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 Florentine painter, sculptor and draughtsman, a universal genius who was architect, town planner,
inventor, scientist, writer and musician. Leonardo was the natural son
of the notary at Vinci, then under Florentine rule. His
extraordinary gifts were soon apparent and he was apprenticed
to Andrea Verrocchio, a leading Florentine artist. His
fellow-apprentices were Lorenzo di Credi and Botticelli. Little
is known about this period except that Leonardo came under the patronage
of Lorenzo de' Medici and in 1472 became a master, a member of
the Guild of St Luke. In 1482 he entered the service of Lodovico
Sforza, Duke of Milan, where he was active as court painter,
sculptor, architect and military engineer until the fall of
Sforza in 1499, when the French armies occupied Milan. Leonardo fled
to Mantua, then to Venice, where he was employed as a military
engineer. In 1500 he went to Florence, two years later joined Cesare
Borgia in his campaigns, but on Borgia's defeat returned to
Florence, where he remained until 1508. The Mona Lisa was painted
in Florence between 1503 and 1506. In 1508 Leonardo was recalled to Milan
by the French governor of the city, Charles d'Amboise, and for five
years was occupied with scientific studies and plans for the
construction of a canal. With his pupil and assistant, Francesco
Melzi, he travelled to the Vatican in 1513 to seek the favour of
the Medici Pope Leo X, but left disappointed in 1517 to join
court of the French king, Francis I. In Rome Leonardo was surrounded by
intrigue; in France, however, he was greatly appreciated and admired.
He lived at the royal chiteau de Cloux, near Amboise, until his
death.
Leonardo left few authentic paintings. The Angel kneeling at the extreme
left' in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ is believed to be his work.
He assisted Verrocchio, on a number of paintings, and this has led
to a great deal of controversy over their authorship. The
Annunciation (c. 1474) is attributed to Leonardo on account of
the mysterious landscape and the scientific rendering of
depth.
During 1483 Leonardo worked on the painting the Virgin of the Rocks; the version at the Louvre is considered to be Leonardo Virgin of the Rocks
before 1483 earlier and of greater artistic value. He painted
a number of portraits of court ladies during his stay in Milan;
the Lady with the Ermine was probably the duke's mistress.
It is a masterly rendering of form and a profound psychological study.
The Last Supper, painted 1495-8 for the refectory of the monastery of
S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, has, though now careffully restored,
been much damaged and overpainted. In the
Mona Lisa Leonardo expressed with consummate skill his feeling
for the mystery of existence. The forms are precise yet melting,
fused into each other with subtle tonal transitions.
When Leonardo moved to France, he took with him the Mona Lisa, John the Baptist, and the Virgin and Child with St Anne. No authentic sculpture by Leonardo is known.
Numerous landscape drawings
and studies of heads and nude figures survive; many form part of his
notes and scientific studies. Leonardo's draughtsmanship has never been
equalled. His notebooks, written backwards and unknown to his
contemporaries, contained profound scientific observations on
proportion, perspective, optics, anatomy, geology and such inventions
as cannons, tanks, a diving-suit and flying machines. His celebrated
Treatise on Painting, which has survived in a fairly accurate copy
by another hand, circulated widely in the 16th century Leonardo greatly influenced his contemporaries, Correggio, Giorgione, Raphael and del Sarto,
with his compositions and use of light. He influenced Rubens and
foreshadowed the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt.
Da Vinci
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