When you think of Leonardo da Vinci, you probably think of the Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous artists in the world. But he is much more than that. Indeed he never thought of himself as an artist. When he sent a letter to the ruler of Milan describing his strengths when he was looking for work, he listed 10 different skills. And almost as an afterthought, he mentioned he could also paint. The reason his artworks are so realistic and detailed is that he invested much of his time in the study of science. da Vinci was born in a village near Vinci, just outside Florence, in 1452.
The illegitimate son of a farmer’s daughter and a prominent lawyer. Although he didn’t receive any formal education, his artistic ability was clear from a very early age. When he was 15, he studied under the acclaimed artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. When da Vinci helped Verrochio paint an angel in the “Baptism of Christ”, the story goes that his version was so much better than his master’s that Verrochio vowed never to pick up a paintbrush again. da Vinci was a notoriously slow painter and many of his works were never finished. Only about two dozen survive.
A drop in the bucket compared to other artists. Van Gogh left more than 2,000 works. da Vinci wasn’t just interested in how the human body or nature looked on a canvas. He wanted to know why they appeared as they did. He was able to give the Mona Lisa that mysterious look on her face because he studied all the muscles involved in smiling. He devoted a lot of his time to studying human anatomy. If you wanted to learn about human anatomy in the 1500s, there was no easy way to do so, no medical textbooks and, of course, no way to google search an image. So he studied the only way he could - by examining corpses. Hospitals were keen to support his artistic research and gave him access to cadavers. He dissected over 30 bodies in his lifetime and filled thousands of pages with notes and detailed drawings.
If you’re having trouble reading this, it’s because da Vinci had a habit of writing backward. He liked to go from right to left. He was left-handed. So some have speculated this would have stopped his ink from smudging. His writing can be read normally only if viewed in a mirror. He probably wouldn’t have done so if he had any intention of publishing his notes. His depictions of the body are beautiful. And for the most part, accurate. So accurate that professors can actually use his drawings to teach anatomy. One of his most famous works that perfectly illustrates the fusion of art and science is the Vitruvian man which depicts the proportions of the human body according to Vitruvius - a Roman architect. The man’s outstretched arms are equal to his height, which is true for most people.
He was particularly obsessed with the heart which he described as a “...wonderful instrument invented by the Supreme Master.” Many of his medical conclusions about the heart have turned out to be stunningly accurate. He was the first to describe the heart as a muscle, that it has four chambers, and that the arterial valves opened and closed to let blood flow around the organ. He was also the first to recognize coronary artery disease. Around 1506, he witnessed a 100-year-old man die suddenly. He dissected his heart and discovered that his arteries had narrowed. He deduced, this was what killed him. He was far ahead of his time. Coronary artery disease wouldn’t be described by a physician until more than 150 years later. It’s a mystery why he never published any of his work. His notes were not discovered until the late 18th century - more than 250 years after his death.
Had they been known during his lifetime, they could have had a profound effect on the understanding of the human body and, perhaps, helped physicians find ways to heal certain ailments. In the same way that he studied the body to improve his paintings and then became obsessed with anatomy, he studied plants to improve his art and then became obsessed with botany. He drew most of his delicate works with red chalk. His sketches of plants were so accurate they could have been considered scientific studies. In the Study of the Star of Bethlehem, the swirls of leaves are similar to the movement of water - another one of his obsessions. da Vinci dedicated a lot of time trying to understand the flow of water. Most of his 72-page scientific diary called the Codex Leicester is dedicated to the study of the motion of water in seas, rivers, and canals.
Bill Gates bought it for nearly $31 million - making it the most expensive book ever sold. da Vinci also invented the lock that almost any canal or waterway you visit uses to this day. The lock was mitered - as in - two 45 degree angles meet each other at a point. His contribution to engineering extended from the waters to the skies. Da Vinci sketched out this flying machine that he called the Aerial Screw while he was employed as a military engineer by the Duke of Milan in the 1490s. The device was meant to be powered by four men who would push the four wooden shafts in a circular motion. da Vinci believed this would generate enough force to lift it off the ground. Had he actually attempted to create a real-life model it would have been too heavy to lift. But the basic principles of lift-off provided the earliest foundation for modern helicopters.
He also made sketches of a parachute, speculating that if a person had a tent made from linen that matched their proportions, they would be able to jump from any height without being injured. Once again, he didn’t make a real-life model. But a British skydiver did use da Vinci’s idea 500 years later, in 2000, and it worked, in practice. da Vinci clearly had confidence in his own designs and had done some mathematical equations. He applied math to his paintings. The Last Supper, one of the most recognizable works in the world, is a prime example of the use of the mathematical principle of perspective. Jesus is sharing a final meal with his 12 disciples before his crucifixion. All the lines in the painting converge in one place, known as the vanishing point so that the focus is on Jesus.
This was done to emphasize the importance of Christ. And he wasn’t afraid to try new things visually. The traditional Florentine way of painting was to outline an image, giving it a very crisp appearance. Instead, he perfected a new technique, sfumato, which means “vanished” or “evaporated” in Italian. It gets rid of hard edges by blending everything without lines or borders. The Mona Lisa is a classic example of the use of sfumato, particularly in the shading around the eyes. He also began to experiment with new materials for painting. Renaissance period artists were moving away from egg tempera paint - which was pigments mixed with egg yolk and water to oil paints, which allowed for more vivid colors and greater contrasts. However, oil paints were complicated to make and the quality fluctuated greatly.
So, da Vinci put on his chemistry hat and cooked his own pigments in linseed oil at a low temperature and added about 5% of beeswax which prevented the paint from darkening on the canvas. da Vinci’s art was a confluence of biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and physics. He employed all these skills when France’s King Francis I appointed him as ‘the first painter, engineer, and architect of the king’ when he was already in his sixties. His final work was not a painting but a party he threw in the summer of 1518 at his residence at the Château du Clos Lucé, the king’s summer castle, in Central France, to thank him for his generosity. There was a spectacle at the party where players dressed up as planets surrounded by the sun and the moon. da Vinci was the first to explain why you can see light between the two points of a crescent moon. He figured out it was due to sunlight hitting the Earth and reflecting onto the moon called Earthshine. This was an outlandish theory at the time. Most people didn't even know that Earth orbited the sun! He was, once again, far, far ahead of his time.
When da Vinci passed away at the chateau on the 2nd of May in 1519, he left behind thousands of pages of notes and drawings for future generations. He may be best known for his art. But clearly, he was a Jack of All Trades and the Master of Them All.
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