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July 13 - July 15, 2019
“Learning never exhausts the mind.” —Leonardo da Vinci
“I wish to work miracles.” —Leonardo da Vinci
One of the things Leonardo loved to do was mirror-writing. Because he was left-handed, he would write from right to left on a page, with each letter written in reverse. He used this method throughout his life.
When Leonardo arrived at Verrocchio’s workshop, he was joined by others who were already working under the master. One of these men was Pietro Perugino, who painted the fresco known as The Delivery of the Keys in Rome’s Sistine Chapel. The other was Sandro Botticelli, who painted The Birth of Venus 20 years later.
One of Verrocchio’s paintings is Tobias and the Angel. The archangel Raphael is actually a likeness of Leonardo. Leonardo even contributed to the painting with a fish held by Tobias and a fluffy dog at the angel’s feet.
Leonardo, along with Verrocchio, worked together on The Baptism of Christ. Leonardo painted the angel holding Jesus’ robe; it was done so well that it is said Verrocchio put down his brushes and never painted again.
At the time of his death in 1524, Salaì was the owner of the Mona Lisa.
In 1506, Leonardo took on another pupil, Count Francesco Melzi, the son of an aristocrat. It was said that Melzi was his favorite student. He traveled wherever Leonardo went and always remained with him. He would stay with Leonardo right until the master’s death.
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” —Leonardo da Vinci
“I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die.” —Leonardo da Vinci
“A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art does not.” —Leonardo da Vinci
his most famous painting of all: the Mona Lisa. The fame of the Mona Lisa rests on the artfully mysterious smile on the woman’s face. Leonardo skillfully shadowed the corners of her mouth and eyes in such a way to give the impression that her smile could be many things. No one knows for sure what his intentions were, and it has been a controversy ever since.
Today the Mona Lisa is considered the most famous painting in the world. The painting was insured for over $782 million in 2015, and if you are ever in Paris, France, be sure to visit the Louvre museum where the esteemed Mona Lisa resides.
“Weight, force and casual impulse, together with resistance, are the four external powers in which all the visible actions of mortals have their being and their end.” —Leonardo da Vinci
“A good painter has two chief objects to paint—man, and the intention of his soul,”
Over the years, Leonardo kept notes and drawings that amounted to over 13,000 pages. Everything he observed he would write about; his daily life was filled with observations about the natural world.
The ancient Romans believed that the Architectural Order of a building is the same as the key is to classical music or how grammar influences a written composition. There was complete integration in these thought processes, and these thoughts were not lost on Leonardo da Vinci.
The Codex Leicester and a collection of Leonardo’s scientific writings are owned privately by Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.
Leonardo da Vinci was the first scientist to define both cirrhosis of the liver and atherosclerosis. He even conducted an experiment where he created a glass aorta of the heart to observe the circulation of blood as it moved through the aortic valve. For the fluid, he used water and grass seed to watch patterns develop.
“I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.” —Leonardo da Vinci
As if painting, sculpting, anatomical studies, sketching, and delving into science wasn’t enough for Leonardo da Vinci, he was also greatly interested in engineering and inventions. Believe it or not, Leonardo had masterful knowledge in the fields of optics, physics, hydrodynamics, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, chemistry, pyrotechnics, zoology, and geometry.
He understood perfectly the ideas behind pulleys, cranks, gears, cantilevering, leverage, rack and pinion gears, lubrication systems, and bearings.
Some of his inventions did make it into daily life for some, including the automated bobbin winder, which may have been used in spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing, and lacemaking.
His invention of a lens-grinding machine was powered by a hand rotation of the grinding wheel against an angle gear. This, in turn, rotated a geared dish where the glass or crystal to be ground would sit. By simply turning the apparatus, both surfaces were rotated at the same time.
One of his incredibly far-reaching inventions was done in 1502 for Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II of Istanbul, Turkey. This project was a single span bridge, 720 feet long, intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosphorus, the waterway in northwestern Turkey known as the Golden Horn. The sultan abandoned the project, believing that such a bridge was unachievable. As if to prove the sultan wrong, in 2001 a small bridge was constructed in Norway based on Leonardo’s designs. His brilliance has shone through from the centuries past.
Leonardo also invented a bowed keyboard instrument, which he called the viola organista. No one had ever designed anything remotely close to this musical instrument before.
“Leonardo is the Hamlet of art history, whom each of us must recreate for himself.” —Kenneth Clark, art critic
“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” —Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was quite possibly one of the greatest minds to ever walk the earth. He had an interest in so many things, and he never stopped learning. His genius did not lay in one area only; people cannot simply state that he had a masterful mind in art, architecture, engineering, or sculpting.
Leonardo wrote the following about the color of the atmosphere, “The blue which is seen in the atmosphere is not its own color, but it is caused by the heated moisture having evaporated into the most minute imperceptible particles, which the beams of solar rays attract and cause to seem luminous against the deep intense darkness.”
It was the common belief of the time that the Earth was about 4,000 years old. But da Vinci used his observations to conclude that because valleys are carved by rivers, and the sea level can fall to reveal mountains, all this couldn’t have happened in a mere 4,000 years.
