Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

Leonardo da Vinci is best known for his paintings. The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are just a few of his amazing works of art. But he was also a genius when it comes to science and math. He invented many things long before their time. He sketched a modern helicopter more than five hundred years before it was built. He invented new kinds of paint. One little-known fact about him was that he was homosexual. His companion since age ten was Salai. The saying "Jack of all trades, master of none." does not apply. I think it should be changed to "Jack of all trades, master of all." when it comes to Leonardo da Vinci.

His biographer, Giorgio Vasari, wrote:

"The most heavenly gifts seem to be showered on certain human beings. Sometimes supernaturally, marvelously, they all congregate in one individual. . . . This was seen and acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, who had. . . an indescribable grace in every effortless act and deed. His talent was so rare that he mastered any subject to which he turned his attention. . . . He might have been a scientist if he had not been so versatile."

Leonardo started his art when his father took him to become an apprentice of Verocchio, another artist. The student soon surpassed the master, and by his early twenties, Leonardo da Vinci was downright famous. He was a perfectionist, and turned to science to make his artwork better. He dissected human bodies in order to study the skeleton and muscles, what gives us our shape. He studied geology and paleontology in order to make his backgrounds more realistic. he did not care for painting men with unrealistic muscles, which he called "bags of nuts'. Everything he did was perfect down to every leaf on every tree.

Renaissance Italy was centuries away from our modern day photography and videos, but Leonardo still looked for a universal language in painting. The paintings previously made in this culture were strange and sometimes scary religious paintings. This made Leonardo's way of painting new, a breath of fresh air. This kind of painting became the standard for painters in the 16th century. Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519 in Amboise, France. He was 62 years old.

All in all, Leonardo believed that artists have to know all of the laws of nature. Opening your eyes and looking around, he believed, was the perfect way to learn these laws, and the artist is the perfect person to portray them.