Leonardo da Vinci: A Biography

Author: Cheng Huang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: He was a profound thinker, a knowledgeable and versatile artist, a scientific giant, a literary theorist, a great philosopher, a poet, a musician, an engineer, and an inventor. He made significant contributions in almost every field. Later scholars called him the perfect representative of the Renaissance, an outstanding scholar, and a once-in-a-generation genius. All praise was well-deserved for him.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was the symbol of human wisdom, with an infinite, divine ideal to recreate the beauty of the world, measure its vastness, and explain its mysteries. Yet, he had only the strength and lifespan of an ordinary person. His ambition was to discover everything, study everything, and create everything. His life was an unfinished journey, strewn with fragments of noble unfinished works. On his deathbed, he sorrowfully said, "I have never completed a single work in my life."
Leonardo was born in Vinci, a small town outside Florence, hence his name. At the age of five, he could draw his mother's portrait from memory on the sand, while also composing and performing songs on the spot, earning the admiration of those present. His father, Antonio, a lawyer, recognized his son's talent in painting and decided to send him to the workshop of the Florentine artist Verrocchio. There, he not only received education in painting, sculpture, and architectural art but was also influenced by other sciences.
In Verrocchio's workshop, Leonardo studied the relationship between light and shadow in eggs, discovering the technique of chiaroscuro. He spent six years in the workshop, becoming a model of modern scientific thought and fearless exploration.
Unable to fully realize his talents in Florence, Leonardo yearned to bring his art and wisdom into the real world, making it shine. At the age of 31, he wrote to Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan, listing his various talents, and later offered to sculpt a monumental equestrian statue of the duke's father, a feat never before seen in the world. At the age of 41, Leonardo completed the clay model of this masterpiece, but it was never realized due to insufficient copper for casting. It was destroyed in 1499 during the French invasion, otherwise it would have been one of the world's greatest wonders.
Instead of gold, the Duke rewarded Leonardo's genius and hard work with flattering words, which made Leonardo uneasy. To comfort him, the Duke commissioned him to paint a fresco for the refectory of the Grècchetto monastery in Milan—this is the Last Supper.
If the Last Supper is the world's most famous religious painting, then the Mona Lisa, painted when Leonardo returned to Florence from Milan at the age of 51, is undoubtedly the world's most famous and greatest portrait. These two globally celebrated works ensured that Leonardo da Vinci's name would live forever.
Leonardo's unique artistic language involved using chiaroscuro to create the illusion of depth on a flat surface. He once said, "The greatest miracle of painting is to make a flat surface appear as if it has relief." He applied the principle of light changes on a sphere to pioneer the technique of sfumato (atmospheric perspective), where the transition from light to shadow is continuous, like smoke, without abrupt boundaries. The Mona Lisa is a masterpiece of this technique. Vasari considered this chiaroscuro method a turning point in painting.
Leonardo's life was dedicated to exploring the noble essence of art, finding fulfillment only in the creation of beauty. The science, reason, pursuit of beauty, and creativity of 15th-century Italy reached their peak with Leonardo. However, his talents were not recognized or appreciated in his later years, and the indifference of the Pope deeply wounded him. In 1515, when King Francis I of France recaptured Milan, he invited Leonardo to settle in France at Chateau de Cloux, appointing him as a court painter. Leonardo died in exile in 1519 at the age of 67. His student, Francesco Melzi, said, "Leonardo's death was a loss to everyone, for no one could ever replace him."