Artist report paper - Essay Example

Pan Lin Prof. Michelle Yee Art History 001 Nov. 28, Artist Report Paper Leonardo’s da Vinci art Leonardo da Vinci is a well known artist during the Renaissance. He isnot only is he an amazing artist, but also a professional on other subjects such as Science, Mathematics, anatomy, and engineering. With immense knowledge, Da Vinci’s art style differentiates him from others; he always uses a real person as his model. Da Vinci believes that art is experienced from nature rather than religion. Therefore, his art piece strongly brings the portraits to life due to the model, unlike other artists who uses imagination in their artwork.

Da Vinci was born in a wealthy family. His father, Ser Piero da Vinci is a prominent notary of Florence and had a great grange left from their ancestry. However, da Vinci was born to unmarried parents because his mother, Catarina was not from a rich family. After fewyears later da Vinci was born, Catarina left her own son and married to someone else. This caused da Vinci to not have any connection with any female in his life other than work. Moreover, from the one of famous art piece “The Mona Lisa” illustrates the idea woman forhim.

As a son of notary, da Vinci had been well educated in his childhood from his father, uncle, priest and self-study because he is an illegitimate child. Even so, it did not affect da Vinci’s intelligences still surpassed those people who have been educated in school. He can play a lot of instruments, sing, and study mathematic also nature, due to the large grange he had near his house. Other than the large grange near his house, da Vinci also spends most of his time in outdoor observing nature during his childhood which influenced the future of his art style.

Until the age of fourteen, da Vinci’s father sent him to be an apprentice of a great artist, Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence because of talent in art. As an apprentice, he helped Verrocchio to finish one of the angels in “Baptism of Christ” and the landscape. His ability was amazed Verrocchio because da Vinci understood how to use the color to demonstrate the light and distant. Moreover, he also known the environment will affect the vision such as the rain, cloud and dust.A great person is not only what he is good at, is also what he did to benefit people.

Da Vinci is the first artist who combined Science, Mathematics, anatomy, and engineering into an art piece. He demonstrates the divine proportion of a human body that all the livingthings have follow the specific ratio, divine proportion. He is also the first person to draw a dissected human body and studied the human structure. In addition, he also used geometry into his art piece. All of those factors caused da Vinci to have a higher standard in his art work that every detail must follow the nature rule can’t be too big or too small.

Moreover, he insists of using a real person to be his model instead of imagination. Da Vinci had successfully bring all of his art work into vivid accredit to his wealth knowledge.One of his famous art pieces, the “Mona Lisa” created by da Vinci demonstrates how he portrays the model vividly. Da Vinci did not use too many colors on this art piece only dark color. In The Mona Lisa, da Vinci illustrates the nature of muscular lines on her face that she is actually smiling. On the clothes, he draws the embroidery in fine details even it is all in dark color.

For the background, he used Sfumato, aerial perspective and chiaroscuro way to give the distant between the main character with the background, also make the viewer to feel three dimensional because he blurred out the background. In addition, the “Mona Lisa” was the first portraits to contain waist, different from others that only contain the head or chest. On the other hand, the drawing style by da Vinci has given the whole art piece full with light and weight. Da Vinci could be the first artist to break the rigid art style in the fifteen century.

Similarity, the “Last Supper” by da Vinci was also one of the famous art pieces he made during the Renaissance. Da Vinci used perspective to make the room more extend. In this art piece, all of the square design on the roof, the food on the table, tableware and the twelve disciples are all follow geometry calculation and place on the right position. Every single piece of object is all centralize on Jesus Christ. Moreover, da Vinci adequately represents different emotion on the twelve disciples after they heard Jesus Christ said “Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me”.

Before da Vinci, no one really used the perspective of mathematics in such as huge size of art work. It showed that da Vinci’s drawing style is different than other artist. This is because all of his artworks are products under the great precision of math calculation. In addition, he could also bring a piece of art to life.Last but not least, “Vitruvian Man” by Da Vinci is the best example of him using a lot of different skills into an artwork. It expositions the divine proportion of a human body that as a human we are all follow this specific ratio in any part of the body.

In addition, some of none living things also follow the special ratio such as Parthenon, pyramids or United Nations headquarters. Da Vinci understood the structures of a human body unlike the great artist, Michelangelo, who ever depicted his portraits such as the muscular line in “The Last Judgment” or big hands of “David”. Therefore, all of da Vinci’s artworks are lifelike. As a result, Leonardo da Vinci is very different than other artist. He brings his artwork to its own life. He loves to study and all of the knowledge he learns help him to have a big improvement on his drawing skill.

His high intelligence made him succeed in all ofhis artwork and also make them worth millions or something so unique that it can’t be measured by money itself. Da Vinci changed the way people draw in the Renaissance.Leonardo da Vinci existed between 1452-1519.As a painter, Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most fascinating people in the history. He was termed as an ordinary person who did extraordinary things. At once, he was an accomplished designer, artist, engineer, scientist and philosopher (Langley, 43).

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest minds in Italian Renaissance. The power of explaining and passing his message through his paintings to the following generations was enormous. To summarise it all, Leonardo da Vinci was the embodiment of what is thought as Renaissance man (Langley, 46).Leonardo’s art styles were different from other artist’s. Da vinci wrote his observation and notes backwards as compared to the other artists’, his writings were from right to left commonly known as mirror writing (Langley, 49).

The main aim of da Vinci writing in a backward style was to keep and protect his ideas, securing them from thieves and avoid direct display of the words. Moreover, da Vinci used codes in his writings unlike other artists. Here, he switched letters with numbers to hide the meaning and his ideas from other artists and people.The major way used by da Vinci to display his work and educate the society and different generations was through paintings and sculptures. His paintings were unique and had both direct and hidden meaning.

Leonardo was curious and insatiable hunger to explore and acquire knowledge never left him. He constantly observed, experimented and also invented (Raboff, 32). To add on that, he also applied his drawing skills, according to him, drawing was as a tool for keeping his records on his investigation of nature. Through the drawings and the nature of drawings, paints and sculptures by da Vinci, his work looked and was viewed as unique and outstanding thus lasting from generation after generation. Furthermore, he also showed his prowess and skills by using notebooks to record his ideas after gathering them.

The notebooks and drawings are up to date used to inspire artists and also scientists after centuries. Unlike other artists, Leonardo da Vinci used his skills in recording his constant flow of the ideas for paintings on the paper (Raboff, 76). The ideas displayed on paintings and sculptures were observed as different from other artists’ who used one method. The uniqueness of expression by the artist was seen in the paintings and how portraits defining the aim of the painting or drawing which challenged other artists’ who depended on either painting or sculpture alone, thus making him different from them.

The ideas used by Leonardo were long term unlike other artist who depended on the occasion. The best example of his long term ideas was displayed in his Mona lisa portrait which was and it still most famous and branded “portrait of all time” (Raboff, 98). It was simply the best way to portray the early society way of life and it also talked about women’s role in the society. He employed his skills in making the portrait and also recording the story behind it in his notebook. This made him different and an all-round artist.

Work citedLangley, Andrew. Leonardo & His Times. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1999.pg 43, 46, 49Raboff, Ernest. Leonardo Da Vinci: Art for Children. New York: Doubleday.1996.pg 32, 76, 98Raboff, Ernest. Leonardo da Vinci, “The DaVinci Notebooks”  and Hohenstatt, Peter. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519