As we head to the end of the semester, I was introduced to plethora artists throughout the semester and also introduced to their many artworks as well. The artworks involved in the lecture moved me along with the artists as well. The artwork showed my me that the meaning of it can go beyond the artwork itself that correlates to the artists experiences. Artists use their world as their canvas to project their expressing. The one artist that demonstrated the most in my opinion is the legendary never forgotten Leonardo DaVinci. Even Though Leonardo DaVinci is a basic pick, I think he is arguably one of the most, if not the most innovative one-of-a-kind artist of our time. DaVinci is known most for being ahead of his time, His name is known throughout the entire world for plenty of centuries. His ideas and beliefs were stated to be impossible and beyond his time considering the era he was in. Before we dive into what became DaVinci, lets Explain his journey from the begging, on how he is one of the most talked about artist, despite being born nearly 400 years ago. 

Leo was born on April 15^th, 1452, in Vinci, Italy. DaVinci grew up In a home with his one father after gaining custody. Growing up Leo was revealed to the art of his hometown Vinci and its painting traditions. His father introduced Leonardo to this art by taking him to workshops in the local area, one of them were workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence and even taking him in as an apprentice. Leo demonstrated excellent talent even when not knowing much about art. One of Leo’s first panting’s was painting and an angel in Verrocchio’s “baptism of Christ” and out did his master by flying colors. By this time at age 15. He was already considered a genius. Davinci settled out to make a living for himself seeking new challenges and in doing so he entered the service of the duke of Milan.  After spending 17 years in Milan during those years, Leonardo reached new heights that didn’t only achieve artistic feats but also, he achieved at science too. 

From this time, you could see the adventurous and ongoing person Leonardo was, and how quick he got this when he set his mind to something. During these years at The Duke Leonardo was kept at work, ad because Leonardo was so obsessed with learning different things, he eventually became a jack of trades. His talents consisted of that included painting sculptures and designing for court festivals. It didn’t stop there, he would also design weapons, buildings and machinery that were around the times 1485-1490. Along with the things he built on top of that he studied many subjects like nature, flying machines, geometry mechanics municipal constructions canals, architecture. This is what one person did with barley any of the mechanics we have now. DaVinci sounds as if he was only here just decades ago. His art also proves how his brain was decades ahead of this time. Here are a couple artworks to prove this.

One piece you can recall is “Vitruvian man”. The art is more than ink. e during the Italian renaissance, Leonardo’ used his studies of geometry to draw the proportions and balance of a man’s body, Mind you again this is from the year 1490, which was when this was painted.  To me this a beautiful representation of a molded male human body. Proportions are tricky enough but to incorporate it inside a true understanding of art is a whole new level. He made this art to try to understand the connection between a man’s body and nature using his honed skills of mathematics. This artwork was seen in many tv show camos and magazines, representing a form of intelligence because of how advanced it looked.

Another piece you can recite is as we all know it the famous Mona Lisa. The mona Lisa can be seen everywhere. Literary you can’t escape it. The Mona Lisa is the most talked about artwork of all time. From first glance it just seems like a normal person, but like I said before in most cases go beyond the artwork. It is about what happen behind the scenes. It was said that to just create the lips of Mona Lisa, it took twelve years. The detail was so precise it was considered to be the perfect painting. DaVinci used oil painting and other advanced techniques called spolvero, with allowed him to transfer sketches from paper to canvas using Charcoal dust, on a 30 inches tall by 20 wide.

This isn’t particularly an artwork that usually consist of water and paint; however this is a sketch. But as we all know, Leonardo didn’t stop at paintings, he always tried new things and became an expert at it too. The sketch is “Leonardo’s Crossbow” is what is called a advance sketch of a projectile weapon used to hunt. Yet again another advance type of sketch he also made sketches of planes too before they were made. The Crossbow had immense detail, showing each and every part in it as if it was already made. As you can see from the sketch, the sketch looks like a sketch from 100 years ago.