Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Artist and Inventor
1452 - 1519
"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant waterloses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind."
—Leonardo—
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A large portion of the Italian Renaissance was an obsession with finding order in everything in the universe. Its primary actors sought to show nature as orderly and fundamentally simple. Leonardo Da Vinci, the epitome of the Renaissance Man, was not the first to apply these ideas of geometric order and patterns to art, but he may be the most well known. Da Vinci used mathematical concepts like linear perspective, proportion and geometry in much of his artwork.

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, a town 50 kilometers west of Florence in what is now Italy. The illegitimate son of a notary, he grew to become one of the most renowned and influential men in the fields of art, engineering, architecture, mathematics and natural science. The world was just awakening from the Dark Ages. Sigmund Freud once wrote, “He was like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while others were still asleep” (Brizio, 7). Much of his work was lost because of the time period he lived in. The primary artifacts of his work remaining today are the many paintings he did and the numerous notebooks filled with detailed diagrams of everything from human anatomy to theoretical inventions. They are filled with detailed descriptions and explanations scribbled right to left so only those intelligent enough could read them

Leonardo did intensive studies on linear perspective. He applied this method to much of his work. According to the Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms, linear perspective is “the method of representing a 3-D object or a particular volume of space on a flat surface.” By making all of the lines in the painting converge on an single, invisible point on the horizon, a flat painting can appear to have depth. The Last Supper is a mural Da Vinci painted in the refectory of the church, Santa Maria delle Grazie. By using this method, Da Vinci made the painting appear to be an extension of the room itself (Brizio, 52). It should be noted that The Last Supper is his final piece showing evidence of linear perspective. It was completed in 1498. Of the 14 paintings attributed to Da Vinci before 1500, only four use linear perspective (Zwijnenberg, 130-5). So it is clear he was not bound by any one method, just as he was not bound by any one field of study.

Leonardo’s most famous painting by far is the Mona Lisa. It is a simple portrait of a young woman whose identity is unknown. She is sitting in front of a mountainous nature scene dressed in the clothing of the time. The most captivating aspect of the mysterious young woman is her very subtle smile. Not only is this a beautiful painting superficially, but also it is filled with many puzzles that art historians have been studying for years. One of the most interesting is the mismatch in the horizon of the background. The left side is significantly lower than the right. So if the observer focuses on the left side of the painting, she appears to be much taller and more erect than if he focuses on the right (WebMuseum). Da Vinci was a master of using perspective to trick the eyes of the observer

Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vinci, c. 1506

Leonardo Da Vinci, like other artists of his time, paid particular attention to proportion. In The Last Supper, he sought to create a perfect harmonic balance between the placement of the characters and the background. He did intensive studies on how the characters should be arranged at the table. Also, and it was not discovered until recently, he used a complex formula based on the relationship 12:6:4:3. According to Turner, the entire piece measures 6 by 12 units. The wall in the back is equal to 4 units. The windows are 3 units and the recession of the tapestries on the side walls is 12:6:4:3. These ratios are also very present in music. 3:4 is the interval of one fourth, 4:6 is a fifth, and 6:12 is an octave. It makes sense that Leonardo did this, he once noted on “the resonance between visual and aural harmonies.” He thought making use of this ratio would “offer praise to the harmonies of the universe” (Turner, 213). The image below is somewhat distorted and is not the complete mural, so it is difficult to fully appreciate the harmonic proportion. But this is an excellent example of linear perspective.

The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci, c. 1498

Da Vinci elaborated on the relationship between painting and geometry in the first five sections of Paragone, a book written sometime between 1500 and 1505. He said, “the point is the first principle of geometry and no other thing can exist in nature or in the human mind from which the point can originate.” He said the other principles of geometry are the line, the surface and the “body clothed by these surfaces” (Zwijnenberg, 50-1). The Virgin of the Rocks, another very well known Da Vinci piece, incorporates geometry in a more concrete fashion. The arrangement of the four characters (the baby Jesus, Mary, an angel and the infant John the Baptist) is a triangle. The triangle can be interpreted in more than one-way, but once noticed, appears to be in stark contrast to the rich, organic background (Turner, 211).

Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo Da Vinci, c. 1486

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