The Life and Accomplishments of Leonardo da Vinci

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Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, near the town of Vinci in Italy, which resides next to Florence. He was the son of a Florentine notary, Piero da Vinci, and a young mistress named Caterina. He is famously recognised for his magnificient paintings, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Leonardo da vinci was not only a famous painter, he was also an architect, musician, inventor, sculptor, scientist, engineer, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist as well as a writer.

Leonardo Da Vinci revealed his artistic talents early in his life when his father had taken him to go train his skills as a painter and sculptor around the age of 15. He trained in the studio of Andrea Del Verroccho, a Renaissance master, where he remained at the workshop until around the age of25, where he acquired a wide variety of artistic skills.

As a child, Leonardo da Vinci was quite curious and wanted to learn how nature worked. It was through this that he made many discoveries in other areas and was named a genius in his era. Leonardo’s childhood was surrounded by the works of many artists such as his master, Verrocchio, who influenced him immensely. From there, he began to develop his artistic interests along with his many other interests. It led him to become extremely successful.

Leonardo Da Vinci used a technique known as Sfumato, softening colours and edges with dark glazes, from the Italian word fumo, which means smoke. By using this technique you can create a painting with depth that you cannot get by simply applying a colour mixed on a palette. Leonardo was the perfect example of the term “Renaissance man”, as his style was of High Italian Renaissance. The High Italian Renaissance lasted between the 1490’s and 1527, this is ref...

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...l contributed to the continuing fascination of the painting.

Leonardo has had an audience ever since he was old enough to create/observe things and be recognized. His audience varied greatly though as he travelled a lot, some of the places he went to were Venice, Milan, Rome and Florence. Leonardo was one of the greatest anatomists of his time though he was unrecognized for it, he performed many dissections and kept track of it all but the community never approved of it, there reaction was terrible at him for doing what he had done and what he was still doing. It even got to a point where he was banned from all dissections and autopsies, and when this was publicised the Painters’ guild threw him out. In other areas though when Leonardo went to Milan, Ludovico Sforza, (the Duke of Milan) employed him in great areas of work, which improved his reputation by a lot.

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