Question:
Leonardo Da Vinci Essay?
Hi, im writing an essay on leonardo da vinci, and it has to be an essay reflecting on his effect on society today, but i dont know how he effected us, as normal ppl. I need some information on his art, and art history, his engeneering and engineering history and his inventions and invention history. And just your thoughts on Leonardo as a person.... thankyou
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Although Leonardo often lacked the will to pin down the minutiae, he was nevertheless a Renaissance man par excellence. His wide-ranging knowledge still has huge relevance to today and beyond.
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In his relentless observations of nature, Leonardo came to see what others would not for many more years. He noted, for example, that the 'sun does not move'. He also worked out that what the eye sees is not always what the mind perceives. Our minds adapt the images reaching our eyes so that they make sense. In order for an artist to create images that look alive he or she must anticipate how the mind of the viewer will perceive them.
It was this critical understanding of the world that enabled him to create such masterpieces, and in particular the Mona Lisa. It has become a clich㩠that her eyes seem to follow the viewer round the room and her expression seems to change with every glance, but why should that be? Leonardo realised that rather than attempt to trace every line of an image, the best way for a picture to appear to be alive is to leave something to the imagination of the spectator. He invented a technique that purposely left the lines between the different elements of a painting blurred, with one colour merging into another. This technique is called sfumato.
On the Mona Lisa, sfumato is used to startling effect. The parts of her face telling of her expression and mood – her eyes and corners of her mouth – are not clearly defined. In addition, the horizon is higher on the right of the face than the left so that the perspective, and with it her expression, appears to change depending on which side the picture is viewed.
The Mona Lisa is also an illustration of Leonardo's principle, again learned from nature, that 'perspective is nothing else than seeing a place behind a pane of glass, on the surface of which the objects behind the glass are to be drawn'. Renaissance artists were investigating how to draw three dimensional objects on a flat surface to give greater realism of depth and distance, and Leonardo's curiosity drove him to try to explain what he saw, devising mathematical rules to test his approach. If images viewed through the glass are traced on to the glass their relative sizes to each other can be copied. It was scientific understanding and perception such as this that set Leonardo apart both in his art and engineering works.