Leonardo da Vinci

Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, and Fra Bartolommeo.

Leonardo da Vinci is one of the greatest minds in history. He understood, better than anyone

of his century or the next, the importance of precise scientific observation. In 1516 he traveled to France to enter the service of King Francis. He was among the first

to ever concieve of the science of hydraulics and probably devised the

hydrometer.

He spent his last years at the Château de Cloux, near Amboise, where he

died, in 1519. In an era

filled with other Brilliant minds, the achievements that he has made in his

lifetime, in the fields of science, and art was inconceivable and too advanced

for his time period, and was not thought of again until modern times. Sfumato is characterized by subtle, almost infinitesimal

transitions between color areas, creating a delicately atmospheric haze or

smoky effect; it is especially evident in the delicate gauzy robes worn by

the sitter and in her enigmatic smile.

Because none of Leonardo's sculptural projects was completed, his

approach to three-dimensional art can only be judged from his drawings.

“Leonardo's stylistic innovations are apparent in The Last Supper, in

which he represented a traditional theme in an entirely new way. s introduced to many activities, from the

painting of altarpieces and panel pictures to the creation of large sculptural

projects in marble and bronze.

Unfortunately, just as he frequently failed to bring to conclusion artistic

projects, he never completed his planned ideas on a variety of scientific

subjects. During his early years, his style closely

resembled that of Verrocchio, but he gradually moved away from his

teacher's style, and developed a more evocative and atmospheric handling

of composition, with detailed backgrounds. In the

monumentality of the scene and the weightiness of the figures, Leonardo

reintroduced a style pioneered more than a generation earlier by Masaccio,

the father of Florentine painting.