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Figure Personified the ‘Renaissance Man’: Critical Essay
Leonardo da Vinci Influenced by the Renaissance
Born in the Renaissance period, which spanned the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, Leonardo da Vinci became one of the smartest men ever to live (Renaissance). He was trained through primary education and went on to many accomplishments with his knowledge of math, science, and art. The Renaissance period influenced inventors and painters on the human aspect and led to many new areas of thought. Although da Vinci had many talents, the intellectual opportunity of the Renaissance of realism thru emotions, geometry, and anatomy most contributed to his emergence as a great figure.
Realism emerged during the Renaissance as painters started to notice and paint the natural world. Prior to this, painters painted portraits that did not resemble the figure in their paintings. However, when the Renaissance era started, painters no longer painted to make their figures perfect, but they wanted to show how something or someone looked in real life. Therefore, artists began to place depth within their paintings, and they painted realistic figures that were shown in a realistic setting (Realism in the Renaissance). The Renaissance produced realism as a by-product of art letting artists create many new types of realistic emotional paintings which led da Vinci to create the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
The Mona Lisa was a famous painting by da Vinci that featured a portrait of a Florentine merchants wife, Lisa Gherardini. Mona Lisa is pictured in a sitting position, looking forward with her right arm placed on her left wrist. Mona Lisa confuses many viewers with her half smile or maybe no smile at all. Her expression is caught mid-emotion in a very realistic way, which shows a change of emotion. The smile brings on a feeling of wonder; what must she be thinking about, or what is the meaning of her smile? Leonardo da Vinci uses the style of chiaroscuro (Sethi) which is light and dark contrasts in a painting to create depth and a three-dimensional outlook to a picture. (Chiaroscuro). The Mona Lisa also uses the sfumato technique, which is the blending of oil paints to create a calming effect (Sfumato). With the many methods and emotions of the Mona Lisa, da Vinci painted Mona Lisa and showed her realistic and correct side of a person in mid-thought. By using Sfumato and Chiaroscuro, da Vinci completely changed portrait painting, and allowed artists including Raphael to create many new types of portraits. This new type of painting spread da Vinci’s influence through many different artists and allowed for his status as a great figure to emerge (Britannica).
Furthermore, The Last Supper, another painting by da Vinci, also used realism to depict many realistic emotions. The elegant art depicts Jesuss last meal where Jesus sits with his apostles (Sethi). Jesus is very calm and is relatively more central than the other apostles, showing his importance within the painting (Isaacson 284). This painting is crucial as it shows the moment Jesus tells his apostles that one of them will betray him (Sethi). One of the apostles, Judas, is represented as a repulsive figure (Isaacson 283). He stands alone in the shadows where he held a purse that contained the money he obtained for his betrayal of Jesus. Each apostle carries a different expression on his face; expressions of skepticism, fear, and shock roam their appearances (Sethi). Da Vinci quoted in his notebook that a picture of human figures ought to be done in such a way that the viewer may easily recognize by means of their attitudes, the intentions of their minds (Isaacson 282). Clearly, da Vinci wanted to realistically depict emotions within his paintings and he followed this rule with The Last Supper. The magnificent realistic masterpiece by da Vinci led to his emergence as a great figure because he was one of the first to portray the breathtaking realism of the Last Supper, which was later copied by many great painters including Michelangelo and Raphael (Sethi).
The Renaissance influence of realism inspired Leonardo da Vinci to use light and shadow to increasingly make his artwork into realistic designs. The Virgin of the Rocks was a very significant painting that da Vinci completed which focused on the light and shadows of pictures. As there were two versions created, the first version includes many examples of da Vincis use of light and shadow (Isaacson 228). In the Virgin of the Rocks, da Vinci juxtaposes light and shade to create a sense of flow. He applies multiple layers of translucent color, and forms shadings with a little blurring of the outlines which uses the sfumato and chiaroscuro styles of art (Isaacson 228). This use of sfumato allows the painting to become more natural and have a three-dimensional feel to it (Sethi). The light passes through the layers of the paint and bounces back up and creates illuminated figures and objects (Isaacson 228). The environment of rock, water, and pictures of Jesus and John the Baptist creates a human-like quality to the whole painting. The figures within the canvas move with a sense of motion (Sethi). These two pieces of artwork showed how da Vinci was able to use light and shadow to advance his work with realism and stray away from non-genuine paintings. This painting was very influential as it was an earlier example of an oil painting that can be used to create more humanistic and realistic art. Furthermore, many artists including Joos van Cleve in his painting Oly Infants Embracing were influenced by da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks further contributing to da Vincis greatness (Sethi).
In the Renaissance, when many artists and mathematicians had questions about many aspects of math including perspective, and geometry. Leonardo da Vinci created notable works and observations which contributed to his realistic artwork(Folkerts, Menso, and Craig G. Fraser). The Vitruvian Man was a draft in his notebook that da Vinci devised to show how shapes and geometry were used to create a perfect realistic man because it held the measurements of an ideal body to show human body symmetry (Richman-Abdou). The Vitruvian Man has perfect portions of a man, with two different sets of arms and legs. One set of the man’s arms and legs are apart to show the circumference of a circle. His other set of arms and legs show the legs together and the arms straight out, which shows the volume of a square. Throughout the masterpiece, there are indications of balance, symmetry, and proportion for the ideal human body. With this drawing, da Vinci reveals how Renaissance realism connected man with science to create a very realistic drawing. His intellectual sketch influenced many other works of art that spread his credibility and notability including prompting artist Nat Krate to create the Vitruvian Women (Sethi).
Leonardo da Vinci also used geometry as a gateway to perspective. Da Vinci was interested in shapes and how shapes transformed (Isaacson 206). He created designs with two overlapping half circles and created many circular shapes with the same area as triangles and rectangles (Isaacson 207). Even though da Vinci was never good at square roots or cube roots, he found he could visually cube a square by drawing a cubed square, and then he did not have to do any cubing mathematically (Isaacson 208; Isaacson 209). Da Vinci drew one hundred eighty diagrams of different shapes overlapping to create the perspective of a pattern (Isaacson 208). The perspective of these shapes being cubed and squared led da Vinci to produce new realistic shapes. Using complex perspective, da Vinci made it so the viewer saw a different perspective of the art depending on the angle of sight. In the painting, the painted cornice hides the fact that the ceiling does not reach the table. The room with Jesus and the apostles gets smaller towards a vanishing point in the back wall until it appeared that the back is so tiny that it only held three windows. This vanishing point method was influenced by Renaissance plays and their layout because a Renaissance play had a stage that was not a square box, but a bit narrow and short thus giving off the perspective and illusion of the scene being stretched far back (Isaacson 289). The Last Supper reveals a clever use of scientific perspective and a theatrical look to create a very realistic painting that was influenced by the Renaissance ways and added to his development as a great figure.
During the Renaissance, artists, and inventors including da Vinci studied anatomy and performed dissections to create lifelike works. Da Vinci studied human anatomy through dissection (Bambach), to assist with his art and many other interests. He wrote in his notebook, It is necessary for a painter to be a good anatomist, so that he may be able to design the naked parts of the human frame and know the anatomy of the sinews, nerves, bones, and muscles (Isaacson 212). He also described in his notes how tissues, veins, muscles, and nerves were displayed from many different angles (Isaacson 215). His dissection led to many other important findings, as he stated in his notebook, When a man kneels down he will diminish by the fourth part of his height. These different findings helped da Vinci paint humans and animals in multiple poses and movements (Isaacson 221). Da Vinci also drew numerous skulls in his notebook, where he focused on how the different inner cavities are connected within the face (Isaacson 216). The skulls that he drew were split in half with a line down the middle that signified the two parts of the skull being put together. The skull is very realistic but with only one-half of the teeth (Isaacson 217) to show the dental layout of a human. This was the first occurrence of a drawing showing the dental layout of a human (Isaacson 216). The Renaissance influence on anatomical studies displayed in da Vincis notebooks allowed da Vinci to create models and write books on anatomy including the Codex on the Flight of the Birds, and create the mechanical wings.
The anatomical studies of da Vinci through animals and human dissection led him to design inventions based on bird flight and author the book Codex on the Flight of the Birds. This book was one of the most significant documents ever written by da Vinci as it showed the inner workings of his great mind. Throughout the book, da Vinci discovered the thrust in birds and wrote about the physics of bird flight. The whole book was about the mechanics of bird flight and bird anatomy so it would ultimately lead him to design inventions based on bird flight (Codex on the Flight of Birds). Da Vinci’s anatomical study under the Renaissance influence led to his understanding of bird flight and his attempt to make bird flight machines possible. Additionally, with his knowledge of bird flight, da Vinci used his anatomical knowledge of the human body, to illustrate mechanical wings within his notebook which tested the potential strength of the human body. To work the mechanical wings, the pilot jumped from a great height with his feet attached to the metal boards in the mechanical wings to keep afloat. Not only that, but the pilot had to move the two metal bars by bending and straightening his wings (Laurenza 66). The mechanical wings showed the Renaissance influence on da Vinci through an anatomical study about the potential strength of the human body, while the Codex of the Flight of the Birds showed how da Vincis great mind was shown to create an intricate book and design and display his intelligence in his emergence as a celebrated figure in history.
Leonardo da Vinci was greatly influenced by the Renaissance views on realism, and anatomy. By using these influences, da Vinci painted famous paintings and designed inventions, and wrote a book that would impact society for many years afterward. If da Vinci were not born during a tremendous historical period like the Renaissance, he would not have been able to rise to fame using the influences that came along with him being alive at the right place and right time.
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