ARTIVIST

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active
as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect..

Leonardo da Vinci was an artist and engineer who is best known for his paintings,
notably the Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) and the Last Supper (1495–98). His drawing of the
Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) has also become a cultural icon

Why is Leonardo da Vinci a great artist?

He serves as a role model applying the scientific method to every aspect of life,
including art and music. Although he is best known for his dramatic and
expressive artwork, Leonardo also conducted dozens of carefully thought out
experiments and created futuristic inventions that were groundbreaking for the time

Scientist
A Man of Science
Beginning with his first stay in Milan and accelerating around 1505, Leonardo
became more and more wrapped up in his scientific investigations. The range
of topics that came under his inquiry is extensive: anatomy, zoology, botany,
geology, optics, aerodynamics and hydrodynamics among others.

While greatly influenced by the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans,
Leonardo, unlike many of his contemporaries, saw the limitations of
seeking the truth solely in those writings or the Bible. Instead, he took the
approach of actually observing nature and asking deceptively simple
scientific questions like, "How do birds fly?" He then systematically
recorded their solutions in his sketches.

Leonardo had the unique ability to observe nature and record it. His
determination to record those details sometimes led him to work in difficult
conditions. The first biographer of Leonardo da Vinci, Paolo Giovi, wrote in
1520: "in the medical faculty he learned to dissect the cadavers of criminals
under inhuman, disgusting conditions...because he wanted [to examine
and] to draw the different deflections and reflections of limbs and their
dependence upon the nerves and the joints. This is why he paid attention
to the forms of even very small organs, capillaries and hidden parts of the
skeleton."

INVENTOR

His drawing of the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) has also become a cultural icon.
Leonardo is sometimes credited as the inventor of the tank, helicopter,
parachute, and flying machine, among other vehicles and devices, but later
scholarship has disputed such claims

As an apprentice in the studio of the artist Verrocchio, Leonardo observed and used a
variety of machines. By studying them he gained practical knowledge about their design and
structure.

What did Leonardo da Vinci do as an inventor?

As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own

time, conceptually inventing the parachute, the helicopter, an armored fighting
vehicle, the use of concentrated solar power, a calculator, a rudimentary
theory of plate tectonics and the double hull.
Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance artist and engineer, known
for paintings like "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa,” and for
inventions like a flying machine.
Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?

Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor,

military engineer and draftsman — the epitome of a true Renaissance man.
Gifted with a curious mind and a brilliant intellect, da Vinci studied the laws
of science and nature, which greatly informed his work. His drawings,
paintings and other works have influenced countless artists and engineers
over the centuries. 

Early Life

Da Vinci was born in a farmhouse outside the village of Anchiano in

Tuscany, Italy (about 18 miles west of Florence) on April 15, 1452.

Born out of wedlock to respected Florentine notary Ser Piero and a young
peasant woman named Caterina, da Vinci was raised by his father and his
stepmother. 

At the age of five, he moved to his father’s estate in nearby Vinci (the town
from which his surname derives), where he lived with his uncle and
grandparents.

Education

Young da Vinci received little formal education beyond basic reading,

writing and mathematics instruction, but his artistic talents were evident
from an early age.

Around the age of 14, da Vinci began a lengthy apprenticeship with the
noted artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. He learned a wide breadth
of technical skills including metalworking, leather arts, carpentry, drawing,
painting and sculpting. 

His earliest known dated work — a pen-and-ink drawing of a landscape in

the Arno valley — was sketched in 1473.
Early Works

At the age of 20, da Vinci qualified for membership as a master artist in

Florence’s Guild of Saint Luke and established his own workshop.
However, he continued to collaborate with del Verrocchio for an additional
five years.

It is thought that del Verrocchio completed his “Baptism of Christ” around

1475 with the help of his student, who painted part of the background and
the young angel holding the robe of Jesus. 

According to Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects,

written around 1550 by artist Giorgio Vasari, del Verrocchio was so
humbled by the superior talent of his pupil that he never picked up a
paintbrush again. (Most scholars, however, dismiss Vasari’s account as
apocryphal.)

In 1478, after leaving del Verrocchio’s studio, da Vinci received his first
independent commission for an altarpiece to reside in a chapel inside
Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. 

Three years later the Augustinian monks of Florence’s San Donato a

Scopeto tasked him to paint “Adoration of the Magi.” The young artist,
however, would leave the city and abandon both commissions without ever
completing them.