Leonardo da VinciThe Paranoid Grouch

(1452-1519)

Early Life

• Leonardo was born in Vinci, a short distance from Florence.

• He was the illegitimate son of a notary.

• His father set him up with an as an apprentice with Verruchio

The village of Vinci

A Young Master

• By the age of 20 he surpassed his master, painting The Baptism of Christ in 1472.

• It is rumoured that Verrochio never painted again after this.

A Universal Man

• There was little that Leonardo did not excel at.

• He was a painter, a sculptor, an engineer, a musician, a singer, a mathematician, a physicist, a botanist, an anatomist, a cartographer, a geologist, a geographer, a poet, a town planner and an athlete.

A Universal Man

• He always wanted to write a treatise on painting (like Alberti), but never did.

• He seems to have not mastered Latin, the language of scholarship.

• - or perhaps he was simply too busy.

The Notebooks

• Leonardo kept notes on everything.

• Around 5,000 pages still exist.

• However, he used mirror-writing to ensure privacy while and after he wrote.

• More mundanely, perhaps he did so because he was left handed and found this easier.

The Notebooks

• His studies were large and small – from anatomical studies of the human arm to plans for a bridge to cross the Golden Horn in Istanbul.

The Notebooks

• Curiously, the Sultan declined building Leonardo’s span, thinking it impossible.

• In 2006 the Turkish government commissioned Bulent Gungor to build the structure.

Leonardo’s design

Poor Completion Record

• He had a reputation for not completing works.

• Involved in so many things, he could not manage his time.

• When given the commission for the Virgin of the Rocks, he promised it within 7 months but did not deliver it until 25 years later.

The Last Supper• Leonardo was

commissioned to paint this for the refectory of a Dominican monastery.

• He disastrously decided to use oils, instead of fresco, on the damp walls.

• It deteriorated almost immediately.

The Last Supper

• Painting in fits and starts, and usually with hired musicians playing for him, the project dragged on to the point where the monks threatened to lock him in until the work was finished.

• Legend has it that Leonardo retaliated by painting the abbot as the image of Judas.

The Mona Lisa (La Giaconda)

• This oil on panel is his most famous work.

• Begun in 1503, it was still in his possession when he died in France.

• Salai sold it to the French King for 4,000 ecus, and so it now resides in the Louvre.

The Mona Lisa (La Giaconda)

• The enigmatic smile is most frequently commented on.

• His capture of this transient expression displays unparalleled virtuosity.

The Mona Lisa (La Giaconda)

• There is a hypothesis that this is actually not a direct portrait of a Florentine woman at all – or that da Vinci has placed elements of his own image in the portrait..

Finis