What is the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci - The most versatile genius of all time

“Just as a well-lived day gives a peaceful sleep, so a life well-lived gives a peaceful death” Leonardo da Vinci What is the genius of Leonardo da Vinci? Comment on the words of Leonardo da Vinci: "Painting in an instant should put all its content into the mind of the viewer" Chronology of life 1452 In Tuscany on April 15, the illegitimate son of a notary and a local peasant woman Katerina was born. 1467 At the age of 15, he becomes an apprentice to the famous Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. 1472 Receives the title of master of painting and paints his first painting, The Annunciation. 1481 Leonardo's first major commission was an altarpiece for the Adoration of the Magi for a monastery in the vicinity of Florence. 1482 Moves from Florence to Milan. 1495 Duke Lodovico Sforza, ruler of Milan, orders Leonardo to fresco "The Last Supper" for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. 1499 French invaders overthrow Sforza and Leonardo returns to Florence. 1503 Begins work on a portrait ("Mona Lisa"), which will become one of the most famous paintings in the history of painting. 1506 Moves back to Milan. 1513 The situation in Milan escalates, and Leonardo goes to Rome, hoping to get a job at the papal court. 1516 Having received no orders from the pope, he accepts the proposal of Francis I of France and moves to France, where he spends the last years of his life. 1519 Dies on May 2, at the age of 67, at the estate of Cloux, near the royal castle of Amboise in the Loire Valley. Madonna became the embodiment of the Renaissance ideal of perfection, beauty, spirituality. What do these two works have in common? "Madonna Benois" 1478 "Madonna Litta" 1490 Unsurpassed master of painting "Lady with an Ermine" 1483 "Gioconda" 1504 "Ginevra de Benci" 1474 "Portrait of a Musician" 1485 ... and graphics "Self-Portrait" 1512 "Head in profile" (study) " View of the Arno Valley» Battle of Anghiari In 1508, Leonardo was asked to paint a large fresco for the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence - on the plot of the Battle of Anghiari in 1440, during which Florence defeated Milan. In 1504, Michelangelo received a similar commission for the fresco "Battle of Cascina", dedicated to the victory of the Florentines over the Pisans in 1364. The competition between the two titans of the Renaissance, which had begun, ultimately did not take place. Leonardo again decided to apply an experimental technique, but his paints did not lay down on the ground, and in 1506 he abandoned this work. Michelangelo, invited to Rome in 1505 by Pope Julius, also stopped work. The Last Supper. What biblical story was taken as a basis? Leonardo da Vinci chose for the image the moment after the fateful words of Jesus: "One of you will betray me." Instead of a religious sacrament, the artist conveyed the drama of human feelings, the psychological state of each apostle, struck by the words of the Teacher to the very heart. Technical drawings Leonardo's ingenuity knew no bounds, and therefore his drawings often depicted mechanisms that were completely unthinkable for that time - for example, something like an excavator. The artist dreamed of building an aircraft, but his dream was impossible due to the lack of sufficiently powerful engines. Discoveries in medicine Cross-section of the skull Fetus in the womb Description of the valve of the right ventricle of the heart Glass models of organs Atherosclerosis Glasses Discoveries in botany ) Age of trees (according to annual rings) and geology Map of Northern Italy Explanation of marine sediments found in the mountains of Italy Discoveries in physics Instrument for measuring light intensity Law of inertia (later Newton's 1st law) Also: Mechanical saw; mechanical chariot; a machine for punching holes in blanks and minting coins; construction of canals, locks, dams; excavator; jack; lifting crane; centrifuge pump; Grinder; oil lamp; chain transmission; spinning machine; flying machine; parachute; Lifebuoy; alarm; watercourses ... What is the genius of Leonardo da Vinci? Comment on the words of Leonardo da Vinci: "Painting in an instant should put all its content into the mind of the viewer" Homework 1. Analyze the painting "Gioconda" (Mona Lisa) 2. Write a story on the topic: "What do I know about the painting" Gioconda " 3. Read biographical information about Rafael Santi Albanian Simir Strati created the world's largest mosaic portrait of Leonardo da Vinci - made of nails of several colors, hammered into a wooden base at different heights. The nail mosaic champion record is officially listed in the Guinness Book of Records. Official website of Saimir Strati: http://www.mosaicart-sast.com Although he did a lot more in words than in deeds, all these branches of his activity, in which he showed himself so divinely, will never let his name fade away, no glory.

Leonardo da Vinci belongs to those people who are rightfully called the titans of the Renaissance. The diversity of his interests and talents is amazing. Striving for excellence in painting, he studied anatomy; trying to achieve success in engineering, he proposed many inventions that were ahead of their time by several centuries, drawing material for them in wildlife. For the construction of bridges and statues, he used mathematics, which he also believed in music. Leonardo seemed to be a living embodiment of the idea of a universal human ideal of the Italian Renaissance. He was called the servant of the devil and the divine spirit, the Italian Faust and the sorcerer. So who was he?

The full name of the genius sounds like this: Leonardo, son of Mr. Piero of Vinci. But he was born, perhaps not in this Florentine town itself, but nearby, in the village of Anchiano on April 15, 1452. His parents, the young notary Piero and the peasant woman Catarina, were not married, and soon entered into marriage alliances with other people. For several years the boy was raised by his mother, and then the father took his son to his family. It is believed that Leonardo tried all his life to recreate the image of his mother in his paintings. His father tried to introduce Leonardo to jurisprudence, but soon realized that the boy had a different fate, and gave him as an apprentice to the famous Florentine artist Verrocchio. In 1480, Leonardo already had his own workshop. Two years later he was invited to Milan, to the court of Lodovico Sforza.

Here he began work on the equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza. In 1495-1498. created the famous fresco "The Last Supper" in the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan.
Times were turbulent, due to dynastic strife, the country turned out to be a battlefield for many years. In 1499, Milan was captured by French troops, and the model of the Sforza monument
was badly damaged. In 1502, Leonardo offered his services as an architect and military engineer to Cardinal Cesare Borgia, but a year later he returned to Milan to serve the French king Louis XII, who controlled northern Italy at that time.

In 1512 Leonardo moved to Rome, under the auspices of Pope Leo X. And in 151 b, he accepted the invitation of the new king of France, Francis I, and moved to France, where he died three years later.
years later. He was buried in the castle of Amboise. An inscription was embossed on his tombstone: “In the walls of this monastery lies the ashes of Leonardo of Vinci, the greatest artist, engineer and architect of the French kingdom.”

So France considered the genius her own. Thanks to this move, it was in France that perhaps the most mysterious painting by Leonardo, Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda, turned out to be. The artist Jogio Vasari reports that in 1503 the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo commissioned Leonardo to paint a portrait of his wife, Lisa Gherardini. For some unknown reason, Leonardo did not give the painting to the customer, but took it with him to France. They try to explain this act by the fact that the picture does not depict the Mona Lisa at all. They think that this is Catherine Sforza, the daughter of the Duke of Milan, the Marquis of Mantua Isabella d'Este, or the Duchess of Costanza d'Avalos, the beloved of Giuliano de' Medici, who, after his marriage to Filiberta of Savoy, gave the portrait back to Leonardo. They also think that the artist generally depicted an ideal woman in order to embody his ideas expressed in a treatise on painting. A friend of the very common version of Gioconda is a self-portrait of Leonardo himself. However, most likely, he nevertheless painted the Mona Lisa, because today people belonging to the same genus are alive, very similar to her.

But in any case, this picture, like other works of the great artist, testifies to his invaluable contribution to art. Leonardo realized and implemented a new painting technique, including the reproduction of a sfumato haze between the viewer and the depicted object, softening color contrasts and lines. However, this was only one of the facets of his talent. Leonardo himself considered himself first and foremost an engineer. True, only one of his inventions was recognized during his lifetime - a wheel lock for a pistol. The old design led to the appearance of open fire. This unmasked the shooter. Leonardo invented a trigger with a clamped piece of flint, a wheel was located under the trigger. A spring was started with a special key, after pressing the hook, the wheel was set in motion, the trigger fell on it, and a spark appeared as a result of friction.

Leonardo da Vinci was also interested in the problems of flight. At first, Leonardo hoped to develop the design of wings driven by human muscle power.

However, the experiments were unsuccessful. Then he came to the idea of building an airplane, where a person would have more freedom of action. Leonardo lacked only one thing: the idea of a motor with sufficient power. Leonardo da Vinci worked on a vertical takeoff and landing apparatus. On the vertical "ornithopter" Leonardo planned to place a system of retractable ladders. Nature served as an example. He wrote: “look at the stone swift, which sat down on the ground and cannot take off because of its short
legs; and when he is in flight, pull out the ladder, as shown in the second image from the top ... that one must take off from the plane; these ladders serve as legs ... To see flying with four wings, go to the ditches of the Milan fortress, and you will see black dragonflies.

But not only this occupied a genius. In 1485, after a terrible plague in Milan, Leonardo proposed to the authorities a project of an ideal city. The city was to consist of 10 districts of 30 thousand inhabitants, each district was to have its own sewage system, the width of the narrowest streets was to be equal to the average height of a horse. Lodovico Sforza rejected the project. But after several centuries, the authorities of London recognized the proportions proposed by Leonardo as ideal and gave the order to follow them when laying out new streets. And not so long ago, a bridge was built in Norway according to the project of Leonardo, which he offered to the Turkish Sultan Bayazet in 1501.

These are just a few examples from Leonardo's vast legacy. He did not publish his work himself. He left numerous sketches, drawings, notes on painting, engineering, natural science, philosophical reasoning. After the death of the master, his friend and student Francesco Melydi chose passages related to painting, from which the “Treatise on Painting” was subsequently compiled. After the death of Francesco Melzi, the manuscripts disappeared. A few centuries later, scattered fragments began to appear here and there. And not immediately the descendants realized that all these notes on different fields of knowledge belong to one person. To date, more than 9 thousand pages are known, written by Leonardo's hand. Is its versatility an unsolvable mystery?

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He seemed to know the evolutionary keys to the mysteries of the human psyche. So, one of the secrets of Leonardo da Vinci was a special sleep formula: he slept for 15 minutes every 4 hours, thus reducing his daily sleep from 8 to 1.5 hours. Thanks to this, the genius immediately saved 75 percent of his sleep time, which actually lengthened his life time from 70 to 100 years!

"The picture of the painter will be little perfect if he takes the pictures of others as an inspirer; if he learns from the objects of nature, then he will produce a good fruit ..."

Painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist, all this is Leonardo da Vinci. Wherever such a person turns, his every action is so divine that, leaving behind him all other people, he is something given to us by God, and not acquired by human art. Leonardo da Vinci. Great, mysterious, attractive. So distant and so modern. Like a rainbow, bright, mosaic, multi-colored fate of the master. His life is full of wanderings, meetings with amazing people and events. How much has been written about him, how much has been published, but it will never be enough. The mystery of Leonardo begins with his birth, in 1452 on April 15 in a town west of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of a woman about whom almost nothing is known. We do not know her last name, age, or appearance, we do not know whether she was smart or stupid, whether she studied or not. Biographers call her a young peasant woman. Let it be so. Much more is known about Leonardo's father, Piero da Vinci, but also not enough. He was a notary and came from a family that settled in Vinci at least in the thirteenth century. Leonardo was brought up in his father's house. His education evidently was that of any boy from a good family who lives in a small town: reading, writing, beginning mathematics, Latin. His handwriting is amazing, He writes from right to left, the letters are reversed so that the text is easier to read with a mirror. In later years, he was fond of botany, geology, observing the flight of birds, the play of sunlight and shadow, the movement of water. All this testifies to his curiosity and also to the fact that in his youth he spent a lot of time in the fresh air, walking around the outskirts of the town. These neighborhoods, which have changed little over the past five hundred years, are now almost the most picturesque in Italy. The father noticed and taking into account the high flight of his son's talent in art, one fine day selected several of his drawings, took them to Andrea Verrocchio, who was his great friend, and urged him to say whether Leonardo would achieve any success by taking up drawing. . Struck by the huge inclinations that he saw in the drawings of the novice Leonardo, Andrea supported Ser Piero in his decision to devote him to this matter and immediately agreed with him that Leonardo enter his studio, which Leonardo did more than willingly and began to practice not only in one area, but in all those where the drawing enters.

Picture Madonna in the grotto. 1483-86

In nature, everything is wisely thought out and arranged, everyone should mind their own business, and in this wisdom is the highest justice of life. Leonardo da Vinci

Painting Mona Lisa (La Gioconda). 1503-04

By 1514 - 1515 refers to the creation of the masterpiece of the great master - the painting of the Mona Lisa. Until recently, it was thought that this portrait was written much earlier, in Florence, around 1503. They believed the story of Vasari, who wrote: “Leonardo undertook to complete for Francesco del Gioconde a portrait of Monna Lisa, his wife, and after working on it for four years, left it incomplete. This work is now with the French king in Fontainebleau. By the way, Leonardo resorted to the following trick: since the Madonna Lisa was very beautiful, while writing a portrait, he kept people who played the lyre or sang, and here constantly there were jesters who kept her cheerful and removed the melancholy that painting usually imparts to portraits.

Where the spirit does not guide the hand of the artist, there is no art.

Picture Madonna with a flower (Madonna Benois). 1478

Thinking that I was learning to live, I learned to die.

Picture Madonna Litta. 1490

Painting "Madonna with pomegranate". 1469

Picture Madonna. 1510

Picture Lady with an ermine. 1483-90

Painting Portrait of Ginevra de Benci. 1474-76

Picture of the Annunciation. 1472-75

The Last Supper. 1498

Picture of John the Baptist. 1513-16

Woman's head. 1500?

"Vitruvian Man" 1487

Virgin Mary with child and St. Anna

Portrait of a musician

The greatest scientist of his time, Leonardo da Vinci enriched almost all areas of knowledge with insightful observations and conjectures. But how surprised a genius would be if he knew that many of his inventions were used even 555 years after his birth. Oddly enough, only one invention of da Vinci received recognition during his lifetime - a wheel lock for a pistol that was wound up with a key. At first, this mechanism was not very common, but by the middle of the 16th century it had gained popularity among the nobles, especially in the cavalry, which even affected the design of the armor: Maximilian armor for firing pistols began to be made with gloves instead of mittens. The wheel lock for a pistol, invented by Leonardo da Vinci, was so perfect that it continued to be found in the 19th century. But, as often happens, recognition of geniuses comes centuries later: many of his inventions were supplemented and modernized, and are now used in everyday life. For example, Leonardo da Vinci created a device capable of compressing air and driving it through pipes. This invention has a very wide range of applications: from kindling stoves to ... ventilation of rooms. He was educated at home, masterfully played the lyre, was the first to explain why the sky is blue and the moon is so bright, was ambidexterous and suffered from dyslexia. He masters several drawing techniques: Italian pencil, silver pencil, sanguine, pen. In 1472, Leonardo was accepted into the guild of painters - the guild of St. Luke, but remained to live in Verrocchio's house. He opened his own workshop in Florence between 1476 and 1478. On April 8, 1476, Leonardo da Vinci was accused of being a sadome by a denunciation and arrested along with three friends. At that time in Florence sadomea was a crime, and the highest punishment was burning at a stake. Judging by the records of that time, many doubted the guilt of Leonardo, neither the accuser nor the witnesses were ever found. The fact that among those arrested was the son of one of the nobles of Florence probably helped to avoid a harsh sentence: there was a trial, but the guilty were released after a slight flogging. In 1482, having received an invitation to the court of the ruler of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, Leonardo da Vinci unexpectedly left Florence. Lodovico Sforza was considered the most hated tyrant in Italy, but Leonardo decided that Sforza would be a better patron for him than the Medici, who ruled in Florence and disliked Leonardo. Initially, the duke took him as the organizer of court holidays, for which Leonardo invented not only masks and costumes, but also mechanical "miracles". Magnificent holidays worked to increase the glory of Duke Lodovico. For a salary less than that of a court dwarf, in the Duke's castle, Leonardo acted as a military engineer, hydraulic engineer, court painter, and later - an architect and engineer. At the same time, Leonardo "worked for himself", doing several areas of science and technology at the same time, but he was not paid for most of the work, since Sforza did not pay any attention to his inventions. In 1484-1485, about 50 thousand inhabitants of Milan died from the plague. Leonardo da Vinci, who considered the reason for this the overcrowding of the city and the dirt that reigned in the narrow streets, suggested that the duke build a new city. According to Leonardo's plan, the city was to consist of 10 districts of 30 thousand inhabitants each, each district had to have its own sewage system, the width of the narrowest streets had to be equal to the average height of a horse (a few centuries later, the London State Council recognized the proportions proposed by Leonardo as ideal and gave the order to follow them when laying out new streets). The design of the city, like many other technical ideas of Leonardo, was rejected by the duke. Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to found an academy of arts in Milan. For teaching, he compiled treatises on painting, light, shadows, movement, theory and practice, perspective, movements of the human body, proportions of the human body. In Milan, the Lombard school, consisting of students of Leonardo, arises. In 1495, at the request of Lodovico Sforza, Leonardo began to paint his "Last Supper" on the wall of the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. On July 22, 1490, Leonardo settled young Giacomo Caprotti in his house (later he began to call the boy Salai - "Demon"). Whatever the young man did, Leonardo forgave him everything. Relations with Salai were the most constant in the life of Leonardo da Vinci, who had no family (he did not want a wife or children), and after his death, Salai inherited many of Leonardo's paintings.
After the fall of Lodovik Sforza, Leonardo da Vinci left Milan. In different years he lived in Venice (1499, 1500), Florence (1500-1502, 1503-1506, 1507), Mantua (1500), Milan (1506, 1507-1513), Rome (1513-1516). In 1516 (1517) he accepted the invitation of Francis I and left for Paris. Leonardo da Vinci did not like to sleep for a long time, he was a vegetarian. According to some testimonies, Leonardo da Vinci was beautifully built, possessed great physical strength, had good knowledge in the arts of chivalry, horseback riding, dancing, fencing. In mathematics, he was attracted only by what can be seen, therefore, for him, it primarily consisted of geometry and the laws of proportion. Leonardo da Vinci tried to determine the coefficients of sliding friction, studied the resistance of materials, was engaged in hydraulics, modeling. The areas that Leonardo da Vinci was interested in were acoustics, anatomy, astronomy, aeronautics, botany, geology, hydraulics, cartography, mathematics, mechanics, optics, weapon design, civil and military construction, and city planning. Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519 at the Château de Cloux near Amboise (Touraine, France).

If you happened to fly, then henceforth you will walk the earth, turning your eyes to the sky, because there you were and you will always strive to go there.

Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci is a genius whose inventions belong undividedly to both the past, present and future of mankind. He lived ahead of his time, and if at least a small part of what he invented was brought to life, then the history of Europe, and possibly the world, would be different: already in the 15th century we would have been driving cars and crossing the seas on submarines. Leonardo da Vinci enriched almost all areas of knowledge with insightful observations and conjectures. But how surprised a genius would be if he knew that many of his inventions are used even centuries after his birth.

I present to your attention a couple of inventions of Leonard da Vinci: Military equipment, Aircraft, Hydraulics, Various mechanisms.

The most daring dream of Leonardo the inventor, without a doubt, was the flight of man. One of the very first (and most famous) sketches on this topic is a diagram of a device that in our time is considered to be a prototype of a helicopter. Leonardo proposed to make a propeller with a diameter of 5 meters from thin flax soaked in starch. It was supposed to be driven by four people rotating the levers in a circle. Modern experts argue that the muscular strength of four people would not be enough to lift this device into the air (especially since even if it were lifted, this structure would begin to rotate around its axis), but if, for example, a powerful spring were used as an "engine" , such a "helicopter" would be capable of flying - albeit a short one.

After a long and careful study of bird flight, which he began during his stay in Milan, Leonardo designed in 1490, and possibly built the first model of an aircraft. This model had wings like a bat, and with its help, using the muscular efforts of the arms and legs, a person had to fly. Now we know that in such a formulation the problem is unsolvable, because the muscular energy of a person is not enough for flight.

The drawing of the device turned out to be prophetic, which Leonardo himself described as follows: "If you have enough linen fabric sewn into a pyramid with a base of 12 yards (about 7 m 20 cm), then you can jump from any height without any harm to your body" .

The figure shows an underwater breathing apparatus with details of the air intake and exhaust valves.

Swimming webbed gloves. To speed up swimming, the scientist developed a scheme of webbed gloves, which eventually turned into well-known flippers.

Diving suit. The project of Leonardo's diving suit was connected with the problem of finding a person underwater. The suit was made from waterproof leather. It was supposed to have a large breast pocket that was filled with air to increase its volume, which made it easier for the diver to get to the surface. The diver at Leonardo was equipped with a flexible breathing tube.

Life buoy. One of the most necessary things for teaching a person to swim is a life buoy. This invention of Leonardo remained practically unchanged.

Water walking system Leonardo's water walking system included swimming boots and poles.

Optics was popular in Leonardo's time and even had a philosophical connotation. Here are several machines for making mirrors and lenses. The second one from the top is for making concave mirrors, the third one is for polishing them, the fourth one is for the production of flat mirrors. The first and last machines make it possible to grind mirrors and lenses, making their surface smooth, at the same time converting rotational motion into alternating. Also known is the project (performed by Leonardo between 1513 and 1516 during his stay in Rome) of a large parabolic mirror with many facets. It was conceived to heat laundry boilers by concentrating solar energy.

It is better to be motionless than tired of being useful.

Leonardo da Vinci.

Milan's Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology is the largest in Europe. Leonardo da Vinci is famous for creating the ideal image of a person and expressing the ideal of female beauty in his painting "Mona Lisa" painted in 1503. Leonardo da Vinci, more often known only as an artist, was a genius who made numerous discoveries, developed innovative projects, and conducted research in the field of exact and natural sciences, including mathematics and mechanics. Leonardo handwritten more than 7 thousand sheets in the process of developing his projects. Leonardo da Vinci made discoveries and guesses in almost all areas of knowledge, and his notes and sketches are considered as sheets from a natural-philosophical encyclopedia. He became the founder of a new natural science, which made conclusions on the basis of experiments. Leonardo's favorite subject was mechanics, which he called "the paradise of the mathematical sciences." Leonardo believed that by unraveling the laws of mechanics, one can learn the secrets of the universe. Having devoted a lot of time to the study of bird flight, he became the designer and creator of some aircraft and parachutes. Once in the Leonardo da Vinci Museum, you will immerse yourself in a world of interesting discoveries that will make you think about the infinity and ingenuity of the human mind.

What was Leonardo not fond of! Incredibly, even cooking and table setting were among his interests. In Milan for 13 years he was the manager of court feasts. Leonardo invented several culinary devices that make life easier for cooks. This is a device for chopping nuts, a bread slicer, a corkscrew for left-handed people, as well as a mechanical garlic press "Leonardo", which Italian chefs use to this day. In addition, he invented an automatic spit for frying meat, a kind of propeller was attached to the spit, which was supposed to rotate under the action of heated air streams going up from the fire. A rotor was attached to a number of drives with a long rope, the forces were transmitted to the skewer using belts or metal spokes. The hotter the oven heated, the faster the spit rotated, which protected the meat from burning. The original dish "from Leonardo" - thinly sliced meat stewed with vegetables laid on top - was very popular at court feasts.
Leonardo da Vinci is a brilliant artist, a wonderful experimenter and an outstanding scientist who embodied in his work all the most progressive trends of the Renaissance. Everything in him is amazing: the absolutely extraordinary versatility, and the power of thought, and scientific inquisitiveness, and the practical mindset, and technical ingenuity, and the richness of artistic imagination, and the outstanding skill of the painter, draftsman and sculptor. Having reflected in his work the most progressive aspects of the Renaissance, he became that great, truly folk artist, whose historical significance far outgrew the boundaries of his era. He looked not to the past, but to the future.

One of the most outstanding figures, far ahead of his time. This is a great artist, sculptor, architect, a wonderful scientist and writer, a great inventor, a mysterious and attractive person.

The author of the famous Gioconda, the Last Supper, the inventor of the parachute, machine gun, hang glider, helicopter, bicycle, car, tank, catapult, crossbow, searchlight and even a robot, author of many scientific treatises and works of art, the architect of London ... Leonardo da Vinci is a vivid example incredible person! He was a mystery to the people of his time and to posterity; little is known about his life. For Leonardo's contemporaries, his inventions were completely uninteresting. People believed that he was just wasting time on entertainment, but he could draw wonderful pictures. Leonardo was a vegetarian, did not like to sleep long, was superbly built, had physical strength, was an excellent rider and dancer, and had excellent use of both hands. There is not a single image of Leonardo himself. Scientists have proven that the famous portrait of sanguine, which supposedly depicts Leonardo in old age, is not. This is just a study of the head of one of the apostles of the Last Supper.

In this article I want to write only his biography. And in the next issues I will tell you more about each of his achievements.

Childhood and youth

Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in the family of a notary Piero and a peasant woman Katerina. Leonardo was an illegitimate son. He spent the first years of his life with his mother. The father married a rich bride, but she turned out to be childless and Piero took Leonardo to himself. When Leonardo was 13 years old, his father's wife died, he soon married another woman, but she did not live long either. Leonardo didn't have a last name. Da Vinci means originally from Vinci, the place where Leonardo was born. His full name is Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, that is, Leonardo, son of Pier of Vinci.

His father wanted Leonardo to continue his family business, but Leonardo was more interested in drawing. At the age of 14, he was sent to a private school by the best artist and sculptor of that time - Andrea del Verrocchio. When Leonardo was 20 years old, Verrocchio received an order to paint a picture of the Baptism of Christ. The minor figures were usually drawn by students. The colors at that time were very dull. Leonardo decided to paint his character with new oil paints. When Verrocchio saw the work of Leonardo, he said that the student had surpassed him and from now on wants all the faces in his paintings to be painted only by Leonardo. During his studies, Leonardo mastered all the techniques of drawing, and at the age of 21 he was accepted into the painters' guild of St. Luke. And at the age of 24 he already opened his own workshop. Soon he was accused of sadome and arrested. However, the court acquitted him.

Milan

At the age of 30, Leonardo leaves for Milan from Florence at the invitation of the ruler Ludovico Sforza. Initially, Leonardo designs costumes and masks for court celebrations. But gradually interested the public with its mechanical wonders. Leonardo's salary is much less than that of a court dwarf, although there are a lot of responsibilities. Leonardo and a military engineer, and a hydraulic engineer, and a court painter, and an architect. But this situation suits him, because no one prevents him from working for himself. He spends a lot of time on inventions of science and technology for which he was not paid. Nobody even paid attention to them. Even when 50 thousand inhabitants of Milan died from the plague, and Leonardo realized that the reason was the overpopulation of the city and dirt in the narrow streets, he suggested building new areas with sewers, wide streets, the duke rejected Leonardo's idea. Although later this ingenious plan was recognized by the State Council of London, and the city was completely rebuilt according to its drawings.

Leonardo opened an academy of arts in Milan. For this academy, he wrote treatises on painting, light, shadows, movement, theory, and practice. Perspective, proportions of the human body and so on. Before him, no one tried to do it. All this was published only in the 19-20 centuries.

In Milan, no one bothers Leonardo to study the flying mechanism of birds for his inventions. And finally, Leonardo comes up with the famous airplane.

Leonardo keeps detailed diaries. But, unfortunately, only 7,000 pages have survived to this day. The manuscripts disappeared after the death of Leonardo's student. And it was only possible to collect individual fragments around the world. Their characteristic feature was that all the notes were made in mirror image, because he wrote with his left hand from right to left. And since his inventions were not of interest to contemporaries, their owners did not attach much importance to them. And only by the 19th century it was possible to collect together all the surviving priceless diaries of Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo never married and had no children. Not a single affair with any woman is attributed to him. He hid this part of his life from everyone in every possible way. The only permanent relationship in his life was with a young man named Giacomo Caprotti, on whose estate he lived from 1490, to whom Leonardo forgave everything. After Leonardo's death, Caprotti inherited almost all of his paintings. Giacomo was a model for Leonardo. It was from him that Leonardo painted John the Baptist. There is also a version that it was Giacomo who was the model of the famous Mona Lisa. According to Leonardo's will, this painting belonged to Giacomo.

Throughout his life, Leonardo lived in Venice, Florence, Mantua, Milan. But he spent the last years of his life in Paris. Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519 in the castle of Cloux in France in the arms of King Francis I.

His artistic ability wasn't all that outstanding.

It is hardly possible to call the works of da Vinci in painting masterpieces, they are not much different from the works of his contemporaries

Even if you do not deny the fact that the Mona Lisa is the greatest work of art of all times and peoples (this is what we have been told since childhood), then after looking at other works of that time, you will agree that it is quite trivial for itself. Perhaps, except for the fact that she has no eyebrows at all.

Most of Leonardo's paintings are the most ordinary portraits and biblical scenes, like all artistic works of that time. And if you line them up in a row, you are unlikely to be able to choose the most outstanding. Just a few decades later, Titian and Raphael were creating paintings that surpassed those of Leonardo. Those who have seen with their own eyes the work of Caravaggio, a contemporary of da Vinci and famous for writing biblical scenes, will easily confirm that the works of Leonardo pale in comparison with his masterpieces.

The famous fresco "The Last Supper" is devoid of style. In addition, any professional artist will confirm that on the technical side this work was a failure - the fresco began to crumble during the life of Leonardo, this happened from a lack of knowledge - da Vinci did not know the rules for working with the egg yolk paint that he used. And it was not his only joint.

Da Vinci lost to Michelangelo in a one-on-one battle

His fresco on the wall of the Palazzo Vecchio did not work out due to the lack of knowledge of the master

Leonardo managed to show his professionalism not only in The Last Supper. In a competition with Michelangelo to paint the opposite walls of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where, according to the original idea, the greatest works of that time were to appear, da Vinci lost immediately. He wasn't good enough at his craft to carry out the project.

He began applying oil paint to the unprepared wall. The colors in his work "The Battle of Anghiari" instantly faded under the influence of humid air, he was never able to recover from this blow. Leonardo left the "battlefield" in confusion, the competition ended almost without starting. Michelangelo and his work "The Battle of Kashin" emerged victorious in this "war".

But fate was not favorable to Michelangelo: this work was destroyed by a crowd of haters of his talent, and an unknown artist painted over the wall a few years later.

Leonardo's most famous inventions weren't invented by him

In fact, this is just a spinner toy, not an aircraft.

Da Vinci is known throughout the world as a first-rate inventor. But even here there is a small but: this is a pure lie.

His famous invention, the helicopter, was actually a simple spinner. The design was completely copied from a Chinese toy, whose task was not to rise into the air, it just spun in place. For those who understand even a little about aerodynamics, it is obvious that his helicopter will not be able to take off. Da Vinci did not understand anything in aerodynamics and the physics of motion, did not realize that an engine was needed for the operation of an aircraft.

He certainly gave impetus to the development of innovative machines, for example, a hang glider, but he was far from the first to design such things, and not even the second. Two others - an English monk and a Muslim polymath Abbas ibn Firnas - are the ones who first designed and tested a hang glider, risking flying off a cliff. Some historians attribute to him sketches of current instruments in his notebooks, but studies prove otherwise.

You can't call him an outstanding sculptor

The execution of the statue had to be stopped at the drawing stage due to the high cost of the project.

If you are trying to find the sculptures of Leonardo in order to somehow reanimate him, we hasten to disappoint you: you will not find them. The only real sculpture that he could create is a bronze statue of a horse with a massive base that supports the rider and horse. An important point: the advantage of bronze over marble is that it does not need a base for support if it is properly balanced. Leonardo did not know this. This fact allows us to emphasize the unprofessionalism of da Vinci and once again debunk the myth of his genius.

If you compare Leonardo with someone like Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, then the bottomless abyss between a true master and an amateur becomes obvious. Bernini's crowning achievement is The Rape of Proserpina. The details are so skillfully executed on marble that we can see the believable folds of skin under the fingers, a tear on the cheek, curls of hair flying in the wind - and all this is done so beautifully that we forget that we are looking at an image taken from intricate Greek mythology. .

A huge statue with a horse was made by Leonardo by order of a Milan count, but it was never assembled into one, since Leonardo had no idea how to do it. The count, whose name was Ludovico Sforza, did not hide his surprise at Leonardo's relaxed mood. In this project, the matter did not go beyond the sketch, this happened for the same reason that the “Battle of Anghiari” was never completed - Leonardo simply lacked skill. After the maestro pulled some time, the count stopped funding the project, and after all, Sforza could quickly find a replacement for Leonardo and embody the idea with the statue of a rider.

His real inventions had no practical application

He created useless things and seemed to understand this

Da Vinci's inventions were amazing, weren't they? It's fair if you shout it at the screen while reading our article, but more often than not, his inventions were ill-considered and doomed to failure. It is for this reason that they remained on paper, many of them were abandoned in the early stages of development, since in order to put them into action, a lot of additional devices or a serious revision of the drawing were required.

Sketches form a large part of Leonardo da Vinci's legacy. But in order to boldly call yourself an inventor, you need not only draw an idea, but also bring it to life, refine the shortcomings and bring it to mind. We cannot provide evidence that da Vinci designed his inventions. The robotic soldier he created was just a gimmick, the design was able to function only after being finalized by modern engineers.

His tank, after being tested in the real world, turned out to be very slow even on perfectly dry and even surfaces (and in the 15th century the conditions on the field were clearly worse), the car shook violently, and the people inside were deafened by cannon shots. In addition, self-propelled vehicles were not new and anyone who says that it was da Vinci who changed military affairs is deeply mistaken.

The assumption that da Vinci invented the perpetual motion machine is also erroneous. Any physicist since the 18th century will confirm that it is impossible to create such a machine. Modern science also denies this fact. Leonardo was not the creator of this idea and was not the one who would bring it to mind. We can no longer pretend that he was ahead of his time, his mentality was quite mediocre for that era.

While Leonardo invented the parachute, the practical use of which only became possible after 400 years, he gave up, having come up with the conical shape of the dome (yes, that's what is used today).

He copied his legendary diaries from others

Some scholars suggest that Leo simply copied the diaries of his contemporaries.

Da Vinci's diaries are really interesting, they actually have a lot of ideas that, if successfully finalized, could change the world. But modern scientists say that these records are just copies of ... copies. Mariano Taccola was another eccentric figure in Italy of that time, it was from his works that Leonardo drew what became his hallmark - the "Vitruvian Man". Many historians also believe that the mathematician Giacomo Andrea also deserves attention.

Nor did Leonardo invent the underwater bomb; he borrowed his "death ray" from Archimedes. The flywheel, which never found practical use, was also invented long before Da Vinci by some guy whose name we don't care much about.

It is also interesting that many of his inventions have something in common with the inventions of the Chinese, and this makes some sense, given the fact that it was the Chinese civilization that gave the world many modern goods: a printing press, guns, rockets, rifles and paper back in pre-Colombian times. time.

Leo was not a respected engineer of his time

He designed the bridge, but it was never built

His achievements in the field of engineering are even worse than you can imagine: he did not complete a single order on time. In addition to the bridge, which never materialized, and the crazy idea of reversing the Arno River, which failed (earth dams were destroyed by a rainstorm), there were several projects in Venice. For example, a gutter that was not built because the estimate went beyond the budget. Da Vinci did not realize a single work. He only unfoundedly stated that he was a talented civil engineer. Any engineer will tell you that designing something is not a sign of skill.

His ideas were too far from reality or too complex and expensive to execute. They did not solve any issues, they were only a farce. When a team of Norwegians, out of curiosity, tried one of Leonardo's ideas, they ran into the same problem as the Italian counts of the 16th century: it was too expensive.

His research in anatomy was not that significant.

The image of the Vitruvian man is known to all

The use of corpses for the purpose of studying anatomy was forbidden by the church, so Leonardo's drawings were given more importance. But his contemporaries - Michelangelo, Durer, Amusco and Vesalius - all of them also conducted research in the field of anatomy, so again da Vinci was not the only one.

Leonardo was careful with his manuscripts, he did not want anyone to use the knowledge he had obtained. Charles Etienne created the most detailed diary on the anatomy of the human body, where he described all the internal organs, muscles, arteries, veins, while Leo's notes were kept under lock and key for several centuries. His merits in the field of science are again in question; he did not stand out among his contemporaries.

Left no truly meaningful legacy

Unfortunately, none of Leo's ideas became a hypothesis.

We used to think that Leonardo was a genius, in fact he did not have the proper knowledge in any of the sciences, be it chemistry, medicine, sociology, astronomy, mathematics or physics. He did not leave behind any scientific works, or just ideas or technologies, even his own theories, such as, for example, Bacon or Newton.

His only independent idea was the hypothesis that the Flood probably did not exist at all. Such conclusions were made on the basis of observations of rocks, which the maestro, of course, kept to himself, instead of making them public. He was a talented scientist, had an idea about the structure of the human body, but it would be dishonest to call him a genius of science, because there were other great people at that time: Gilbert, Fibonacci, Brahe, Mercator, who also contributed to the development of the social consciousness of the Renaissance.

He was not the best role model

During the Renaissance, there were a great many scientists, inventors, researchers who deserve more attention than da Vinci.

Leonardo was not stubborn. Many great minds could change their point of view under the pressure of public opinion.

Few people could boast of a better position than Leonardo: he had the best teachers and mentors. Master Leonardo Filippo Brunelleschi was a jeweler who was also interested in architecture and construction, like da Vinci. But that's where their similarities end. The master was instructed to finish the dome of the Florence Cathedral and he did it, although before him the architects could not finish the construction for decades. Not only did he beat his rival, he designed the cranes that completed the project. The innovations he developed have become a cultural and architectural legacy.

While da Vinci was just beginning to study anatomy, Bartolomeo Eustashi was already teaching and writing books on dentistry, the internal structure of the ear, creating visual models, diagrams close to modern ones. A body part was even named after him.

Giordano Bruno was a scientist, poet, mathematician and mystic. He became famous for suggesting that the stars are small suns and that they also have their own planets. He also suggested the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, his ideas were close to the ideas of modern scientists. In matters of religion, he was ahead of Copernicus and refuted, as it seemed to him, stupid assumptions. As a reward for this, he was executed.

Meanwhile, da Vinci was inventing incredible machines that were impossible to sell to customers. Most likely, he understood this, but continued to create. While others gave their lives defending their scientific or religious views, da Vinci bowed at the feet of despots and aristocrats.

Like any historically significant personality, Leonardo has fans and opponents. During his life he created many objects of science and art, but if you compare them with the works of his contemporaries, it becomes clear that they are all quite trivial.