Biographical Information:
Leonardo was born in 1456 in the small town of Vinci as the illegitimate son of a notary. With fifteen he began an apprenticeship with the most respected painter in Florence at that time, Verocchio. He sat up his own studio around 1478 and moved to Milan in 1482 to work as a civil and military engineer for the Duke and only secondary as an architect, sculptor and painter. Leonardo also worked as a designer and director of court festivals. Here he began his first systematic scientific studies, based on practical experience, in anatomy, botany, mathematics, physics and mechanics and wrote most of his "Treatise in Painting".
He was a painter and scientist of the Florentine school. His scientific investigations and his art both tried to further the knowledge of the principles which underlie the processes of nature. His main achievement is this unity of his scientific and artistic work.
Around 1500, while he was developing maps and city plans and worked as a military engineer back again in Florence he painted the "Mona Lisa". His main interests though were his scientific investigations. After he returned to Milan in 1506, he concentrated on his anatomical studies and his research in natural sciences. Leonardo created the modern scientific illustration, an essential tool for anatomists and biologists.
Leonardo founded the classic style of the High Renaissance. He expanded the range of tonal values to include the whole scale of dark to light by means of fluid gradations - the technique known as chiaroscuro. He achieved a great sense of organic life in his drawings by reducing the detailed definition of form of the 15th century style. He does not think of outlines but of three dimensional bodies made visible in varying degrees, by the incidence of light. The influence of his simple but grand compositions reshaped the whole course of European painting.
The mural "The Last Supper" (1495-98) has always been recognized as the first classic statement of the ideals of High Renaissance painting. In his most famous portrait "Mona Lisa" (1503-05) he perfected sfumato ( a fine haze which lends a peculiar warmth and intimacy to a scene). The forms are built from thin layers of glazes that the entire panel seems to glow with a gentle light from within. But the fame of the picture comes from the intriguing psychological fascination with the subject's personality. He left behind unfinished his most ambitious work, a large panel called "The Adoration of the Magi" (1481-82).
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