Leaonardo da Vinci - a new stage in the art of the West.

                         

  Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Self-portrait (ca.1512)
chalk on paper

A tireless inventor, writer, botanic, surveyor, universal genius. Innovator in all areas of creativity and began, with the invention of chiaroscuro, a new stage in the art of the West. His sketches and notes reveal to an inexhaustible interest in geometry, composition and perspective. He experimented all known methods, reaching the admirable results. It was interested movement, the expression of, chiaroscuro, linear perspective, colour and air. His works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists.

In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to the artist Andrea di Cione known as Verrocchio, whose workshop was"one of the finest in Florence". Others famous painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop include Domenico Ghirlandao, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. In 1483-1499 Leonardo da Vinci was in Milan court of  L. Sforza, then in Moro, Florence (1500-1506), again in Milan ((1506-1513), Rome (1513-1516) under the care of G. Medici, brother of Pope Leo X. In 1516, he was invited by Francis I to France.

From the first period of the Florentine come The Adoration of the Magi, St. Jerome (both not gradu-ated), Annunciation, and studies to Madonna with a kitten. With the period of the court of Milan come; Lady with an Ermine .Virgin of the Rocks. The Last Supper - Leonardo's most famous art painted for the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria Della Grazie. In the second period of the Florentine he worked over the image of the Mona Lisa (1503 -1506). In the second period of Milan such as ima-ges were formed as: St. John the Baptist, Bacchus and drawing a self-portrait.

During his first stay in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci, made a systematic study in the field of botany, mathematics, optics and mechanics. There were created parts of the Treaty about painting, architecture and anatomy, optics and mechanics. In the second period the Florentine continued scientific work and researching the primary forces of nature, covering all cosmologies. He has developed numerous projects, much of leading his epoch. In 1490 years he created Vitruvian Man - a study of the proportions of the human body. Drawing is accompanied by text, from which it follows that figure is illustrative of the Treaty of Ten Books about Architecture Vitruvius, dedicated to the proportions of the human body.

After his death, his disciple and friend, F. Melzi gathered 19 works of Leonardo in the books. Interestingly, he found on the notion of the unity of science and art, of which Leonardo was extremely loyal in his live and his oeuvre.

Reference:
www.biography.com/people/leonardo-da-vinci