Leonardo Da Vinci Essay

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Leonardo Da Vinci: Sketches and Paintings Introduction: The Beginnings of the Jack-of-all-Trades Leonardo Da Vinci is considered by many to be one of the more influential people to grace this planet. He was, in today’s term, a Jack-of-all-Trades; scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and a writer (N.A 2014). Leonardo is also the creator of two world renown pieces, the Mona Lisa (1500, Louvre, Paris) and The Last Supper (1489, Milan, Italy) as well as a number of cartoons, sketches and anatomical studies. Many of Leonardo’s achievement went unnoticed for many years, some of them were and still are considered ‘Lost Leonardo’ (Sooke 2013). According to both Joy Sperling (2003) and Harry Hahn (1953), Leonardo Da Vinci was born in 1452 in the little Tuscan hillside country of Italy (Hahn 1953). However, when Hahn (1953) talks about the possibility of Leonardo’s birthdate, he claims that for other historians it does fluctuate. Two examples he uses is of Giorgio Vasari, who said “Leonardo was born in 1445” (Hahn 1953) and Sebastiano Resta claimed he was born in 1467 (Hahn 1953). His biological father married a nobleman’s daughter, Albiera di Giovanni Amadori, and because of this marriage, da Vinci remained in the care of his grandfather (Hahn 1953) until he was 13 years old and moved to Florence, Italy (Sperling 2003). While under the care of his grandfather, Leonardo was kept within stern discipline and gained an interest in nature, much of which reflects later within his career as well as when he experienced the sights and smells of the countryside (Refer to Pic. 1;Hahn 1953). So much so, that in a letter to Giuliano de’ Medici, it stated th... ... middle of paper ... ...’t able to do his in depth dissections (Sooke 2013). Towards the end of his life, he was mainly focused on the heart and embryology, or the valves of the heart, and was conducting multiple experiments to see how the heart worked, pumped, breathed and moved (Sooke 2013). Leonardo did all this while some of his students and some of the people who looked up to him requested he published it. Much of what Leonardo had discovered during his dissections was lost after his death until 1690, when nearly all of his anatomical studies ended up in the Royal Collection (Sooke 2013). Some of the subjects he had touched on however were never look upon again until the 20th century when modern medicine came about (Sooke 2013). Left-Handy One of the most interesting discovers is that in his journals and sketchbooks, Leonardo took to writing backwards. Infamous Works of Art

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