Chapter VII: The Lives and Works of Master

in Visual Arts
Leonardo Da Vinci

Da Vinci" redirects here. For other uses,

see Da Vinci (disambiguation). This is a Renaissance Florentine name. The

name da Vinci is an indicator of birthplace, not a family name; this person is
properly referred to by the given name Leonardo. Leonardo di ser Piero da
Vinci (Italian: [leonardo di sr pjro da (v)vinti] more commonly Leonardo
da Vinci or simply Leonardo (15 April 1452 2 May 1519), was
an Italian polymath whose
areas
of
interest
included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music,mathema
tics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany,writing, his
tory, and cartography. He has been variously called the father
ofpalaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of
the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of
theparachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist
ideal. Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of
the "Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man", an individual of "unquenchable
curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". According to art
historianHelen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without
precedent in recorded history, and "his mind and personality seem to us
superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci
notes that while there is much speculation regarding his life and personality,
his view of the world was logical rather than mysterious, and that the
empirical methods he employed were unorthodox for his time. Born out of
wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina,
in Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the
renowned Florentine painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Much of his earlier
working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later
worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at
the home awarded to him by Francis I of France. Leonardo was, and is,
renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, theMona Lisa is the most
famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced
religious
painting
of
all
time,
their
fame
approached
only
by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian
Man is also regarded as acultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied
as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have
survived. Nevertheless, these few 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 rivalled only
by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo. Leonardo is revered for his
technological ingenuity. He conceptualized flying machines, a type of vehicle,

concentrated, an adding machine, and the double hull, also outlining a

rudimentary theory of plate tectonics.[citation needed] Relatively few of his
designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern
scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy
during the Renaissance.

Michael Angelo Bounorroti

was an Italian sculptor, painter,

architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled

influence on the development of Western art.[1] Considered to be the
greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since also been described as
one of the greatest artists of all time.[1] Despite making few forays beyond
the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order
that he is often considered a contender for the title of the
archetypal Renaissance
man,
along
with
his
rival
and
fellowFlorentine Medici client, Leonardo da Vinci. A number of Michelangelo's
works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in
existence.[1] His output in every field of interest was prodigious; given the
sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences
taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. He
sculpted two of his best-known works, the Piet and David, before the age of
thirty. Despite holding a low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created
two of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes
from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and The Last
Judgment on its altar wall. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered
the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library. At the age of 74, he
succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter's
Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the western end was
finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification, after his
death.
Michelangelo
was
unique
as
the
first
Western
artist
whose biography was published while he was alive.[2] In fact, two
biographies were published during his lifetime; one of them, by Giorgio
Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the
beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in
art history for centuries. In his lifetime he was often called Il Divino ("the
divine one").[3] One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was
histerribilit, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur. The attempts by subsequent
artists to imitate[4] Michelangelo's impassioned and highly personal style
resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after
the High Renaissance.

Pablo

Picasso

was
a
Spanish
painter,
sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who
spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the greatest and
most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding
the Cubistmovement, the invention of constructed sculpture,[3][4] the coinvention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop
and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937),
a
portrayal
of
the Bombing of Guernica by the German and Italian airforces at the behest of
the Spanish
nationalist
government during
the Spanish
Civil
War.
Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are regarded as the three artists
who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the
opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant
developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics. [5][6][7][8] Picasso
demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a
naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first
decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with
different theories, techniques, and ideas. His work is often categorized into
periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most
commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (19011904),
the Rose Period (19041906), the African-influenced Period (19071909),
Analytic Cubism (19091912), and Synthetic Cubism (19121919), also
referred to as the Crystal period. Exceptionally prolific throughout the course
of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for
his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the bestknown figures in 20th-century art.

Vincent Van Gogh

- was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who

is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western
art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around
860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They
includelandscapes, still
lifes, portraits and self-portraits,
and
are
characterised by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and highly
expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He
sold only one painting during his lifetime and became famous after his
suicide at age 37, which followed years of poverty and mental illness. Born
into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious,
quiet and thoughtful, but showed signs of mental instability. As a young man
he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he
was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a
missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He
was keenly aware of modernist trends in art and, while back with his parents,
took up painting in 1881. His younger brother, Theo, supported him

financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter. Van Gogh's
early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, contain few
signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. In 1886 he moved
to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. As his work developed he
created a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. His paintings grew
brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully realised during
his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888. He lived there in the Yellow
House and, with the French artist Paul Gauguin, developed a concept of
colour that symbolised inner emotion. During this period he broadened his
subject matter to include olive trees, cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and, though he
worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, not
eating properly and drinking heavily. His friendship with Gauguin came to an
end after he threatened the Frenchman with a razor, and in a rage, cut off
part of his own left ear. While in a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rmy his
condition stabilised, leading to one of the more productive periods of his life.
He moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris under the
care of the homeopathic doctor and artist, Paul Gachet. During this time, his
brother Theo wrote that he could no longer support him financially. A few
weeks later, on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a
revolver. He died from his injuries two days later. Considered a madman and
a failure in his lifetime, Van Gogh exists in the public imagination as the
quintessential misunderstood genius, the artist "where discourses on
madness and creativity converge".