginning of his creative path was marked by the fact that he devoted all his free time only to painting. In the period 1472 - 1477, such famous paintings by Leonardo da Vinci as "The Annunciation", "The Baptism of Christ", "Madonna with a Flower", "Madonna with a Vase" were created. And in 1481 he created the first major work - "Madonna with a Flower".

The further activity of Leonardo da Vinci is connected with Milan, where he moves in 1482. Here he enters the service of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. The scientist had his own workshop, where he worked with his students. In addition to creating paintings, he developed a flying machine based on the flight of birds. First, the inventor created the simplest apparatus on the basis of wings, and then he developed an airplane mechanism with the described complete control. But they failed to bring their idea to life. In addition to design, he studied anatomy and architecture, gave the world a new, independent discipline - botany.

At the end of the 15th century, the artist created the painting “Lady with an Ermine”, the drawing “Vitruvian Man” and the world-famous fresco “The Last Supper”.

In April 1500, he returned to Florence, where he entered the service of Cesare Borgia as an engineer and architect. After 6 years, da Vinci is back in Milan. In 1507, the genius met Count Francesco Melzi, who would become his student, heir and life partner.

The next three years (1513 - 1516) Leonardo da Vinci lives in Rome. Here he created the painting "John the Baptist". 2 years before his death, he began to have health problems: his right hand became numb, it was difficult to move independently. And the last years the scientist was forced to spend in bed. The great artist died on May 2, 1519.

• The artist perfectly owned both the left and right hand.
• Leonardo da Vinci was the first to give the correct answer to the question "Why is the sky blue?". He was sure that the sky was blue because there was a layer of illuminated air particles between the planet and the blackness above it. And he was right.
• Since childhood, the inventor suffered from "verbal blindness", that is, a violation of the ability to read. Therefore, he wrote in a mirror way.
• The artist did not sign his paintings. But he left identification marks, which have not yet been studied.
• He was excellent at playing the lyre.

We hope that the report on the topic: "Leonardo da Vinci" helped you prepare for the classes. And you can state your message about Leonardo da Vinci in the form of comments below.