Leonardo da Vinci lived from 1452 to 1519. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance. Leonardo is also called the artist of considerable genius. He was raised by a single father and at the age of 24 he began working as an independent artist in Florence, Italy. He had many talents including a beautiful voice, male beauty, mathematical and scientific excellence, and many more. Because of his numerous talents, he often took artistry lightly and seldom finished a painting. He tried experiments within his paintings, such as in the Last Supper which has almost vanished because of his lack of preparation in fresco painting. The works that have been finished and saved, are some of the most beautiful and dazzling ever created. He was a gentle vegetarian who loved animals and despised war. He worked as a military engineer to invent deadly weapons, which led to his hate of war. He had a keen eye and a very quick mind which led him to think of many inventions many years before they were actually invented. Leonardo, however, never published his ideas so he was never never given credit for them. Some of his paintings are so famous, such as the Mona Lisa, that there is a disadvantage of people expecting too much of it before they see it in real life. Many art scholars suggest viewing one of his different portraits instead of the Mona Lisa because then you can truly see da Vinci's techniques and poetic work without having many expectations of a more famous work.
Da Vinci was a genius that not all people understood at his time, and not all people agreed with the teachings Leonardo observed. One of his traits was that he wrote and painted with his left hand, which was very abnormal at the time, and people who were left handed were often forced to switch to being right handed. He also wrote different, below is his name how he normally wrote it (on the left), and how it would appear in a mirror (on the right):
Da Vinci's first portraits included a misty landscape in the backround to create beautiful surroundings, but to keep the main focal point the portrait and give it a soft feel to it. You can recognize da Vinci's work by the angelic and fine hair he used in portraits, and the lack of any rigid lines. One interesting fact and feature of Da Vinci's works is that he never painted a person with eyebrows. Sometimes the skin above the eyes resembles eyebrows in his paintings, but he never actually painted eyebrows. Another characteristic of his works is that each of his shapes glides onto each other, forming smooth transitions between different areas of the work. The transitions show wisdom within the painting, and the effect of his work has never really been duplicated.
Because of da Vinci's exceptional quality, few artists actually were influenced, as if to show that his work was so far ahead of them. A few artists tried to make work like da Vinci's, but they only succeeded in perfecting his half-smiles and the mistiness of his works. The shadow of his work over future artists has stayed intact to the point where we can still tell a da Vinci work, unlike Rembrandt, who many artists have created works that people can no longer tell a difference between Rembrandt's works and his imitators.
