Leonardo da Vinci - "La Gioconda"
Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, the town who's name he kept as his last name, near Tuscan. From his early age his talents were so apparent that his father took him to Florence when he was fourteen, to study painting and sculpture in Andrea Verrocchio's workshop. There he met also Botticelli and Ghirlandaio. During his years near Verrocchio he studied also mathematics and geometry, as well as begun to strengthen his sense of observation, as he believed that only through observation one can achieve understanding of natural phenomena. This knowledge he used in his paintings, in order to make his images more lifelike. Thirteen years after he went to Verrocchio he started his own business as a painter. He made religious paintings for the nobility and the bourgeoisie, as well as for monasteries and people of religion. It is safe to say that Leonardo was born in a time were Art was highly appreciated and received great interest. However, his genius was bound to be revealed. In 1482 he was approved to join Duke Ludovico Sforza's court where he worked as an artist. It is there were he wrote his famous notebooks, which unveil the extent of bright mind, and painted the 'Last Supper' in the wall of Santa Maria delle Grazie in 1493.
After leaving Duke Sforza's court, he visited the cities of Venice and Pisa to work as an engineer for many members of the nobility, including the King of France Francois I. His inner urge of questioning everything around him and inside him, gave him excellent knowledge of physics and anatomy, as well as the ability of inventing things that would be used even 400 years later.
From 1503 to 1506, Leonardo created his most famous painting, The Mona-Lisa or better known as the Gioconda. It is supported that it was the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a nobleman in Florence, who was a twenty-four-year-old woman. The painting depicts the figure of a woman, sitting in front of a landscape in Florence and behind her one can see the mountains. This work of Art is an absolute breath-taking image as Mona-Lisa's expression has a magnificent beauty although she seems unreachable.
Painted on wood with oil Mona-Lisa has a unique technique of the representation of flesh one can even notice the on her neck and also one can see the perfect depiction of light on the flesh. It is essential to state that Leonardo managed to give this amazing beauty life and many will only notice how beautiful she is, but few would notice that the woman has absolutely no eyebrows. "During his lifetime, Leonardo was indeed, above all, famous for his evident talent for imitating nature to perfection and when his first biographer, the painter Vasani, described the Mona-Lisa he above all insisted on the work's realism: 'Its limpid eyes had the sparkle of life: ringed by reddish and livid hues, they were bordered by lashes whose execution required the greatest delicacy. The eyelashes, in places thicker or more sparse according to the arrangement of the pores, could not be truer. The nose, with its ravishing delicate, pink nostrils, was life itself. [...] In the hollow of the throat, the attentive spectator can catch the beating of the veins' "
Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, the town who's name he kept as his last name, near Tuscan. From his early age his talents were so apparent that his father took him to Florence when he was fourteen, to study painting and sculpture in Andrea Verrocchio's workshop. There he met also Botticelli and Ghirlandaio. During his years near Verrocchio he studied also mathematics and geometry, as well as begun to strengthen his sense of observation, as he believed that only through observation one can achieve understanding of natural phenomena. This knowledge he used in his paintings, in order to make his images more lifelike. Thirteen years after he went to Verrocchio he started his own business as a painter. He made religious paintings for the nobility and the bourgeoisie, as well as for monasteries and people of religion. It is safe to say that Leonardo was born in a time were Art was highly appreciated and received great interest. However, his genius was bound to be revealed. In 1482 he was approved to join Duke Ludovico Sforza's court where he worked as an artist. It is there were he wrote his famous notebooks, which unveil the extent of bright mind, and painted the 'Last Supper' in the wall of Santa Maria delle Grazie in 1493.
After leaving Duke Sforza's court, he visited the cities of Venice and Pisa to work as an engineer for many members of the nobility, including the King of France Francois I. His inner urge of questioning everything around him and inside him, gave him excellent knowledge of physics and anatomy, as well as the ability of inventing things that would be used even 400 years later.
From 1503 to 1506, Leonardo created his most famous painting, The Mona-Lisa or better known as the Gioconda. It is supported that it was the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a nobleman in Florence, who was a twenty-four-year-old woman. The painting depicts the figure of a woman, sitting in front of a landscape in Florence and behind her one can see the mountains. This work of Art is an absolute breath-taking image as Mona-Lisa's expression has a magnificent beauty although she seems unreachable.
Painted on wood with oil Mona-Lisa has a unique technique of the representation of flesh one can even notice the on her neck and also one can see the perfect depiction of light on the flesh. It is essential to state that Leonardo managed to give this amazing beauty life and many will only notice how beautiful she is, but few would notice that the woman has absolutely no eyebrows. "During his lifetime, Leonardo was indeed, above all, famous for his evident talent for imitating nature to perfection and when his first biographer, the painter Vasani, described the Mona-Lisa he above all insisted on the work's realism: 'Its limpid eyes had the sparkle of life: ringed by reddish and livid hues, they were bordered by lashes whose execution required the greatest delicacy. The eyelashes, in places thicker or more sparse according to the arrangement of the pores, could not be truer. The nose, with its ravishing delicate, pink nostrils, was life itself. [...] In the hollow of the throat, the attentive spectator can catch the beating of the veins' "
