the legacy of leonardo

Leonardo’s legacy

“The painter has the universe in his mind and his hands’’ Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

 Born on the 15^th of April 1452 in Italy, the genius Leonardo da Vinci  was coined to describe the term Renaissance man(Alessandro, 1997:83). He was a man of so many accomplishments in so many areas of human endeavor. Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor and skilled mechanical engineer.

Casual patrons of arts know him as the painter of the ‘Mona Lisa’ and the exquisite ‘Last supper’ painted on the wall of the dining hall in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy (Gardner, 1970:450-456).

by Leonardo da Vinci at Musee du Louvre 1503.

 

by Leonardo da Vinci at Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan 1495-1498.

 

 

Only 17 of the paintings that have survived can be attributed to Leonardo and not all of them are finished. In most people’s eyes this is seen as a tragedy. However, he is deservedly considered one of the greatest painters of all the time.

  He excelled in the inventiveness, technique, drawing ability, use of light, shadow and color. Many sketches remain as part of his unfinished projects but they give adequate evidence of Leonardo’s concept of art and sculpture.

 The greatest literary legacy any painter has ever published to the world is contained in the Volumes notebooks of Leonardo. His writing program began during his first stay in Milan, specifically between 1490 and 1495.

In the notebooks, Leonardo envisaged treating four major themes: a treatise on the science of painting, a treatise on architecture, a book on the elements of mechanics and a general work on the human autonomy (Andrew, 1972:24).

 Leonardo’s notebooks are distinctive for the relation of illustration to text and his use of ‘mirror writing’.  In the normal illustrated book- pictures amplify and clarify the text but it is the text that contains basic information. Leonardo always gave precedence to illustration over the written word. This is why Leonardo’s drawings do not illustrate the text but  serves to explain the pictures(Compton’s Encyclopedia 1990:133).

The term ‘mirror writing’ means putting words down on paper in such a way that they can be read normally only when the page is held up to a mirror. The reason for using mirror writing is uncertain because he did not intend to keep his notebooks a secret (Compton’s Encyclopedia 1990:133).

Francis I, King of France said: “There has never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculptures and architecture as that he was a very great philosopher”.

 There is no denying the fact that Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest minds of all time.

Given this information it can be concluded that Leonardo’s greatness lies in the diversity of his knowledge. It is indeed amazing to see that until today people from all parts of the world queue at Louvre in Paris to view Leonardo da Vinci’s work- a man who died 500 years ago.