Inside the life of Leonardo da Vinci

The usage of oil paintings widely spread during the period of renaissance in Italy. It was so tedious that artists portraying oil paintings recipes containing olive oil were warned by a German monk, Theophilus in the 12th century. Oil painting techniques were invented or rather re-invented by the well-known Flemish artist Jan van Eyck in or around 1410.After him, it was Leonardo da Vinci who acclaimed the greatest credits amongst the renaissance painters.

Leonardo da Vinci was born in April 15, 1452 in Tuscany, Italy, to Ser Piero, a 25 year old notary and Caterina, a peasant girl. He was one amongst the few artists who achieved iconic status and legendary fame during his own lifetime. He was well renowned for his achievements as an artist, besides his diverse skills as a scientist and an inventor. His artistic masterpiece includes the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, being the famous ever artwork created.

Leonardo was apprenticed at the age of fifteen to Andrea Del Verrochio in Florence. During this time he painted an angel in Verrochio's "Baptism of Christ", which was for better than Verrochio's works that Verrochio resolved to never paint again. The undisputed fact about da Vinci was his first known work dated 1473, was a drawing of Arno Valley. “Madonna and Child” completed in 1478, was his first solo painting. “Adoration of the Magi” was his first work of great significance commissioned by monks of San Donato a Scopeto. He introduced the themes of drama and movement. He pioneered the use of Chiaroscuro. This was the procedure of defining forms through the contrast of shadow and light.

In 1482, he went to the service of Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza. During his service for the 16 years, he branched into other interests like anatomy and engineering. “Madonna on the Rocks” and also “the Last Supper” was painted by him during this period. These highly regarded spiritual paintings depicted the feast Christ had, where he was about to announce his imminent betrayal. In 1499, his patron the Duke of Milan was defeated in a French invasion which led to the painting "Battle of Anghiari".

In 1503, Da Vinci started his work on the eternal Masterpiece "Mona Lisa". Completed in 1506, it was the portrait of a wife of a Florentine noble. The lady came several days for the portrait but refused to smile, Leonardo even hired musicians to make her smile. One day Leonardo captured her fleeting smile which encapsulates a tremendous mysteriousness which is both intriguing and fascinating. That smile has made her eternal, immortalized the artist and the art.

The techniques of sfumato and chiaroscuro have been mastered by Leonardo. Sfumato is the technology of the gradual switch from a colour to the other by giving very delicate and expressive images. In 1513, he moved to Rome where he accompanied the patronage of the new Medici Pope, Leo X. In 1515, he left to spend the rest of his life at the castle of Cloux, near Amboise after he was invited by Francis I of France. Leonardo’s portrait was used during his lifetime with the iconic image of Plato in Raphael’s School of Athens. His immortal painting Mona Lisa was the most imitated artwork of all time. His drawing of Vitruvian man iconically represents the fusion of Art and Science.
He was of so amazingly prolific that the King of France bore him like a trophy of war ,gave him support in his old age and cradled his head as he died on May 2,1519.Words are of no justice for his accomplishments.

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