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Whale Rider (2002)

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school and with the help of his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, he faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.

The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States the following year by Scholastic Corporation under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US. The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999, and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least 73 other languages, and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels. The novel has sold in excess of 120 million copies, making it the fourth best-selling book of all time.

Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling's imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed. The writing has been compared to that of Jane Austen, one of Rowling's favourite authors; Roald Dahl, whose works dominated children's stories before the appearance of Harry Potter; and the ancient Greek story-teller Homer. While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues, as well as overcoming obstacles like bullying.

The Harry Potter series has been used as a source of object lessons in educational techniques, sociological analysis and marketing.

Harry Potter lives with his neglectful uncle and aunt, Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and their bullying son, Dudley. On Harry's eleventh birthday, Rubeus Hagrid, a half-giant, delivers an acceptance letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, revealing that Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter, were wizards. When Harry was just a year old, a powerful but malevolent dark wizard named Lord Voldemort murdered his parents; Harry survived Voldemort's killing curse that rebounded and seemingly destroyed the Dark Lord, leaving a lightning bolt-shaped scar on Harry's forehead. Unknown to Harry, this act made him famous in the wizarding world.

Hagrid escorts Harry to Diagon Alley, the hidden wizard commerce and retail section in London. Harry's parents have left him a fortune kept in Gringotts Wizarding Bank, which he uses to buy school supplies and a wand from Ollivander's. The cores of Harry and Lord Voldemort's wands have feathers from the same phoenix bird, making them "brothers". Hagrid gifts Harry an owl, whom he names as Hedwig, as a birthday present. A month later, Harry boards the Hogwarts Express at King's Cross railway station's secret . En route to Hogwarts, Harry befriends fellow first year Ron Weasley and meets Hermione Granger, whom the two boys initially dislike.

Harry runs afoul of Draco Malfoy, the spoiled son of a prominent wizard. At Hogwarts, a magical Sorting Hat sorts the first years among four school Houses ( Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin) that best suit their personalities and talents. Draco joins Slytherin, known for producing dark wizards, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione are sorted into Gryffindor.

Harry's broomstick flying ability earns him a place on the Gryffindor Quidditch team as the Seeker. Harry comes to dislike Potions master Severus Snape, who favours Slytherin while seeking to fail Harry. Malfoy tricks Harry and Ron into risking expulsion by leaving their common room after curfew. Hermione, unable to stop them, tags along. Realising Malfoy's ruse, they hide in a forbidden corridor and discover a gigantic three-headed dog guarding a trapdoor. Harry and Ron later save Hermione from a troll during a Halloween celebration and the three become best friends. Coupled with Snape's recent leg injury and suspicious behaviour, Harry, Ron, and Hermione believe he is attempting to enter the trapdoor.

During Harry's first Quidditch match, his broomstick attempts to buck him off. Snape's strange behaviour during the match convinces Hermione he jinxed Harry's broom. Harry receives an anonymous Christmas gift - his father's invisibility cloak. Using it to explore the school, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, which shows what the viewer most desires. Harry sees his parents.

A newspaper report later describes an attempted robbery at the same vault in Gringotts from which Hagrid retrieved an item for Hogwarts' headmaster Albus Dumbledore on the same day. The object beneath the trapdoor is the philosopher's stone, which grants its user immortality and the ability to turn any metal into pure gold. Firenze, a forest centaur, warns Harry that Voldemort is plotting to steal the stone to restore his body. When Dumbledore is lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry, Hermione, and Ron fear the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor.

Various obstacles force Ron and Hermione to remain behind while Harry proceeds. Harry encounters Professor Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He jinxed Harry's broom and let the troll into the school; Snape was protecting Harry. Voldemort, whose face has regrown on the back of Quirrell's head, is revealed to be the professor's secret master. Harry is forced to stand before the Mirror of Erised. It recognises Harry's lack of greed for the stone and deposits it into his pocket. Quirrell attempts to seize the stone, but his flesh burns upon contact with Harry. Harry's scar begins hurting, and he passes out.

Harry awakens in the school's infirmary. He survived Voldemort because his mother sacrificing her life for him left a magical protective charm. Quirrell's hatred and greed caused him to burn upon contact with Harry; Voldemort abandoned him to die. Dumbledore reveals he sent Harry the invisibility cloak, while the philosopher's stone, that had been keeping the long-lived Nicolas Flamel alive, has been destroyed with Flamel's consent to prevent its being stolen. During the school's year-end feast, Gryffindor is awarded the House Cup. Harry returns to the Dursleys at Privet Drive until the next school year.

Harry Potter is an orphan whom Rowling imagined as a "scrawny, black-haired, green eyed and bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard." She developed the series' story and characters to explain how Harry came to be in this situation and how his life unfolded from there. Apart from the first chapter, the events of this book take place just before and in the year following Harry's eleventh birthday. Voldemort's attack left a lightning bolt-shaped scar on Harry's forehead, which produces stabbing pains whenever Voldemort is present. Harry has a natural talent for Quidditch and became the first person in a century to get on their team in their first year.

Ron Weasley is Harry's age, and Rowling describes him as the ultimate best friend "always there when you need him". He is freckled, red-haired, and quite tall. He grew up in a fairly large pure-blood family as the sixth born of seven children. Although his family is quite poor, they still live comfortably and happily. His loyalty and bravery in the face of a game of Wizards Chess plays a vital part in finding the Philosopher's Stone.

Hermione Granger, the daughter of an all-Muggle family, is a bossy girl who has apparently memorised most of the textbooks before the start of term. Rowling described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure beneath her swottiness". Despite her nagging efforts to keep Harry and Ron out of trouble, she becomes a close friend of the two boys after they save her from a troll and her magical and analytical skills play an important role in finding the Philosopher's Stone. She has bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth.

Neville Longbottom is a plump, diffident boy, so forgetful that his grandmother gives him a Remembrall, to remind him if he forgets something. Neville's magical abilities are weak and appeared just in time to save his life when he was eight. Despite his timidity, Neville will fight anyone after some encouragement or if he thinks it is right and important.

Rubeus Hagrid, a half-giant nearly 12 feet (3.7 m) tall, with tangled black hair and beard, was expelled from Hogwarts and his wand was snapped in half (resulting in him never to use a wand again), however Professor Dumbledore let him stay on as the school's gamekeeper, a job which enables him to give lavish affection, care and even pet names (such as Norbert the dragon) on even the most dangerous of magical creatures. Hagrid is fiercely loyal to Dumbledore and quickly becomes a close friend of Harry, Ron and, later, Hermione, but his carelessness makes him unreliable.

Professor Albus Dumbledore, a tall, thin man who wears half-moon spectacles and has silver hair and a beard that tucks into his belt, is the headmaster of Hogwarts, and thought to be the only wizard Voldemort fears. Dumbledore, while renowned for his achievements in magic, shrugs off praise, though he is aware of his own brilliance. Rowling described him as the "epitome of goodness".

Professor Minerva McGonagall, a tall, severe-looking woman with black hair tied in a tight bun, teaches Transfiguration and is able to transform herself into a cat. She is Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House.

Petunia Dursley, the sister of Harry's mother Lily, is a thin woman with a long neck that she uses for spying on the neighbours. As a Muggle, she regards her magical sister as a freak and tries to pretend that she never existed.

Vernon Dursley, the husband of Petunia Dursley, is a heavily built man whose irascible bluster covers a narrow mind and a fear of anything unusual.

Dudley Dursley is an overweight, spoilt bully and Harry's cousin.

Draco Malfoy is a slim, pale boy who speaks in a bored drawl. He is arrogant about his skill in Quidditch, and despises anyone who is not a pure-blood wizard and wizards who do not share his views. His parents had supported Voldemort, but changed sides after the dark wizard's disappearance, claiming they had been bewitched. Draco avoids direct confrontations and tries to get Harry and his friends into trouble.

Oliver Wood is Harry's Quidditch captain and keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

Professor Quirrell is a twitching, stammering, and nervous man who teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts. Reputedly he was a brilliant scholar, but his nerve was shattered by an encounter with vampires. Quirrell wears a turban to conceal the fact that he is voluntarily possessed by Voldemort, whose face appears on the back of Quirrell's head.

Professor Severus Snape, who has a hooked nose, sallow complexion, and greasy black hair, teaches Potions, but would prefer to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. Snape favours pupils in Slytherin, his own House and seizes every opportunity to humiliate others, especially Harry. Several incidents, beginning with the shooting pain in Harry's scar during the start-of-term feast, lead Harry and his friends to think Snape is aiding Voldemort.

Argus Filch, the school caretaker who knows the school's secret passages better than anyone else except, perhaps, the Weasley twins. His cat, Mrs. Norris, aids his constant hunt for misbehaving pupils.

Other members of staff include: the dumpy Herbology teacher and Head of Hufflepuff House Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, the tiny and excitable Charms teacher and Head of Ravenclaw House, the soporific History of magic teacher, Professor Binns, a ghost who does not seem to have noticed his own death, and Madam Hooch, the Quidditch coach, who is strict, but a considerate and methodical teacher. The poltergeist Peeves wanders around the castle causing trouble wherever he can.

In the book, Rowling introduces an eclectic cast of characters. The first character to be introduced is Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle. Most of the actions centre on the eponymous hero [Harry Potter, an orphan who escapes his miserable childhood with the Dursley family. Rowling imagined him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard" and says she transferred part of her pain about losing her mother to him. During the book, Harry makes two close friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron is described by Rowling as the ultimate best friend, "always there when you need him". Rowling has described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure beneath her swottiness".

Rowling also imagined a supporting cast of adults. The headmaster of Hogwarts is the powerful, but kind wizard Albus Dumbledore, who becomes Harry's confidant. Rowling described him as "the epitome of goodness". His right hand is severe Minerva McGonagall, the friendly half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, who saved Harry from the Dursley family and the sinister Severus Snape. Professor Quirrell is also featured in the novel.

The main antagonists are Draco Malfoy, an elitist, bullying classmate, and Lord Voldemort, the most powerful evil wizard who becomes disembodied when he tries to kill baby Harry. According to a 1999 interview with Rowling, the character of Voldemort was created as a literary foil for Harry and his backstory was intentionally not fleshed-out at first:

The basic idea... Harry, I saw Harry very very very clearly. Very vividly. And I knew he didn't know he was a wizard. ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry-he tried to curse him. ... And-so-but for some mysterious reason, the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since.

Development, publication and reception

The book, which was Rowling's debut novel, was written between approximately June 1990 and some time in 1995. In 1990, Jo Rowling, as she preferred to be known, wanted to move with her boyfriend to a flat in Manchester and in her words, "One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head... A scrawny, little, black-haired, bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me... I began to write Philosopher's Stone that very evening. Although, the first couple of pages look nothing like the finished product." Then, Rowling's mother died and, to cope with her pain, Rowling transferred her own anguish to the orphan Harry. Rowling spent six years working on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and after it was accepted by Bloomsbury, she obtained a grant of £8,000 from the Scottish Arts Council, which enabled her to plan the sequels. She sent the book to a literary agent and a publisher and then the second agent she approached spent a year trying to sell the book to publishers, most of whom thought it was too long at about 90,000 words. Barry Cunningham, who was building a portfolio of distinctive fantasies by new authors for Bloomsbury Children's Books, recommended accepting the book and the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chief executive said it was "so much better than anything else".

Imitation of the fictional Platform 9+ 3⁄4 at the real King's Cross railway station, with a luggage trolley apparently halfway through the magical wall

Bloomsbury accepted the book, paying Rowling a £2,500 advance and Cunningham sent proof copies to carefully chosen authors, critics and booksellers in order to obtain comments that could be quoted when the book was launched. He was less concerned about the book's length than about its author's name, since the title sounded like a boys' book to him and he believed boys preferred books by male authors. Rowling therefore adopted the pen name J. K. Rowling just before publication.

In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 500 copies in hardback, three hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Her original name, "Joanne Rowling", can be found on the copyright page of all British editions until September 1999. (The 1998 first American edition would remove reference to "Joanne" completely.) The short initial print run was standard for first novels and Cunningham hoped booksellers would read the book and recommend it to customers. Examples from this initial print run have sold for as much as US$471,000 in a 2021 Heritage auction. Thomas Taylor created the cover for the first edition.

Lindsey Fraser, who had previously supplied one of the blurb comments, wrote what is thought to be the first published review, in The Scotsman on 28 June 1997. She described Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as "a hugely entertaining thriller" and Rowling as "a first-rate writer for children". Another early review, in , said: "I have yet to find a child who can put it down." Newspapers outside Scotland started to notice the book, with glowing reviews in The Guardian and The Sunday Times and in September 1997 Books for Keeps, a magazine that specialised in children's books, gave the novel four stars out of five. Sunday Times said: "comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified", while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and The Scotsman said it had "all the makings of a classic".

In 1997 the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9- to 11-year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. The Smarties award, which is voted for by children, made the book well known within six months of publication, while most children's books have to wait for years. The following year, Philosopher's Stone won almost all the other major British awards that were decided by children. It was also shortlisted for children's books awards adjudicated by adults, but did not win. Sandra Beckett commented that books that were popular with children were regarded as undemanding and as not of the highest literary standards - for example, the literary establishment disdained the works of Dahl, an overwhelming favourite of children before the appearance of Rowling's books. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 22 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won two publishing industry awards given for sales rather than literary merit, the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Booksellers' Association / Bookseller Author of the Year. By March 1999 UK editions had sold just over 300,000 copies and the story was still the UK's best-selling title in December 2001. A Braille edition was published in May 1998 by the Scottish Braille Press.

Platform , from which the Hogwarts Express left London, was commemorated in the real-life King's Cross railway station with a sign and a trolley apparently passing through the wall.

Scholastic Corporation bought the US rights at the Bologna Book Fair in April 1997 for US$105,000, an unusually high sum for a children's book. Scholastic's Arthur Levine thought that "philosopher" sounded too archaic for readers and after some discussion (including the proposed title "Harry Potter and the School of Magic"), the American edition was published in September 1998 under the title Rowling suggested, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Rowling later said that she regretted this change and would have fought it if she had been in a stronger position at the time. Philip Nel has pointed out that the change lost the connection with alchemy and the meaning of some other terms changed in translation, for example from " crumpet" to "muffin". While Rowling accepted the change from both the British English "mum" and Seamus Finnigan's Irish variant "mam" to the American variant "mom" in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, she vetoed this change in the later books, which was then reversed in later editions of Philosopher's Stone. However, Nel considered that Scholastic's translations were considerably more sensitive than most of those imposed on British English books of the time and that some other changes could be regarded as useful copyedits. Since the UK editions of early titles in the series were published months prior to the American versions, some American readers became familiar with the British English versions owing to having bought them from online retailers.

On BookBrowse, a site that aggregates book reviews such as media reviews, the book received a from "Critics' Opinion".[35] At first the most prestigious reviewers ignored the book, leaving it to book trade and library publications such as Kirkus Reviews and Booklist, which examined it only by the entertainment-oriented criteria of children's fiction. However, more penetrating specialist reviews (such as one by Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, which noted complexity, depth and consistency in the world that Rowling had built) attracted the attention of reviewers in major newspapers.[36] Although The Boston Globe and Michael Winerip in The New York Times complained that the final chapters were the weakest part of the book,[20][37] they and most other American reviewers gave glowing praise.[20] A year later, the US edition was selected as an American Library Association Notable Book, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998 and a New York Public Library 1998 Best Book of the Year and won Parenting Magazine's Book of the Year Award for 1998,[21] the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. In 2012 it was ranked number 3 on a list of the top 100 children's novels published by School Library Journal.[38]

In August 1999, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone topped the New York Times list of best-selling fiction and stayed near the top of the list for much of 1999 and 2000, until the New York Times split its list into children's and adult sections under pressure from other publishers who were eager to see their books given higher placings. Publishers Weekly's report in December 2001 on cumulative sales of children's fiction placed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 19th among hardbacks (over 5 million copies) and 7th among paperbacks (over 6.6 million copies).

In May 2008, Scholastic announced the creation of a 10th Anniversary Edition of the book that was released on 1 October 2008 to mark the tenth anniversary of the original American release. For the fifteenth anniversary of the books, Scholastic re-released Sorcerer's Stone, along with the other six novels in the series, with new cover art by Kazu Kibuishi in 2013.

By mid-2008, official translations of the book had been published in 67 languages. By November 2017, the book had been translated into 80 languages, the 80th being Lowland Scots. Bloomsbury have published translations in Latin and in Ancient Greek, with the latter being described as "one of the most important pieces of Ancient Greek prose written in many centuries".

Philip Nel highlighted the influence of Jane Austen, whom Rowling has greatly admired since the age of twelve. Both novelists greatly encourage re-reading, because details that look insignificant foreshadow important events or characters much later in the story-line - for example Sirius Black is briefly mentioned near the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and then becomes a major character in the third to fifth books. Like Austen's heroines, Harry often has to re-examine his ideas near the ends of books. Some social behaviour in the Harry Potter books is reminiscent of Austen, for example the excited communal reading of letters. Both authors satirise social behaviour and give characters names that express their personalities. However, in Nel's opinion Rowling's humour is more based on caricature and the names she invents are more like those found in Charles Dickens's stories, and Amanda Cockrell noted that many of these express their owners' traits through allusions that run from ancient Roman mythology to eighteenth-century German literature. Rowling, like the Narnia series' author C. S. Lewis, thinks there is no rigid distinction between stories for children and for adults. Nel also noted that, like many good writers for children, Rowling combines literary genres‍-‌ fantasy, young adult fiction, boarding school stories, Bildungsroman and many others.

Some reviewers compared Philosopher's Stone to the stories of Roald Dahl, who died in 1990. Many writers since the 1970s had been hailed as his successor, but none had attained anything near his popularity with children and, in a poll conducted shortly after the launch of Philosopher's Stone, seven of the ten most popular children's books were by Dahl, including the one in top place. The only other really popular children's author of the late 1990s was an American, R. L. Stine. Some of the story elements in Philosopher's Stone resembled parts of Dahl's stories. For example, the hero of James and the Giant Peach lost his parents and had to live with a pair of unpleasant aunts‍-‌one fat and one thin rather like Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, who treated Harry as a servant. However Harry Potter was a distinctive creation, able to take on the responsibilities of an adult while remaining a child inside.

Librarian Nancy Knapp and marketing professor Stephen Brown noted the liveliness and detail of descriptions, especially of shop scenes such as Diagon Alley. Tad Brennan commented that Rowling's writing resembles that of Homer: "rapid, plain, and direct in expression". Stephen King admired "the sort of playful details of which only British fantasists seem capable" and concluded that they worked because Rowling enjoys a quick giggle and then moves briskly forward.

Nicholas Tucker described the early Harry Potter books as looking back to Victorian and Edwardian children's stories: Hogwarts was an old-style boarding school in which the teachers addressed pupils formally by their surnames and were most concerned with the reputations of the houses with which they were associated; characters' personalities were plainly shown by their appearances, starting with the Dursleys; evil or malicious characters were to be crushed rather than reformed, including Argus Filch's cat Mrs Norris; and the hero, a mistreated orphan who found his true place in life, was charismatic and good at sports, but considerate and protective towards the weak. Several other commentators have stated that the books present a highly stratified society including many social stereotypes. However Karin Westerman drew parallels with 1990s Britain: a class system that was breaking down but defended by those whose power and status it upheld; the multi-ethnic composition of Hogwarts' students; the racial tensions between the various intelligent species; and school bullying.

Susan Hall wrote that there is no rule of law in the books, as the actions of Ministry of Magic officials are unconstrained by laws, accountability or any kind of legal challenge. This provides an opportunity for Voldemort to offer his own horrific version of order. As a side-effect Harry and Hermione, who were brought up in the highly regulated Muggle world, find solutions by thinking in ways unfamiliar to wizards. For example, Hermione notes that one obstacle to finding the Philosopher's Stone is a test of logic rather than magical power, and that most wizards have no chance of solving it.

Nel suggested that the unflattering characterisation of the extremely conventional, status-conscious, materialistic Dursleys was Rowling's reaction to the family policies of the British government in the early 1990s, which treated the married heterosexual couple as the "preferred norm", while the author was a single mother. Harry's relationships with adult and juvenile wizards are based on affection and loyalty. This is reflected in his happiness whenever he is a temporary member of the Weasley family throughout the series, and in his treatment of first Rubeus Hagrid and later Remus Lupin and Sirius Black as father-figures.: 13-15, 47-48

The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and later, in the US on 2 June 1999. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was then published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version. It was published worldwide in English on 21 June 2003. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on 16 July 2005 and sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release. The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published on 21 July 2007. The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.

An illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on 6 October 2015, with illustrations by Jim Kay. The book carries over 100 illustrations and will be followed by illustrated versions of all seven books from the series by the same artist.

In May 2020, a reading podcast by Spotify was created and entitled Harry Potter at Home: Readings. Each chapter is narrated by a celebrity guest from the Harry Potter and Wizarding World franchises.

6
The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters
20 May 2020

41 mins, 47 secs

Jamie Parker and cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

17
The Man with the Two Faces
16 July 2020

41 mins, 29 secs

Three families of Harry Potter fans, with a surprise appearance from J. K. Rowling

In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights of the first two Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million. Rowling demanded that the principal cast be kept strictly British, but allowed for the casting of Irish actors such as Richard Harris as Dumbledore and of foreign actors as characters of the same nationalities in later books. After extensive casting, filming began in September 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London, with production ending in July 2001. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in London on 14 November 2001. Reviewers' comments were positive, as reflected by an 81% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and by a score of 65% at Metacritic, representing "generally favourable reviews".

Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2001 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, that were loosely based on the film and book:

Writers on education and business subjects have used the book as an object lesson. Writing about clinical teaching in medical schools, Jennifer Conn contrasted Snape's technical expertise with his intimidating behaviour towards students. Quidditch coach Madam Hooch on the other hand, illustrated useful techniques in the teaching of physical skills, including breaking down complex actions into sequences of simple ones and helping students to avoid common errors. Joyce Fields wrote that the books illustrate four of the five main topics in a typical first-year sociology class: "sociological concepts including culture, society, and socialisation; stratification and social inequality; social institutions; and social theory".

Stephen Brown noted that the early Harry Potter books, especially Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, were a runaway success despite inadequate and poorly organised marketing. Brown advised marketing executives to be less preoccupied with rigorous statistical analyses and the "analysis, planning, implementation, and control" model of management. Instead he recommended that they should treat the stories as "a marketing masterclass", full of enticing products and brand names. For example, a real-world analogue of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans was introduced under licence in 2000 by toymaker Hasbro.

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Wikipedia

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

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Leonardo da Vinci

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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he has also become known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.

Born out of wedlock to a successful notary and a lower-class woman in, or near, Vinci, he was educated in Florence by the Italian painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. He began his career in the city, but then spent much time in the service of Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Later, he worked in Florence and Milan again, as well as briefly in Rome, all while attracting a large following of imitators and students. Upon the invitation of Francis I, he spent his last three years in France, where he died in 1519. Since his death, there has not been a time where his achievements, diverse interests, personal life, and empirical thinking have failed to incite interest and admiration, making him a frequent namesake and subject in culture.

Leonardo is identified as one of the greatest painters in the history of Western art and is often credited as the founder of the High Renaissance. Despite having many lost works and fewer than 25 attributed major works - including numerous unfinished works - he created some of the most influential paintings in the Western canon. The is his best known work and is the world's most famous individual painting. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon. In 2017, Salvator Mundi, attributed in whole or part to Leonardo, was sold at auction for US$450.3 million, setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.

Revered for his technological ingenuity, he conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, a ratio machine that could be used in an adding machine, and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller inventions, however, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, hydrodynamics, geology, optics, and tribology, but he did not publish his findings and they had little to no direct influence on subsequent science.

Early life (1452-1472)

Birth and background

Leonardo Da Vinci's baptism record

Leonardo da Vinci, properly named Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ("Leonardo, son of ser Piero from Vinci"), was born on 15 April 1452 in, or close to, the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, 20 miles from Florence. He was born out of wedlock to Piero da Vinci (Ser Piero da Vinci d'Antonio di ser Piero di ser Guido; 1426-1504), a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina di Meo Lippi ( c. 1434-1494), from the lower class. It remains uncertain where Leonardo was born; the traditional account, from a local oral tradition recorded by the historian Emanuele Repetti, is that he was born in Anchiano, a country hamlet that would have offered sufficient privacy for the illegitimate birth, though it is still possible he was born in a house in Florence that Ser Piero almost certainly had. Leonardo's parents both married separately the year after his birth. Caterina - who later appears in Leonardo's notes as only "Caterina" or "Catelina" - is usually identified as the Caterina Buti del Vacca, who married the local artisan Antonio di Piero Buti del Vacca, nicknamed L'Accattabriga, 'the quarrelsome one'. Having been betrothed to her the previous year, Ser Piero married Albiera Amadori and after her death in 1464, went on to have three subsequent marriages. From all the marriages, Leonardo eventually had 16 half-siblings (of whom 11 survived infancy) who were much younger than he (the last was born when Leonardo was 46 years old) and with whom he had very little contact.

The possible birthplace and childhood home of Leonardo in Anchiano, Vinci, Italy

Very little is known about Leonardo's childhood and much is shrouded in myth, partially because of his biography in the frequently apocryphal Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550) by 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari. Tax records indicate that by at least 1457 he lived in the household of his paternal grandfather, Antonio da Vinci, but it is possible that he spent the years before then in the care of his mother in Vinci, either Anchiano or Campo Zeppi in the parish of San Pantaleone. He is thought to have been close to his uncle, Francesco da Vinci, but his father was probably in Florence most of the time. Ser Piero, who was the descendant of a long line of notaries, established an official residence in Florence by at least 1469 and had a successful career. Despite his family history, Leonardo only received a basic and informal education in (vernacular) writing, reading, and mathematics; possibly because his artistic talents were recognised early, so his family decided to focus their attention there.

Later in life, Leonardo recorded his earliest memory, now in the Codex Atlanticus. While writing on the flight of birds, he recalled as an infant when a kite came to his cradle and opened his mouth with its tail; commentators still debate whether the anecdote was an actual memory or a fantasy.

Verrocchio's workshop

The Baptism of Christ (1472-1475) by Verrocchio and Leonardo, Uffizi Gallery

In the mid-1460s, Leonardo's family moved to Florence, which at the time was the centre of Christian Humanist thought and culture. Around the age of 14, he became a garzone (studio boy) in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, who was the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his time. This was about the time of the death of Verrocchio's master, the great sculptor Donatello. Leonardo became an apprentice by the age of 17 and remained in training for seven years. Other famous painters apprenticed in the workshop or associated with it include Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. Leonardo was exposed to both theoretical training and a wide range of technical skills, including drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics, and woodwork, as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting, and modelling.

Leonardo was a contemporary of Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino, who were all slightly older than he was. He would have met them at the workshop of Verrocchio or at the Platonic Academy of the Medici. Florence was ornamented by the works of artists such as Donatello's contemporaries Masaccio, whose figurative frescoes were imbued with realism and emotion, and Ghiberti, whose Gates of Paradise, gleaming with gold leaf, displayed the art of combining complex figure compositions with detailed architectural backgrounds. Piero della Francesca had made a detailed study of perspective, and was the first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies and Leon Battista Alberti's treatise were to have a profound effect on younger artists and in particular on Leonardo's own observations and artworks.

Much of the painting in Verrocchio's workshop was done by his assistants. According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated with Verrocchio on his The Baptism of Christ (c.  1472-1475), painting the young angel holding Jesus's robe with skill so far superior to his master's that Verrocchio purportedly put down his brush and never painted again (the latter claim probably being apocryphal). The new technique of oil paint was applied to areas of the mostly tempera work, including the landscape, the rocks seen through the brown mountain stream, and much of Jesus's figure, indicating Leonardo's hand. Additionally, Leonardo may have been a model for two works by Verrocchio: the bronze statue of in the Bargello and the archangel Raphael in Tobias and the Angel.

Vasari tells a story of Leonardo as a very young man: a local peasant made himself a round buckler shield and requested that Ser Piero have it painted for him. Leonardo, inspired by the story of Medusa, responded with a painting of a monster spitting fire that was so terrifying that his father bought a different shield to give to the peasant and sold Leonardo's to a Florentine art dealer for 100 ducats, who in turn sold it to the Duke of Milan.

First Florentine period (1472 - c. 1482)

Adoration of the Magi c. 1478-1482, Uffizi, Florence

By 1472, at the age of 20, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine, but even after his father set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to collaborate and live with him. Leonardo's earliest known dated work is a 1473 pen-and-ink drawing of the Arno valley (see below). According to Vasari, the young Leonardo was the first to suggest making the Arno river a navigable channel between Florence and Pisa.

In January 1478, Leonardo received an independent commission to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of Saint Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio, an indication of his independence from Verrocchio's studio. An anonymous early biographer, known as Anonimo Gaddiano, claims that in 1480 Leonardo was living with the Medici and often worked in the garden of the Piazza San Marco, Florence, where a Neoplatonic academy of artists, poets and philosophers organised by the Medici met. In March 1481, he received a commission from the monks of San Donato in Scopeto for The Adoration of the Magi. Neither of these initial commissions were completed, being abandoned when Leonardo went to offer his services to Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza. Leonardo wrote Sforza a letter which described the diverse things that he could achieve in the fields of engineering and weapon design, and mentioned that he could paint. He brought with him a silver string instrument - either a lute or lyre - in the form of a horse's head.

With Alberti, Leonardo visited the home of the Medici and through them came to know the older Humanist philosophers of whom Marsiglio Ficino, proponent of Neoplatonism; Cristoforo Landino, writer of commentaries on Classical writings, and John Argyropoulos, teacher of Greek and translator of Aristotle were the foremost. Also associated with the Platonic Academy of the Medici was Leonardo's contemporary, the brilliant young poet and philosopher Pico della Mirandola. In 1482, Leonardo was sent as an ambassador by Lorenzo de' Medici to Ludovico il Moro, who ruled Milan between 1479 and 1499.

First Milanese period (c. 1482-1499)

Virgin of the Rocks, c. 1483-1493, Louvre version

Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 until 1499. He was commissioned to paint the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. In the spring of 1485, Leonardo travelled to Hungary (on behalf of Sforza) to meet king Matthias Corvinus, and was commissioned by him to paint a Madonna. In 1490 he was called as a consultant, together with Francesco di Giorgio Martini, for the building site of the cathedral of Pavia and was struck by the equestrian statue of Regisole, of which he left a sketch. Leonardo was employed on many other projects for Sforza, such as preparation of floats and pageants for special occasions; a drawing of, and wooden model for, a competition to design the cupola for Milan Cathedral; and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Ludovico's predecessor Francesco Sforza. This would have surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello's Gattamelata in Padua and Verrocchio's Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, and became known as the Gran Cavallo. Leonardo completed a model for the horse and made detailed plans for its casting, but in November 1494, Ludovico gave the metal to his brother-in-law to be used for a cannon to defend the city from Charles VIII of France.

Contemporary correspondence records that Leonardo and his assistants were commissioned by the Duke of Milan to paint the Sala delle Asse in the Sforza Castle, c. 1498. The project became a trompe-l'œil decoration that made the great hall appear to be a pergola created by the interwoven limbs of sixteen mulberry trees, whose canopy included an intricate labyrinth of leaves and knots on the ceiling.

Second Florentine period (1500-1508)

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, c. 1499-1508, National Gallery, London

When Ludovico Sforza was overthrown by France in 1500, Leonardo fled Milan for Venice, accompanied by his assistant Salaì and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli. In Venice, Leonardo was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack. On his return to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, a work that won such admiration that "men [and] women, young and old" flocked to see it "as if they were going to a solemn festival."

In Cesena in 1502, Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron. Leonardo created a map of Cesare Borgia's stronghold, a town plan of Imola in order to win his patronage. Upon seeing it, Cesare hired Leonardo as his chief military engineer and architect. Later in the year, Leonardo produced another map for his patron, one of Chiana Valley, Tuscany, so as to give his patron a better overlay of the land and greater strategic position. He created this map in conjunction with his other project of constructing a dam from the sea to Florence, in order to allow a supply of water to sustain the canal during all seasons.

Leonardo had left Borgia's service and returned to Florence by early 1503, where he rejoined the Guild of Saint Luke on 18 October of that year. By this same month, Leonardo had begun working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the model for the , which he would continue working on until his twilight years. In January 1504, he was part of a committee formed to recommend where Michelangelo's statue of should be placed. He then spent two years in Florence designing and painting a mural of The Battle of Anghiari for the Signoria, with Michelangelo designing its companion piece, The Battle of Cascina.

In 1506, Leonardo was summoned to Milan by Charles II d'Amboise, the acting French governor of the city. There, Leonardo took on another pupil, Count Francesco Melzi, the son of a Lombard aristocrat, who is considered to have been his favourite student. The Council of Florence wished Leonardo to return promptly to finish The Battle of Anghiari, but he was given leave at the behest of Louis XII, who considered commissioning the artist to make some portraits. Leonardo may have commenced a project for an equestrian figure of d'Amboise; a wax model attributed to him survives and would be the only extant example of Leonardo's sculpture, but the attribution is not widely accepted. Leonardo was otherwise free to pursue his scientific interests. Many of Leonardo's most prominent pupils either knew or worked with him in Milan, including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, and Marco d'Oggiono. In 1507, Leonardo was in Florence sorting out a dispute with his brothers over the estate of his father, who had died in 1504.

Second Milanese period (1508-1513)

By 1508, Leonardo was back in Milan, living in his own house in Porta Orientale in the parish of Santa Babila.

In 1512, Leonardo was working on plans for an equestrian monument for Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, but this was prevented by an invasion of a confederation of Swiss, Spanish and Venetian forces, which drove the French from Milan. Leonardo stayed in the city, spending several months in 1513 at the Medici's Vaprio d'Adda villa.

Rome and France (1513-1519)

An apocalyptic deluge drawn in black chalk by Leonardo near the end of his life (part of a series of 10, paired with written description in his notebooks)

In March 1513, Lorenzo de' Medici's son Giovanni assumed the papacy (as Leo X); Leonardo went to Rome that September, where he was received by the pope's brother Giuliano. From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere Courtyard in the Apostolic Palace, where Michelangelo and Raphael were both active. Leonardo was given an allowance of 33 ducats a month and, according to Vasari, decorated a lizard with scales dipped in quicksilver. The pope gave him a painting commission of unknown subject matter, but cancelled it when the artist set about developing a new kind of varnish. Leonardo became ill, in what may have been the first of multiple strokes leading to his death. He practised botany in the Vatican Gardens, and was commissioned to make plans for the Pope's proposed draining of the Pontine Marshes. He also dissected cadavers, making notes for a treatise on vocal cords; these he gave to an official in hopes of regaining the Pope's favour, but he was unsuccessful.

In October 1515, King Francis I of France recaptured Milan. On 21 March 1516 Antonio Maria Pallavicini, the French ambassador to the Holy See, received a letter sent from Lyon a week previously by the royal advisor Guillaume Gouffier, seigneur de Bonnivet, containing the French king's instructions to assist Leonardo in his relocation to France and to inform the artist that the King was eagerly awaiting his arrival. Pallavicini was also asked to reassure Leonardo that he would be well received at court, both by the King and by his mother, Louise of Savoy. Leonardo entered Francis's service later that year, and was given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé near the King's residence at the royal Château d'Amboise. He was frequently visited by Francis, and drew plans for an immense castle town the King intended to erect at Romorantin. He also made a mechanical lion, which during a pageant walked towards the King and - upon being struck by a wand - opened its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.

Leonardo was accompanied during this time by his friend and apprentice Francesco Melzi, and was supported by a pension totalling 10,000 scudi. At some point, Melzi drew a portrait of Leonardo; the only others known from his lifetime were a sketch by an unknown assistant on the back of one of Leonardo's studies (c.  1517) and a drawing by Giovanni Ambrogio Figino depicting an elderly Leonardo with his right arm wrapped in clothing. The latter, in addition to the record of an October 1517 visit by Louis d'Aragon, confirms an account of Leonardo's right hand being paralytic when he was 65, which may indicate why he left works such as the Mona Lisa unfinished. He continued to work at some capacity until eventually becoming ill and bedridden for several months.

Drawing of the Château d'Amboise (c.  1518) attributed to Francesco Melzi

Leonardo died at Clos Lucé on 2 May 1519 at the age of 67, possibly of a stroke. Francis I had become a close friend. Vasari describes Leonardo as lamenting on his deathbed, full of repentance, that "he had offended against God and men by failing to practice his art as he should have done." Vasari states that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament. Vasari also records that the King held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died, although this story may be legend rather than fact. In accordance with his will, sixty beggars carrying tapers followed Leonardo's casket. Melzi was the principal heir and executor, receiving, as well as money, Leonardo's paintings, tools, library and personal effects. Leonardo's other long-time pupil and companion, Salaì, and his servant Baptista de Vilanis, each received half of Leonardo's vineyards. His brothers received land, and his serving woman received a fur-lined cloak. On 12 August 1519, Leonardo's remains were interred in the Collegiate Church of Saint Florentin at the Château d'Amboise.

Salaì, or Il Salaino ("The Little Unclean One", i.e., the devil), entered Leonardo's household in 1490 as an assistant. After only a year, Leonardo made a list of his misdemeanours, calling him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton," after he had made off with money and valuables on at least five occasions and spent a fortune on clothes. Nevertheless, Leonardo treated him with great indulgence, and he remained in Leonardo's household for the next thirty years. Salaì executed a number of paintings under the name of Andrea Salaì, but although Vasari claims that Leonardo "taught him many things about painting," his work is generally considered to be of less artistic merit than others among Leonardo's pupils, such as Marco d'Oggiono and Boltraffio.

At the time of his death in 1524, Salaì owned a painting referred to as Joconda in a posthumous inventory of his belongings; it was assessed at 505 lire, an exceptionally high valuation for a small panel portrait.

Personal life

Saint John the Baptist c.  1507-1516, Louvre. Leonardo is thought to have used Salaì as the model.

Despite the thousands of pages Leonardo left in notebooks and manuscripts, he scarcely made reference to his personal life.

Within Leonardo's lifetime, his extraordinary powers of invention, his "great physical beauty" and "infinite grace," as described by Vasari, as well as all other aspects of his life, attracted the curiosity of others. One such aspect was his love for animals, likely including vegetarianism and according to Vasari, a habit of purchasing caged birds and releasing them.

Leonardo had many friends who are now notable either in their fields or for their historical significance, including mathematician Luca Pacioli, with whom he collaborated on the book Divina proportione in the 1490s. Leonardo appears to have had no close relationships with women except for his friendship with Cecilia Gallerani and the two Este sisters, Beatrice and Isabella. While on a journey that took him through Mantua, he drew a portrait of Isabella that appears to have been used to create a painted portrait, now lost.

Beyond friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. His sexuality has been the subject of satire, analysis, and speculation. This trend began in the mid-16th century and was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, most notably by Sigmund Freud in his Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood. Leonardo's most intimate relationships were perhaps with his pupils Salaì and Melzi. Melzi, writing to inform Leonardo's brothers of his death, described Leonardo's feelings for his pupils as both loving and passionate. It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of a sexual or erotic nature. Walter Isaacson in his biography of Leonardo makes explicit his opinion that the relations with Salaì were intimate and homosexual.

Earlier in Leonardo's life, court records of 1476, when he was aged twenty-four, show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy in an incident involving a known male prostitute. The charges were dismissed for lack of evidence, and there is speculation that since one of the accused, Lionardo de Tornabuoni, was related to Lorenzo de' Medici, the family exerted its influence to secure the dismissal. Since that date much has been written about his presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the androgyny and eroticism manifested in Saint John the Baptist and and more explicitly in a number of erotic drawings.

Despite the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, for the better part of four hundred years his fame rested on his achievements as a painter. A handful of works that are either authenticated or attributed to him have been regarded as among the great masterpieces. These paintings are famous for a variety of qualities that have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. By the 1490s Leonardo had already been described as a "Divine" painter.

Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique are his innovative techniques for laying on the paint; his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology; his interest in physiognomy and the way humans register emotion in expression and gesture; his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition; and his use of subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together in his most famous painted works, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and the Virgin of the Rocks.

Early works

Annunciation c. 1472-1476, Uffizi, is thought to be Leonardo's earliest extant and complete major work.

Leonardo first gained attention for his work on the Baptism of Christ, painted in conjunction with Verrocchio. Two other paintings appear to date from his time at Verrocchio's workshop, both of which are Annunciations. One is small, 59 centimetres (23 in) long and 14 cm (5.5 in) high. It is a " predella" to go at the base of a larger composition, a painting by Lorenzo di Credi from which it has become separated. The other is a much larger work, 217 cm (85 in) long. In both Annunciations, Leonardo used a formal arrangement, like two well-known pictures by Fra Angelico of the same subject, of the Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling to the right of the picture, approached from the left by an angel in profile, with a rich flowing garment, raised wings and bearing a lily. Although previously attributed to Ghirlandaio, the larger work is now generally attributed to Leonardo.

In the smaller painting, Mary averts her eyes and folds her hands in a gesture that symbolised submission to God's will. Mary is not submissive, however, in the larger piece. The girl, interrupted in her reading by this unexpected messenger, puts a finger in her bible to mark the place and raises her hand in a formal gesture of greeting or surprise. This calm young woman appears to accept her role as the Mother of God, not with resignation but with confidence. In this painting, the young Leonardo presents the humanist face of the Virgin Mary, recognising humanity's role in God's incarnation.

Paintings of the 1480s

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness (unfinished) c. 1480-1490, Vatican

In the 1480s, Leonardo received two very important commissions and commenced another work that was of ground-breaking importance in terms of composition. Two of the three were never finished, and the third took so long that it was subject to lengthy negotiations over completion and payment.

One of these paintings was Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, which Bortolon associates with a difficult period of Leonardo's life, as evidenced in his diary: "I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die." Although the painting is barely begun, the composition can be seen and is very unusual. Jerome, as a penitent, occupies the middle of the picture, set on a slight diagonal and viewed somewhat from above. His kneeling form takes on a trapezoid shape, with one arm stretched to the outer edge of the painting and his gaze looking in the opposite direction. J. Wasserman points out the link between this painting and Leonardo's anatomical studies. Across the foreground sprawls his symbol, a great lion whose body and tail make a double spiral across the base of the picture space. The other remarkable feature is the sketchy landscape of craggy rocks against which the figure is silhouetted.

The daring display of figure composition, the landscape elements and personal drama also appear in the great unfinished masterpiece, the Adoration of the Magi, a commission from the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto. It is a complex composition, of about 250 x 250 centimetres. Leonardo did numerous drawings and preparatory studies, including a detailed one in linear perspective of the ruined classical architecture that forms part of the background. In 1482 Leonardo went to Milan at the behest of Lorenzo de' Medici in order to win favour with Ludovico il Moro, and the painting was abandoned.

Lady with an Ermine, c. 1489-1491, Czartoryski Museum, Kraków, Poland

The third important work of this period is the Virgin of the Rocks, commissioned in Milan for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. The painting, to be done with the assistance of the de Predis brothers, was to fill a large complex altarpiece. Leonardo chose to paint an apocryphal moment of the infancy of Christ when the infant John the Baptist, in protection of an angel, met the Holy Family on the road to Egypt. The painting demonstrates an eerie beauty as the graceful figures kneel in adoration around the infant Christ in a wild landscape of tumbling rock and whirling water. While the painting is quite large, about 200×120 centimetres, it is not nearly as complex as the painting ordered by the monks of San Donato, having only four figures rather than about fifty and a rocky landscape rather than architectural details. The painting was eventually finished; in fact, two versions of the painting were finished: one remained at the chapel of the Confraternity, while Leonardo took the other to France. The Brothers did not get their painting, however, nor the de Predis their payment, until the next century.

Leonardo's most remarkable portrait of this period is the Lady with an Ermine, presumed to be Cecilia Gallerani ( c. 1483-1490), lover of Ludovico Sforza. The painting is characterised by the pose of the figure with the head turned at a very different angle to the torso, unusual at a date when many portraits were still rigidly in profile. The ermine plainly carries symbolic meaning, relating either to the sitter, or to Ludovico who belonged to the prestigious Order of the Ermine.

Paintings of the 1490s

The Last Supper, Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan (c. 1492-1498)

Leonardo's most famous painting of the 1490s is The Last Supper, commissioned for the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. It represents the last meal shared by Jesus with his disciples before his capture and death, and shows the moment when Jesus has just said "one of you will betray me", and the consternation that this statement caused.

The writer Matteo Bandello observed Leonardo at work and wrote that some days he would paint from dawn till dusk without stopping to eat and then not paint for three or four days at a time. This was beyond the comprehension of the prior of the convent, who hounded him until Leonardo asked Ludovico to intervene. Vasari describes how Leonardo, troubled over his ability to adequately depict the faces of Christ and the traitor Judas, told the duke that he might be obliged to use the prior as his model.

The painting was acclaimed as a masterpiece of design and characterisation, but it deteriorated rapidly, so that within a hundred years it was described by one viewer as "completely ruined." Leonardo, instead of using the reliable technique of fresco, had used tempera over a ground that was mainly gesso, resulting in a surface subject to mould and to flaking. Despite this, the painting remains one of the most reproduced works of art; countless copies have been made in various mediums.

Toward the end of this period, in 1498 Leonardo's trompe-l'œil decoration of the Sala delle Asse was painted for the Duke of Milan in the Castello Sforzesco.

Paintings of the 1500s

In 1505, Leonardo was commissioned to paint The Battle of Anghiari in the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred) in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Leonardo devised a dynamic composition depicting four men riding raging war horses engaged in a battle for possession of a standard, at the Battle of Anghiari in 1440. Michelangelo was assigned the opposite wall to depict the Battle of Cascina. Leonardo's painting deteriorated rapidly and is now known from a copy by Rubens.

Mona Lisa or La Gioconda c. 1503-1516, Louvre, Paris

Among the works created by Leonardo in the 16th century is the small portrait known as the or La Gioconda, the laughing one. In the present era, it is arguably the most famous painting in the world. Its fame rests, in particular, on the elusive smile on the woman's face, its mysterious quality perhaps due to the subtly shadowed corners of the mouth and eyes such that the exact nature of the smile cannot be determined. The shadowy quality for which the work is renowned came to be called " sfumato", or Leonardo's smoke. Vasari wrote that the smile was "so pleasing that it seems more divine than human, and it was considered a wondrous thing that it was as lively as the smile of the living original."

Other characteristics of the painting are the unadorned dress, in which the eyes and hands have no competition from other details; the dramatic landscape background, in which the world seems to be in a state of flux; the subdued colouring; and the extremely smooth nature of the painterly technique, employing oils laid on much like tempera, and blended on the surface so that the brushstrokes are indistinguishable. Vasari expressed that the painting's quality would make even "the most confident master ... despair and lose heart." The perfect state of preservation and the fact that there is no sign of repair or overpainting is rare in a panel painting of this date.

In the painting Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, the composition again picks up the theme of figures in a landscape, which Wasserman describes as "breathtakingly beautiful" and harkens back to the Saint Jerome with the figure set at an oblique angle. What makes this painting unusual is that there are two obliquely set figures superimposed. Mary is seated on the knee of her mother, Saint Anne. She leans forward to restrain the Christ Child as he plays roughly with a lamb, the sign of his own impending sacrifice. This painting, which was copied many times, influenced Michelangelo, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto, and through them Pontormo and Correggio. The trends in composition were adopted in particular by the Venetian painters Tintoretto and Veronese.

Antique Warrior in Profile, c.  1472. British Museum, London

Presumed self-portrait of Leonardo (c. 1510) at the Royal Library of Turin, Italy

Leonardo was a prolific draughtsman, keeping journals full of small sketches and detailed drawings recording all manner of things that took his attention. As well as the journals there exist many studies for paintings, some of which can be identified as preparatory to particular works such as The Adoration of the Magi, The Virgin of the Rocks and The Last Supper. His earliest dated drawing is a Landscape of the Arno Valley, 1473, which shows the river, the mountains, Montelupo Castle and the farmlands beyond it in great detail.

Among his famous drawings are the Vitruvian Man, a study of the proportions of the human body; the Head of an Angel, for The Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre; a botanical study of Star of Bethlehem; and a large drawing (160×100 cm) in black chalk on coloured paper of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist in the National Gallery, London. This drawing employs the subtle technique of shading, in the manner of the Mona Lisa. It is thought that Leonardo never made a painting from it, the closest similarity being to The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne in the Louvre.

Other drawings of interest include numerous studies generally referred to as "caricatures" because, although exaggerated, they appear to be based upon observation of live models. Vasari relates that Leonardo would look for interesting faces in public to use as models for some of his work. There are numerous studies of beautiful young men, often associated with Salaì, with the rare and much admired facial feature, the so-called "Grecian profile". These faces are often contrasted with that of a warrior. Salaì is often depicted in fancy-dress costume. Leonardo is known to have designed sets for pageants with which these may be associated. Other, often meticulous, drawings show studies of drapery. A marked development in Leonardo's ability to draw drapery occurred in his early works. Another often-reproduced drawing is a macabre sketch that was done by Leonardo in Florence in 1479 showing the body of Bernardo Baroncelli, hanged in connection with the murder of Giuliano, brother of Lorenzo de' Medici, in the Pazzi conspiracy. In his notes, Leonardo recorded the colours of the robes that Baroncelli was wearing when he died.

Like the two contemporary architects Donato Bramante (who designed the Belvedere Courtyard) and Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, Leonardo experimented with designs for centrally planned churches, a number of which appear in his journals, as both plans and views, although none was ever realised.

Journals and notes

Renaissance humanism recognised no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences and the arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and engineering are sometimes considered as impressive and innovative as his artistic work. These studies were recorded in 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and natural philosophy (the forerunner of modern science). They were made and maintained daily throughout Leonardo's life and travels, as he made continual observations of the world around him. Leonardo's notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations, whirlpools, war machines, flying machines and architecture.

A page showing Leonardo's study of a foetus in the womb (c.  1510), Royal Library, Windsor Castle

These notebooks - originally loose papers of different types and sizes - were largely entrusted to Leonardo's pupil and heir Francesco Melzi after the master's death. These were to be published, a task of overwhelming difficulty because of its scope and Leonardo's idiosyncratic writing. Some of Leonardo's drawings were copied by an anonymous Milanese artist for a planned treatise on art c. 1570. After Melzi's death in 1570, the collection passed to his son, the lawyer Orazio, who initially took little interest in the journals. In 1587, a Melzi household tutor named Lelio Gavardi took 13 of the manuscripts to Pisa; there, the architect Giovanni Magenta reproached Gavardi for having taken the manuscripts illicitly and returned them to Orazio. Having many more such works in his possession, Orazio gifted the volumes to Magenta. News spread of these lost works of Leonardo's, and Orazio retrieved seven of the 13 manuscripts, which he then gave to Pompeo Leoni for publication in two volumes; one of these was the Codex Atlanticus. The other six works had been distributed to a few others. After Orazio's death, his heirs sold the rest of Leonardo's possessions, and thus began their dispersal.

Some works have found their way into major collections such as the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de España , the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, which holds the 12-volume Codex Atlanticus, and the British Library in London, which has put a selection from the Codex Arundel (BL Arundel MS 263) online. Works have also been at Holkham Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in the private hands of John Nicholas Brown I and Robert Lehman. The Codex Leicester is the only privately owned major scientific work of Leonardo; it is owned by Bill Gates and displayed once a year in different cities around the world.

Most of Leonardo's writings are in mirror-image cursive. Since Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it was probably easier for him to write from right to left. Leonardo used a variety of shorthand and symbols, and states in his notes that he intended to prepare them for publication. In many cases a single topic is covered in detail in both words and pictures on a single sheet, together conveying information that would not be lost if the pages were published out of order. Why they were not published during Leonardo's lifetime is unknown.

Science and inventions

Rhombicuboctahedron as published in Pacioli's Divina proportione (1509)

In the 1490s he studied mathematics under Luca Pacioli and prepared a series of drawings of regular solids in a skeletal form to be engraved as plates for Pacioli's book Divina proportione, published in 1509. While living in Milan, he studied light from the summit of Monte Rosa. Scientific writings in his notebook on fossils have been considered as influential on early palaeontology.

The content of his journals suggest that he was planning a series of treatises on a variety of subjects. A coherent treatise on anatomy is said to have been observed during a visit by Cardinal Louis d'Aragon's secretary in 1517. Aspects of his work on the studies of anatomy, light and the landscape were assembled for publication by Melzi and eventually published as A Treatise on Painting in France and Italy in 1651 and Germany in 1724, with engravings based upon drawings by the Classical painter Nicolas Poussin. According to Arasse, the treatise, which in France went into 62 editions in fifty years, caused Leonardo to be seen as "the precursor of French academic thought on art."

While Leonardo's experimentation followed scientific methods, a recent and exhaustive analysis of Leonardo as a scientist by Fritjof Capra argues that Leonardo was a fundamentally different kind of scientist from Galileo, Newton and other scientists who followed him in that, as a " Renaissance Man", his theorising and hypothesising integrated the arts and particularly painting.

Anatomy and physiology

Leonardo started his study in the anatomy of the human body under the apprenticeship of Verrocchio, who demanded that his students develop a deep knowledge of the subject. As an artist, he quickly became master of topographic anatomy, drawing many studies of muscles, tendons and other visible anatomical features.[citation needed ]

As a successful artist, Leonardo was given permission to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later at hospitals in Milan and Rome. From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated in his studies with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre, professor of Anatomy at the University of Pavia. Leonardo made over 240 detailed drawings and wrote about 13,000 words toward a treatise on anatomy. Only a small amount of the material on anatomy was published in Leonardo's Treatise on painting. During the time that Melzi was ordering the material into chapters for publication, they were examined by a number of anatomists and artists, including Vasari, Cellini and Albrecht Dürer, who made a number of drawings from them.

Leonardo's anatomical drawings include many studies of the human skeleton and its parts, and of muscles and sinews. He studied the mechanical functions of the skeleton and the muscular forces that are applied to it in a manner that prefigured the modern science of biomechanics. He drew the heart and vascular system, the sex organs and other internal organs, making one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus in utero. The drawings and notation are far ahead of their time, and if published would undoubtedly have made a major contribution to medical science.

Leonardo also closely observed and recorded the effects of age and of human emotion on the physiology, studying in particular the effects of rage. He drew many figures who had significant facial deformities or signs of illness. Leonardo also studied and drew the anatomy of many animals, dissecting cows, birds, monkeys, bears, and frogs, and comparing in his drawings their anatomical structure with that of humans. He also made a number of studies of horses.

Leonardo's dissections and documentation of muscles, nerves, and vessels helped to describe the physiology and mechanics of movement. He attempted to identify the source of 'emotions' and their expression. He found it difficult to incorporate the prevailing system and theories of bodily humours, but eventually he abandoned these physiological explanations of bodily functions. He made the observations that humours were not located in cerebral spaces or ventricles. He documented that the humours were not contained in the heart or the liver, and that it was the heart that defined the circulatory system. He was the first to define atherosclerosis and liver cirrhosis. He created models of the cerebral ventricles with the use of melted wax and constructed a glass aorta to observe the circulation of blood through the aortic valve by using water and grass seed to watch flow patterns.

Engineering and inventions

During his lifetime, Leonardo was also valued as an engineer. With the same rational and analytical approach that moved him to represent the human body and to investigate anatomy, Leonardo studied and designed many machines and devices. He drew their "anatomy" with unparalleled mastery, producing the first form of the modern technical drawing, including a perfected "exploded view" technique, to represent internal components. Those studies and projects collected in his codices fill more than 5,000 pages. In a letter of 1482 to the lord of Milan Ludovico il Moro, he wrote that he could create all sorts of machines both for the protection of a city and for siege. When he fled from Milan to Venice in 1499, he found employment as an engineer and devised a system of moveable barricades to protect the city from attack. In 1502, he created a scheme for diverting the flow of the Arno river, a project on which Niccolò Machiavelli also worked. He continued to contemplate the canalisation of Lombardy's plains while in Louis XII's company and of the Loire and its tributaries in the company of Francis I. Leonardo's journals include a vast number of inventions, both practical and impractical. They include musical instruments, a mechanical knight, hydraulic pumps, reversible crank mechanisms, finned mortar shells, and a steam cannon.

Leonardo's drawings of a scythed chariot and a fighting vehicle

Leonardo was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight for much of his life, producing many studies, including Codex on the Flight of Birds ( c. 1505), as well as plans for several flying machines, such as a flapping ornithopter and a machine with a helical rotor. In a 2003 documentary by British television station Channel Four, titled Leonardo's Dream Machines, various designs by Leonardo, such as a parachute and a giant crossbow, were interpreted and constructed. Some of those designs proved successful, whilst others fared less well when tested. Similarly, a team of engineers built ten machines designed by Leonardo in the 2009 American television series Doing DaVinci, including a fighting vehicle and a self-propelled cart.

In his notebooks, Leonardo first stated the 'laws' of sliding friction in 1493. His inspiration for investigating friction came about in part from his study of perpetual motion, which he correctly concluded was not possible. His results were never published and the friction laws were not rediscovered until 1699 by Guillaume Amontons, with whose name they are now usually associated. For this contribution, Leonardo was named as the first of the 23 "Men of Tribology" by Duncan Dowson.

Statue outside the Uffizi, Florence, by Luigi Pampaloni (1791-1847)

Although he had no formal academic training, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the " Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man", an individual of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination." He is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote." Scholars interpret his view of the world as being based in logic, though the empirical methods he used were unorthodox for his time.

Leonardo's fame within his own lifetime was such that the King of France carried him away like a trophy, and was claimed to have supported him in his old age and held him in his arms as he died. Interest in Leonardo and his work has never diminished. Crowds still queue to see his best-known artworks, T-shirts still bear his most famous drawing, and writers continue to hail him as a genius while speculating about his private life, as well as about what one so intelligent actually believed in.

The continued admiration that Leonardo commanded from painters, critics and historians is reflected in many other written tributes. Baldassare Castiglione, author of Il Cortegiano ( The Courtier), wrote in 1528: "...Another of the greatest painters in this world looks down on this art in which he is unequalled..." while the biographer known as "Anonimo Gaddiano" wrote, c.  1540: "His genius was so rare and universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf..." Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists (1568), opens his chapter on Leonardo:

In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actions seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill. Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty, who displayed infinite grace in everything that he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied he solved with ease.

The Death of Leonardo da Vinci, by Ingres, 1818

The 19th century brought a particular admiration for Leonardo's genius, causing Henry Fuseli to write in 1801: "Such was the dawn of modern art, when Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour that distanced former excellence: made up of all the elements that constitute the essence of genius..." This is echoed by A. E. Rio who wrote in 1861: "He towered above all other artists through the strength and the nobility of his talents."

Art historian Bernard Berenson wrote in 1896:

Leonardo is the one artist of whom it may be said with perfect literalness: Nothing that he touched but turned into a thing of eternal beauty. Whether it be the cross section of a skull, the structure of a weed, or a study of muscles, he, with his feeling for line and for light and shade, forever transmuted it into life-communicating values.

The interest in Leonardo's genius has continued unabated; experts study and translate his writings, analyse his paintings using scientific techniques, argue over attributions and search for works which have been recorded but never found. Liana Bortolon, writing in 1967, said:

Because of the multiplicity of interests that spurred him to pursue every field of knowledge...Leonardo can be considered, quite rightly, to have been the universal genius par excellence, and with all the disquieting overtones inherent in that term. Man is as uncomfortable today, faced with a genius, as he was in the 16th century. Five centuries have passed, yet we still view Leonardo with awe.

The Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana is a special collection at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Leonardo Museum in Vinci, which houses a large collection of models constructed on the basis of Leonardo's drawings

Twenty-first-century author Walter Isaacson based much of his biography of Leonardo on thousands of notebook entries, studying the personal notes, sketches, budget notations, and musings of the man whom he considers the greatest of innovators. Isaacson was surprised to discover a "fun, joyous" side of Leonardo in addition to his limitless curiosity and creative genius.

On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death, the Louvre in Paris arranged for the largest ever single exhibit of his work, called Leonardo, between November 2019 and February 2020. The exhibit includes over 100 paintings, drawings and notebooks. Eleven of the paintings that Leonardo completed in his lifetime were included. Five of these are owned by the Louvre, but the Mona Lisa was not included because it is in such great demand among general visitors to the Louvre; it remains on display in its gallery. Vitruvian Man, however, is on display following a legal battle with its owner, the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. Salvator Mundi was also not included because its Saudi owner did not agree to lease the work.

The Mona Lisa, considered Leonardo's magnum opus, is often regarded as the most famous portrait ever made. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time, and Leonardo's Vitruvian Man drawing is also considered a cultural icon.

More than a decade of analysis of Leonardo's genetic genealogy, conducted by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato, came to a conclusion in mid-2021. It was determined that the artist has 14 living male relatives. The work could also help determine the authenticity of remains thought to belong to Leonardo.

Location of remains

Tomb in the chapel of Saint Hubert at the Château d'Amboise where a plaque describes it as the presumed site of Leonardo's remains

While Leonardo was certainly buried in the collegiate church of Saint Florentin at the Château d'Amboise in 12 August 1519, the current location of his remains is unclear. Much of Château d'Amboise was damaged during the French Revolution, leading to the church's demolition in 1802. Some of the graves were destroyed in the process, scattering the bones interred there and thereby leaving the whereabouts of Leonardo's remains subject to dispute; a gardener may have even buried some in the corner of the courtyard.

In 1863, fine-arts inspector general Arsène Houssaye received an imperial commission to excavate the site and discovered a partially complete skeleton with a bronze ring on one finger, white hair, and stone fragments bearing the inscriptions "EO", "AR", "DUS", and "VINC" - interpreted as forming "Leonardus Vinci". The skull's eight teeth correspond to someone of approximately the appropriate age, and a silver shield found near the bones depicts a beardless Francis I, corresponding to the king's appearance during Leonardo's time in France.

Houssaye postulated that the unusually large skull was an indicator of Leonardo's intelligence; author Charles Nicholl describes this as a "dubious phrenological deduction". At the same time, Houssaye noted some issues with his observations, including that the feet were turned toward the high altar, a practice generally reserved for laymen, and that the skeleton of 1.73 metres (5.7 ft) seemed too short.[failed verification - see discussion] Art historian Mary Margaret Heaton wrote in 1874 that the height would be appropriate for Leonardo. The skull was allegedly presented to Napoleon III before being returned to the Château d'Amboise, where they were re-interred in the chapel of Saint Hubert in 1874. A plaque above the tomb states that its contents are only presumed to be those of Leonardo.

It has since been theorised that the folding of the skeleton's right arm over the head may correspond to the paralysis of Leonardo's right hand. In 2016, it was announced that DNA tests would be conducted to determine whether the attribution is correct. The DNA of the remains will be compared to that of samples collected from Leonardo's work and his half-brother Domenico's descendants; it may also be sequenced.

In 2019, documents were published revealing that Houssaye had kept the ring and a lock of hair. In 1925, his great-grandson sold these to an American collector. Sixty years later, another American acquired them, leading to their being displayed at the Leonardo Museum in Vinci beginning on 2 May 2019, the 500th anniversary of the artist's death.

General

Dates of works

References

Early

Modern

1. ^ "A portrait of Leonardo c. 1515-18". Royal Collection Trust. Archived from the original on 23 November 2020.

2. Polidoro, Massimo (2019). "The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci, Part 1". Skeptical Inquirer. 43 (2). Center for Inquiry: 30-31.

3. ^ Franz-Joachim Verspohl, Michelangelo Buonarroti und Leonardo Da Vinci: Republikanischer Alltag und Künstlerkonkurrenz in Florenz zwischen 1501 und 1505 (Wallstein Verlag, 2007), p. 151.

4. ^ Moffitt, John F. (1990). "Leonardo's "Sala delle Asse" and the Primordial Origins of Architecture". Arte Lombarda (92/93 (1-2)). Vita e Pensiero - Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore: 76-90. JSTOR 43132702. Archived from the original on 16 August 2023.

5. ^ "Mona Lisa - Heidelberg discovery confirms identity". University of Heidelberg. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013.

6. ^ Delieuvin, Vincent (15 January 2008). "Télématin". Journal Télévisé. France 2 Télévision.

7. ^ Goldscheider, Ludwig (1967). Michelangelo: paintings, sculptures, architecture. Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-0-7148-1314-1.

8. ^ "Achademia Leonardi Vinci". Journal of Leonardo Studies & Bibliography of Vinciana. VIII: 243-244. 1990.

9. ^ Laurenza, Domenico (2004). "Leonardo nella Roma di Leone X". Lettura Vinciana (in Italian). XLIII. Giunti.

10. ^ Sammer, Jan (2009). "L'Invitation du roi". In Pedretti, Carlo (ed.). Léonard de Vinci et la France (in French). CB Edizioni. pp. 29-33.

11. McMahon, Barbara (1 May 2005). "Da Vinci 'paralysis left Mona Lisa unfinished'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 February 2020.

12. Bodkin, Henry (4 May 2019). "Leonardo da Vinci never finished the Mona Lisa because he injured his arm while fainting, experts say". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.

13. Charlier, Philippe; Deo, Saudamini. "A physical sign of stroke sequel on the skeleton of Leonardo da Vinci?" Archived 15 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Neurology. 4 April 2017; 88(14): 1381-1382

14. ^ Antonina Vallentin, Leonardo da Vinci: The Tragic Pursuit of Perfection, (New York: The Viking Press, 1938), 533

15. Pedretti, Carlo, ed. (2009). Leonardo da Vinci: l'Angelo incarnato & Salai = the Angel in the flesh & Salai. Foligno (Perugia): Cartei & Bianchi. p. 201. ISBN 978-88-95686-11-0. OCLC 500794484.

16. MacCurdy, Edward, ^ The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci (1928) in Leonardo da Vinci's Ethical Vegetarianism Archived 27 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine

17. ^ Cartwright Ady, Julia. Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497. Publisher: J.M. Dent, 1899; Cartwright Ady, Julia. Isabella D'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, 1474-1539. Publisher; J.M. Dent, 1903.

18. ^ Seracini, Maurizio (2012). "The Secret Lives of Paintings" (lecture). Archived from the original on 18 October 2019.

19. ^ Bean, Jacob; Stampfle, Felice (1965). Drawings from New York Collections I: The Italian Renaissance. Greenwich, CT: Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 81-82.

20. ^ Major, Richard Henry (1866). Archaeologia: Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume 40, Part 1. London: The Society. pp. 15-16. Archived from the original on 23 March 2024.

21. Da Vinci, Leonardo (1960). Taylor, Pamela; Taylor, Francis Henry (eds.). The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. New York: New American Library. p. x. ISBN 978-0-486-22572-2.

22. ^ Livio, Mario (2003) [2002]. The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number (First trade paperback ed.). New York City: Broadway Books. p. 136. ISBN 0-7679-0816-3. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023.

23. ^ Windsor Castle, Royal Library, sheets RL 19073v-74v and RL 19102.

24. Baucon, A. 2010. Da Vinci's ^ Paleodictyon: the fractal beauty of traces. Acta Geologica Polonica, 60(1). Accessible from the author's homepage Archived 11 May 2019 at the Wayback Machine

25. Alastair Sooke, Daily Telegraph, 28 July 2013, "Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomy of an artist" Archived 2 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 29 July 2013.

26. ^ Masters, Roger (1998). Fortune is a River: Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli's Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-452-28090-8.

27. ^ British Library online gallery Archived 21 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine (retrieved 10 October 2013)

28. ^ Hutchings, Ian M. (15 August 2016). "Leonardo da Vinci׳s studies of friction". Wear. 360-361: 51-66. doi:10.1016/j.wear.2016.04.019. ISSN 0043-1648. Archived from the original on 12 February 2017.

29. ^ Dowson, Duncan (1 October 1977). "Men of Tribology: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)". Journal of Lubrication Technology. 99 (4): 382-386. doi:10.1115/1.3453230. ISSN 0022-2305. Archived from the original on 23 February 2023.

30. ^ See the quotations from the following authors, in section "Fame and reputation": Vasari, Boltraffio, Castiglione, "Anonimo" Gaddiano, Berensen, Taine, Fuseli, Rio, Bortolon.

31. Marmor, Max. "The Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana." ^ The Book Collector 38, no. 3 (Autumn 1989): 1-23.

32. ^ Crow, Kelly (16 November 2017). "Leonardo da Vinci Painting 'Salvator Mundi' Sells for $450.3 Million". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 29 June 2020.

33. Leonardo da Vinci painting 'Salvator Mundi' sold for record $450.3 million, Fox News, 16 November 2017

34. Vitruvian Man is referred to as "iconic" at the following websites and many others: ^ Vitruvian Man Archived 2 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine, Fine Art Classics Archived 9 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Key Images in the History of Science; Curiosity and difference at the Wayback Machine (archived 30 January 2009); "The Guardian: The Real da Vinci Code" Archived 3 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine

35. Montard, Nicolas (30 April 2019). "Léonard de Vinci est-il vraiment enterré au château d'Amboise?" [Is Leonardo da Vinci really buried at the Château d'Amboise?]. Ouest-France (in French). Archived from the original on 30 April 2019.

Works cited

Books

Arasse, Daniel [in French] (1998). Leonardo da Vinci. Old Saybrook: Konecky & Konecky. ISBN 978-1-56852-198-5.

Bambach, Carmen C., ed. (2003). Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-300-09878-5. Archived from the original on 23 March 2024.

Bortolon, Liana (1967). The Life and Times of Leonardo. London: Paul Hamlyn.

Brown, David Alan (1998). Leonardo Da Vinci: Origins of a Genius. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07246-4. Archived from the original on 23 March 2024.

Clark, Kenneth (1961). Leonardo da Vinci. City of Westminster: Penguin Books. OCLC 187223.

Gasca, Ana Millàn; Nicolò, Fernando; Lucertini, Mario (2004). Technological Concepts and Mathematical Models in the Evolution of Modern Engineering Systems. Birkhauser. ISBN 978-3-7643-6940-8.

Heaton, Mary Margaret (1874). Leonardo Da Vinci and His Works: Consisting of a Life of Leonardo Da Vinci. New York: Macmillan Publishers. OCLC 1706262. Archived from the original on 23 March 2024.

Isaacson, Walter (2017). Leonardo da Vinci. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-5011-3915-4. Archived from the original on 23 March 2024.

Kemp, Martin (2006) [1981]. Leonardo Da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-920778-7. Archived from the original on 23 March 2024.

Martindale, Andrew (1972). . Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-56006-8.

Nicholl, Charles (2005). Leonardo da Vinci: The Flights of the Mind. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-029681-5.

O'Malley, Charles D.; Saunders, J.B. de C.M. (1952). Leonardo on the Human Body: The Anatomical, Physiological, and Embryological Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. With Translations, Emendations and a Biographical Introduction. New York: Henry Schuman.

Ottino della Chiesa, Angela (1967). The Complete Paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. Classics of the World's Great Art. Translated by Jay, Madeline. New York: Harry N. Abrams.

Pedretti, Carlo (1982). Leonardo, a study in chronology and style. Cambridge: Johnson Reprint Corp. ISBN 978-0-384-45281-7.

Popham, A.E. (1946). The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-60462-8.

Richter, Jean Paul (1970). The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-22572-2. volume 2: ISBN 0-486-22573-9. A reprint of the original 1883 edition Archived 28 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine

Turner, A. Richard (1993). Inventing Leonardo. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-520-08938-9. Archived from the original on 23 March 2024.

Vezzosi, Alessandro (1997). Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Man. 'New Horizons' series. Translated by Bonfante-Warren, Alexandra (English translation ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-30081-7.

Wallace, Robert (1972) [1966]. The World of Leonardo: 1452-1519. New York: Time-Life Books.

Williamson, Hugh Ross (1974). Lorenzo the Magnificent. Michael Joseph. ISBN 978-0-7181-1204-2.

Journals and encyclopedia articles

Further reading

See Kemp (2003) and Bambach (2019, pp. 442-579) for extensive bibliographies

General

Works

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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect.

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How great leaders inspire action

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Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question: “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers…

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Can the Arts Inspire Better Leadership?

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Željko Katušin, PMBA 2004

As I read through the articles on art and leadership, and in my reflections afterwards, I began relating the material to my past experiences and my personal opinions. The articles really made me think.

The arts are among the most popular and powerful phenomena of humankind. Art has existed since the beginning of civilization and has been a defining part of humankind ever since. The drivers of the arts are individual and group needs to express feelings and thoughts, document them in abstract or realistic forms, capture the sense of related phenomena, communicate with others and affect the senses. The arts are, at the most basic level, ways of experiencing, interpreting and representing our experiences of life.

On the other side, leadership is an integral part of organizational life and management. It too appeared at a very early stage of humanity. It is an outgrowth of the need to organize. Organizing has improved an individual's (and a group's) chances for survival and enables further growth on the evolutionary ladder. Leadership became an important aspect of this organizing behavior which provides one of the successful ways to compete and grow.
Arts and leadership, both having historic origins have been interacting with each other in the past, as well as today. Both disciplines depend on creativity for survival and progression.
The arts have often led as part of the avant-garde of human thinking and can therefore provide innovative and even inspirational ideas for the leadership of organizations.

On the surface, the fundamental concepts of the arts and business leadership seem different. The arts are seen as free, intuitive thought, whereas traditionally business has been seen as more disciplined, rational and organized.

Due to its variety, complexity and abstractness we can surely use the arts as an example, inspiration and model for eventual solutions for contemporary leadership issues. Studying arts issues can provide us with ideas to build new techniques, approaches and methods we can use in our managerial work. It can increase abilities and creative skills to find solutions to real life problems {Austin and Devin, 2003; Darso, 2004; Ibbotson, 2008; Reckenrich, Kupp& Anderson, 2010).

In short, examining the arts increases our ability in creative analyses of real life situations, for making sense of the complexity, taking decisions and providing us with action (Barry&Meisiek, 2010; Springborg, 2010). Through art one individual can, by using one's senses along with one's mind, come to common understandings of the environment in which one acts and therefore come to better decisions and actions.

The arts relate to the sensory-emotional aspects of human experience. Anyone can engage his/her senses, intuition and interpretation to interact with art. There is great potential in these human resources, a potential to engage people to use their senses, intuition and interpretive abilities to think differently. How do we mobilise this?

Thinking differently is a very important issue. For example, Albert Einstein held that we cannot solve today's problems with the same way of thinking used to create the problems. This highlights a central question for all responsible leaders: Do you dare to think differently and take the "other" way?

Reality beyond the obvious is many times "hidden" to the eyes of normal spectators. Daring to see, admit and deal with the whole subject opens the way to new solutions. For example, remember the old story about the Emperor's New Clothes. Here the writer, a creative artist, reminds us of the daring to think differently and presents the idea that it took a "naive" child to see that the Emperor was really naked.

The arts provide alternative ways to see and make sense of our world (Barry &Meisiek, 2010; Taylor & Ladkin, 2009). There are intuitive and qualitative skills, coming from different kinds of arts, available for leaders and their teams. Approaches from theater (Biehi-Missal, 2010; Stevenson, 1996; Wood, 2002), orchestras and bands (Atik, 1994; Koivunen&Wennes, 2011; Drucker, 1992) provide new ideas for team-building skills such as creative teamwork, discipline, focus on common goals, and acquisition of inspiration for repetitive actions - issues all very important for business success.

Just imagine the performance and perception skills of the orchestra musician, simultaneously playing his/her instrument and carefully observing and listening to the others as well as following the conductor's lead - wouldn't that kind of situation perfectly fit an ideal business environment? Why not try to learn and fit it into your team?

There are several practical examples of how to introduce arts methods into leadership practice. Taylor and Ladkin (2009) have suggested four methods in particular. The first is to transfer performing skills from the arts into organizations. The second is to use art's 'projective techniques' in order to express and reflect inner thoughts and feelings. Thirdly, they suggest the use of art's presentation and representation capacities for illustrations of the key ideas and essence of concepts. Finally they suggest getting engaged in the arts yourself by 'making', in order to express your inner self and enhance your creativity, something that can be a cathartic experience.

Business study related to arts increases development of the imagination, spatial thinking and abstract reasoning, which are all essential skills for today's students and future business professionals.

The question is whether the arts can, in reality, definitively help and inspire leadership for a better performance. The answer is vague as it all depends on an individual's beliefs, hopes, commitment and an organization's ability to introduce new methods and goals into organizational life.

The goals that are set in the organizations must go beyond the limits of tradition and profit margins. Art suggests that not only profit is enough to fulfill the needs of individuals and successfully complete the mission of an organization. There are more values behind the economic gains. The organizations who are ready to commit to the utilization of creative abilities and serve social good and ecological responsibility will evolve into desirable, modern organizations delivering innovations which will in turn increase their competitive advantage.

During my personal experience with art and leadership development I have often noticed how interconnected they are and how they can positively impact each other. In any respect I think it is worthwhile to stay in touch with art. Even if there is no direct interaction with management and leadership, art's ability to relax, inspire and encourage creative energy serves perfectly to diffuse the everyday stressful and exhausting work of managing.
I have benefited from arts experiences in film making, painting and playing music in a band. All these experiences have informed my work. What about my leadership experience?
My leadership perspective has changed over the past few years, due to several internal and external conflicts. I have grown personally and through my work experience, so did my perspectives change. Additional education in management has brought knowledge and skills, some of which I have implemented in my work. The company where I work has grown and evolved. Most importantly, the world has changed and requires innovative perspectives. The times are different and we have to cope with new situations every day.
Economics and the economy are known for their uncertainties and unpredictability. The present times in particular can be described, as Slovene economist Jože Mencinger has recently done, as to Columbus discovering the New World: when starting his journey he did not know where he was heading, when landing he did not know where he was.

Vision and hope were the main drivers that guided Columbus on his path through unknown territories. Following his innovative idea he was rewarded by additional discovery, which nobody predicted or expected. It isn't rare in life that brave and innovative acts are accompanied with additional unexpected gains and discoveries. "Those who dare, win", the motto is used also for extreme situations in order to ensure maximum faith and motivation of participants.

So much for the past experience, what about future benefits from my arts and leadership studies?

There are several trends that can be recognized in the modern world. The structure and relations of the world have changed through increased global interconnectedness and increased domination of market forces (Adler, 2006). Most important is the recognition that due to modern world changes we need to rethink who we are as human beings.

The standard models cannot cope anymore with the complexities of the present. The world of complexity is driven by discontinuous change, within the network of interconnected teams, acting simultaneously. Creative action is required for adequate strategies to deal with these problems. What needs to be done and how can we do it?

It is important for leaders to recognize, describe and implement the present seeds that will flower in the future, by using their imagination, creative and intuitive abilities without waiting for all the evidence to appear on their desks.

Business organizations shall need to embrace flatter systems, more networked, multi organizational structures including global strategic alliances, joint ventures and partnerships following the leaderless chamber orchestra model.

Managerial approaches shall move from planning-then-doing to simultaneous listening-and-observing-while-doing skills, first ensuring that atmosphere in the team is ready for improvisation and team members do trust their colleagues that they are taking care of the team's best interests.
(Adler, 2006)

Advanced computer technologies have changed the ways of creating new products, services and market relationships. The use of computerized models has enabled rapid and cheap iteration allowing creative leaders to dream new ideas worthy of testing, in that way substituting costly and time consuming experimentation for planning (Adler, 2006; Austin & Devin, 2003).

The most important is the trend of economy-focus change from efficiency oriented towards one based on significance and meaning (Adler 2006; Austin & Devin, 2003). The needs and expectations of the people have changed and economic success alone is no longer enough. There is a strong urge for contributions that make genuine and positive differences in all our lives.

The roles of leaders have changed and they need to be supported by their abilities based on courage and creativity. This courage is to envision new possibilities and challenge and inspire others - just like artists do.

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Can the arts really help and inspire better leadership performance?

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Željko Katušin, PMBA 2004 As I read through the articles on art and leadership, and in my reflections afterwards, I began relating the material to my past experiences and my personal opinions. The articles really made me think. The arts are among the most popular and powerful phenomena of humankind.

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Street Art, Innovation and Leadership

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I admit I like graffiti. I see it as a form of innovation, creativity and art.

I'm not talking about gang-related markings. Or hate messages. I'm talking about art - street art.

People either see art. Or they see crime.
Regardless of where you stand on the issue, you can learn principles of innovation from graffiti and street art.
Street artists have to operate under high-speed conditions, as you can imagine.

The artist may choose to distill the image to only the most critical lines. The dude on the back of the billboard is drawn with only 20 lines (not counting the artist's tag), but you get a sense for what kind of guy he is.

I watched an interview with Ralph Gillies, Head of Design for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, where he talked about one of his college design classes. The students were challenged to depict an automobile design with only three lines.
Three lines.
Great exercise!

What is the essence of your design?

How can it be simplified? Streamlined?

The original iPhone is a perfect example of a design made simple and clean.

Even the value proposition was a single line:
Innovation Principle #1 - Keep your ideas simple, clean, concise. Let their beauty and strength shine.
When I'm in innovation mode, I create fearlessly. I throw in whatever I think makes sense. Then I step back. I determine the central idea or story that I'm trying to convey. And then I edit ruthlessly. I strip away all extraneous elements.

I do this in my marketing consulting work.

I do this when I'm writing a chapter in my book.

I do this when I'm preparing a presentation.

The strength of this piece is the integration with the architectural elements - the staircase. I did a double take when I first saw this, and then I realized that this was intentional.

Fine artists tend to think this way.

They design for composition, meaning they use principles of design to create an aesthetic placement. Some of these principles include center of interest, balance, harmony, directional movement.

Frank Lloyd Wright's home design, Fallingwater, is a pristine example of design in harmony with the elements.

The design, the materials, the placement - everything contributes to the success of one of America's most famous houses.

Wright believed that human life was part of nature, so he took an organic approach to his designs.
Innovation Principle #2: Consider all key "ingredients" available and then determine how to let them interact with and enhance each other.
In my marketing consulting work, some of the strongest designs I've seen - whether product innovations, customer experience design, marketing strategy, messaging, or advertising - leverage the neighboring elements.

Part of the reason I employ ethnographic research in my consulting work is that the results are stronger if we understand the environment in which our customers might use the product or service.

We consider the setting. For example, if the point of usage is a restaurant, we head over to a restaurant and watch. And smell. And listen. Yes, listening includes eavesdropping. (Don't judge!)

We gather as much data as we can, and then we can start to visualize the harmony of the key components.

Unlike line drawings, the artist brings depth to this piece through the use of highlights and shadows.

So what is the equivalent of depth in a business setting? Story.

Leaders and innovators use story to motivate.
Stories evoke emotion.
Walt Disney brought stories to the screen and then created a world in which families could create their own stories.
Stories rally people.
Martin Luther King, Jr. painted a picture for his audience in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech that decades later still rallies people.
Stories elevate people.
Jesus Christ used story telling through parables to teach his followers principles and values that millennia later still inspire people.
Innovation Principle #3: Determine the "story" you are trying to convey. Make sure the components progress the story, not detract from the story.
What is the story of your product or design? If you cannot articulate the narrative, then I would argue that the design is not yet complete.

Identify the story to tell.

Then let the story express itself through the design, the composition.

Strip away anything that diminishes the story. If it's not advancing the story, then I seriously question whether it has staying power.

I find that the hard part is determining the story to tell that will move people. Once you do that, then everything else falls into place.

I admit it. I have difficulty deciphering graffiti writing, which is called Tagging if it is the identifier or logo of the artist.

Regardless, I like the colors and the shapes. I find some of them pleasing to the eye. The bubble font, the stylized lettering - all can be visually appealing.

Shapes and style have a big impact on an audience. Done right, these can create powerful emotions in people.

I remember the first time I saw a Corvette.

I didn't know cars could look like that. It was far cry from our family's boxy Toyota Corolla.

That long engine compartment conveys power, doesn't it?

What is the "shape" of your innovation?

Don't be afraid to rework a piece - no matter what it is - to fine tune the shape.
Innovation Principle #4: Sometimes the shape or "silhouette" of the idea is the way to engage the audience. Don't be afraid to reshape it to make it stronger.
When we are creating recommendations for our clients, we sometimes find that we can help them more by paying just as much attention to the visual impact of the recommendations as to the content itself. The difference in their reaction is palpable.

Shape. And then reshape.

Graffiti artists do this. Most work in sketchbooks until they get their designs right, before taking them to a wall.

Whether you are writing, drawing, building a business, creating buildings, innovating products, solving problems, composing music, designing fashion...

Run your ideas through these principles.

When Simplicity, Symbiosis, Story and Shape come together, the results can be powerful.

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I admit I like graffiti. I see it as a form of innovation, creativity and art. I'm not talking about gang-related markings. Or hate messages. I'm talking about art - street art. People either see art. Or they see crime. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, you can learn principles of innovation from graffiti and street art.

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The Art of the Selfie

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The Art of the Selfie | Art History Lesson | Artrageous with Nate

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The Transformative Power of Classical Music

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Benjamin Zander: The transformative power of classical music

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Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it -- and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.

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Why people believe they can’t draw - and how to prove they can Graham Shaw

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Why people believe they can’t draw - and how to prove they can | Graham Shaw | TEDxHull

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4 Ways Martial Arts Develops Children Into Leaders

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The saying often goes that children are our future. That cannot be truer. The young people of today will someday be responsible for the well-being and survival of the human race. The children, those who wake up each morning to go to school, to learn the skills and gain the knowledge required for society, will one day lead us into a bright, new tomorrow.

When children go to school, they take in the knowledge handed down from generation to generation. Language, mathematics, art, even home economics - these subjects are all necessary this day and age. But there are some things that cannot be learned in a classroom.

Leadership - the ability to guide others, peers, colleagues, fellow citizens of society - leadership is a skill that is essential to develop. Luckily, leadership can be learned in many ways, such as in martial arts.

Martial arts has many great benefits, not the least of which is developing students and children in becoming great leaders. Today, Evolve Daily shares 4 Ways Martial Arts Develops Children Into Leaders.
1) Martial arts gives students the power to educate and help others
When children join a martial arts class, they learn many great things. The fundamental techniques, of course, brought about by constant practice throughout the years and diligent study.

After gaining a high proficiency and greater understanding of any martial art there comes with it the sense of mastery and an ability to impart the knowledge gained to fellow students.

In a martial arts class, it is common for students to demonstrate skills and techniques which they have already learned to help teach new students. For example, a more advanced student may be asked to show the rest of the class how to deliver a proper punch or kick, or perhaps how to escape a situation on the mat.

These more advanced students are put in a position of authority, providing them an environment to hone their leadership skills in helping bring their peers along.

The power and ability to educate others is a great leadership skill that can be applied far beyond the reaches of the gym.
2) Martial arts builds confidence and leadership skills
One of the many great benefits of martial arts training is that children develop a solid sense of confidence within themselves. Martial arts and its techniques requires a certain degree of patience and attention to detail. The many moves in various disciplines take years to master. However, once students are able to learn the techniques, there is a sense of accomplishment.

This sense of accomplishment empowers children with self-esteem and confidence. These two traits are necessary to become good leaders.

When students are confident in themselves, they are better suited to help others in leading by example, or by actually helping one another. There are a lot of instances in the gym wherein students are allowed to work together to achieve common goals.

One of the fundamental teachings of martial arts is to always respect and honor our elders and superiors. This provides a natural environment where leaders can be cultivated.
3) Martial arts develops social and interaction skills
Often during training, students are required to interact with one another, whether it is practicing drills or in light sparring. They often say that the martial arts gym is a place where you can meet great new friends, and build strong relationships that will last.

Your gym mates and fellow students serve as your comrades in life, and working with each other on a daily basis develops tremendous social and interaction skills.

Social and interaction skills are very important in today's society. In a digital age when people, and especially a lot of children, are always engrossed in technological gadgetry, sometimes having meaningful social interactions is lost upon us.

Martial arts gives children a new avenue of "playing outdoors". Sports is undeniably a great way to help children develop social skills, and martial arts is the perfect activity to achieve just that.
4) Martial arts teaches perseverance and discipline
Perhaps the most important lesson martial arts teaches us is the value of perseverance and discipline. In business, in life, and in any matter, things will not always go as we had planned. Along our journey, we will encounter trials and tribulations, difficult times that will require great willpower and determination on our end to overcome.

Because martial arts will push the limits of the human mind, body, and spirit, a person can discover a great deal about himself during training. One discovery is, of course, that anything is possible with a healthy amount of perseverance and discipline.

Never giving up is an important life lesson that we can learn during martial arts training. Accompanied by this iron will is tremendous discipline. In martial arts, we learn how to set ourselves up for success by adhering to awesome life principles.

Martial arts isn't just something that you pick up and do as a physical activity. It is also a great mental and emotional journey that develops us as proper human beings in society, and also makes us and our children great leaders of tomorrow.

Wanting your child to develop into a leader? Sign up for a trial class!

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4 Ways Martial Arts Develops Children Into Leaders - Evolve Daily

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The saying often goes that children are our future. That cannot be truer. The young people of today will someday be responsible for the well-being and survival of the human race. The children, those who wake up each morning to go to school, to learn the skills and gain the knowledge required for society, will one day lead us into a bright, new tomorrow.

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Why Art has the Power to Change the World

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Why art has the power to change the world

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Davos 2016: The arts and culture represent one of the few areas in our society where people can come together to share an experience even if they see the world in radically different ways, argues Olafur Eliasson.