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About Him

Leonardo da Vinci was born on the 15th of April, 1452, in Vinci, Florence (present day Italy). He was a painter, architect, inventor, and scientist. Leonardo spent most of his early life in Florence, which had become the centre of Christian Humanist thinking and culture because of the Renaissance movement.

Art Movement and Influences

Before the Renaissance, during the Medieval times, living conditions were very poor. People during this time were thinking more about their survival than art. This meant that only rich figures such as the Church, who did not have to worry about their survival, were able to make art. This caused a lot of the Medieval art to be religiously themed and aimed at religious devotion rather than looking pretty. Medieval portraits of people such as Mary and Baby Jesus were purposely made to look ugly because they were represented as beings different from mortal people.

This changed soon enough with the rise of the idea of humanism, which sparked the Renaissance movement (1300-1600). As people started getting richer in places such as Florence, there was no point standing out, since everyone was rich. More people wanted paintings that related to them. This void in artistic style led more artist to look at the classics that had already idealised the human form such as Greek and Roman art.

Leonardo was surrounded by these new art pieces and came to love the human form even more through his apprenticeship with Verrocchio: one of the pioneers of this art style. Florence’s booming art culture in the Renaissance would influence the foundations of Leonardo’s artistic style: that of realism and ideal human form.

Vinci’s natural landscape; the birds and lush, green, open fields led Leonardo to gain a passion for light and movement, influencing his art-style, mainly with depth and movement. He is said to have studied the physics of light and movement of animals such as birds. Overall all these influences allowed Leonardo to convey his idea of beauty and nature, one which is based on the realism of things and human perception of everyday life.

Although art was becoming a lot more realistic at the time of Leonardo’s birth, art pieces were still missing certain human elements. Most portraits featured rigid almost inanimate subjects. Leonardo change this by adding elements of movement and blur and position to make his portraits to make the subjects as human as possible. An example of this is shown in his Mona Lisa Painting, where he made the base of the painting heavier than the top, so that viewer would naturally be drawn to the eyes of the subject as they would  be doing when looking at a normal human in real life.  This proved to be so popular that this form of position came to be the norm of portraits painted later in the Renaissance movement.

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Man, Woman & Nature is an exhbition of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous art pieces. It will be held in Museo Leonardo da Vinci in Tuscany Town, Vinci, Italy. The exhibitio starts from da Vinci's earliest paitings to his latest ones. We have chosen this venue because it is where da Vinci was born and we hope that during your time here you are able to experience as many cultural acitivites so that you may connect with the life of this artist.

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Artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Verrocchio

Dimensions: 98 cm x 2.17 m

Created: 1472

Medium: Oil and tempera on panel

Media: Oil paint, Tempera

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Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Dimensions: 66 cm x 45 cm
Created: 1490

Medium: Oil paint

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Artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

Dimensions: 42 cm x 33 cm

Created: 1490

Medium: Oil paint

Subject: Mary, Christ Child, Madonna

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Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Dimensions: 4.6 m x 8.8 m

Created: 1495–1498

Medium: fresco-secco

Media: Tempera, Levkas, Mastic, Pitch

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What was my first reaction?

I really like Mona Lisa's eyes. The eyes look like they are the same shape but actually they are different. I like how da Vinci used darker colours at the bottom and lighter colours at the top so that the bottom was heavier than the top of the painting. This makes me really look at her face. I don't really like the background because the colours look very dull and not vibrant.

How do you feel about the artwork?

The subject has a very gentle smile and the scenery in the background is very calm. This artwork makes me feel peaceful.

What can you see?

The first thing I can see is the eyes of Mona Lisa. She has a very natural stare. I notice the different shades of blue and brown in the background. In the brown rocky landscape, you can see how one side of the rocks is higher than the other. I can see the background becoming more blurry as you go further into the background. I notice the subject's brown hair and all the individual threads. I can see her hands which look very delicate and soft. I can see her skin which looks very soft. I can see the fibres in her clothes. I can see a road in the background and how it is drawn so it looks like it is going up a rocky mountain. I can see water and different light reflections on the water.

What type of artwork is it?

This is a protrait of Mona Lisa, a real person, who was the wife of a wealthy merchant in Florence.

What is the artwork about?

This artwork was painted during da Vinci later years, when he became a master of drawing human beings. This painting shows what da Vinci saw though his eyes and how he percieved beauty in everything connected to nature.

What is the first thing you see?

The first I see in the artwork are the eyes of the subject that are located in the upper middle of the artwork. I looked at this part because the eyes are so natural that looking at them is an instinct.

What elements are important?

The colour use really helps make the subject face, particularly her eyes, stand out. The dark black colours of the bottom of the artwork and the blue and brown background of the background really help make the subject's pale yellow face stand out.

The blurriness of the background as you look deeper also makes the scenery very natural because in real life as we look further our vision gets blurry too.

The large amount of natural curves makes and lack of straght lines makes this piece very natural and stops it from being abstract.

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Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Dimensions: 77 cm x 53 cm

Created: 1503

Medium: Oil paint

Period: Renaissance

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Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Dimensions: 69 cm x 57 cm

Created: 1513

Subject: John the Baptist

Medium: Oil paint