The Work of Leonardo Da Vinci Connected Art With

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Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Engraving by Cosomo Colombini (d. 1812) after a Leonardo self portrait. Ca. 1500. — © Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com

One of the great Renaissance painters, Leonardo da Vinci continually tested artistic traditions and techniques. He created innovative compositions, investigated anatomy to accurately represent the human torso, considered the human psyche to illustrate character, and experimented with methods of representing infinite and three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface. The result of his inexhaustible curiosity is many unfinished projects simply too some of the most lifelike, complex, and tender representations of human nature. His experiments influenced the art of his successors and often became the standard of representation in subsequent centuries. At his death in 1519, Leonardo left many notebooks filled with jottings and sketches but very few finished works. Some of his pieces were completed past assistants, just others were lost, destroyed, or overpainted. Below are x examples of some of his virtually well-known surviving works.

Mona Lisa (c. 1503–nineteen)

Leonardo da Vinci: Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa, oil on wood panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–xix; in the Louvre, Paris.
© Everett-Fine art/Shutterstock.com

The world's virtually famous artwork, the Mona Lisa draws thousands of visitors to the Louvre Museum each day, many of whom are compelled by the sitter's mysterious gaze and enigmatic smile. The seemingly ordinary portrait of a young adult female dressed modestly in a thin veil, somber colors, and no jewelry might too derange its viewers, who may wonder what all the fuss is about. The painting's simplicity belies Leonardo's talent for realism. The subject's softly modeled face shows his skillful treatment of sfumato, an artistic technique that uses subtle gradations of low-cal and shadow, rather than line, to model form. The delicately painted veil, the finely wrought tresses, and the careful rendering of folded cloth reveal Leonardo's tireless patience in recreating his studied observations. Moreover, the sitter's perplexing expression merely adds to her realism. Her smile might be engaging or it might be mocking—viewers can't quite effigy information technology out because, like a human, she is a circuitous figure, embodying reverse characteristics simultaneously.
Final Supper (c. 1495–98)

Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper
Concluding Supper, wall painting by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1495–98, after the restoration completed in 1999; in Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
Images Group/Rex/Shutterstock.com

One of the about famous paintings in the world, the Terminal Supper was commissioned past Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan and Leonardo'southward patron during his first stay in that metropolis, for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Depicting a sequential narrative, Leonardo illustrates several closely connected moments in the Gospels, including Matthew 26:21–28, in which Jesus declares that one of the Apostles will betray him and then institutes the Eucharist. Leonardo, who was intrigued by the fashion in which a man's character can reveal itself in posture, expression, and gesture, depicted each disciple'south unique reaction to the announcement. The Apostles' postures ascension, autumn, extend, and intertwine as they appear to whisper, yell, grieve, and debate around Jesus, who sits serenely in the center. Because of Leonardo'southward experimental painting technique, in which he used tempera or oil pigment on two layers of preparatory basis, the piece of work began to atomize soon later on he finished it. Viewers, however, can still recognize it equally a complex study of varied human being emotion, revealed in a deceptively simple composition.
Vitruvian Man (c. 1490)

Leonardo da Vinci: Vitruvian Man
Vitruvian Man, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490; in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
Creatas/Getty Images

Leonardo'due south pen-and-ink drawing Vitruvian Man comes from ane of the many notebooks that he kept on hand during his mature years. It is accompanied by notes, written in mirror script, on the ideal human being proportions that the Roman architect Vitruvius laid out in a book on architecture from the 1st century BCE. The cartoon illustrates Vitruvius's theory that the ideal human could fit within a circumvolve and a foursquare, two irreconcilable shapes. Leonardo resolved the concept by cartoon a male figure in 2 superimposed positions—1 with his arms outstretched to fit in a square and another with his legs and arms spread in a circumvolve. The work shows not but Leonardo's endeavour to understand significant texts but also his desire to expand on them. He was not the first to illustrate Vitruvius's concepts, but his drawing later became the near iconic, partly because its combination of mathematics, philosophy, and art seemed a fitting symbol of the Renaissance. The drawing is at present housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, where information technology is not typically on display just kept in a climate-controlled annal.
Self Portrait (c. 1490/1515–16)

Leonardo da Vinci: self-portrait
Self-portrait, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490/1515–16; in the Royal Library, Turin, Italy.
Photos.com/Jupiterimages

Long regarded equally a self-portrait, the red chalk cartoon of an one-time man with long wavy hair and a beard has been reproduced to such an extent that information technology defines how virtually people think of Leonardo'due south advent. Yet some scholars argue that the figure, with its craggy features, furrowed forehead, and downcast optics, appears much older than the age Leonardo ever reached; Leonardo died at age 67. They propose that the cartoon may exist one of his grotesque drawings, sketches he habitually made in his notebooks of people with eccentric features. Whomever the portrait represents, it is a departure from Leonardo's ofttimes captivating subjects, yet he managed to imbue the effigy with the dignity and wisdom of a mature age.
The Virgin of the Rocks (c. 1483–86)

Leonardo da Vinci: The Virgin of the Rocks
The Virgin of the Rocks, oil on panel by Leonardo da Vinci, 1483–86; in the Louvre, Paris.
Giraudon/Art Resources, New York

Based on stylistic evidence, many scholars consider the painting The Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre the start of two paintings that Leonardo made of an apocryphal legend in which the Holy Family meets Saint John the Baptist every bit they flee to Egypt from Herod's Massacre of the Innocents. Leonardo was involved in years of litigation with the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which commissioned the piece of work, and the dispute somewhen led Leonardo to paint another version of the subject about 1508, which is at present housed in the National Gallery of London.

The first painting shows the ways in which Leonardo ushered in the High Renaissance. Early paintings from this period often depicted figures in linear arrangements, separate from one another, and strong in course. In The Virgin of the Rocks, still, the figures of the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, the infant John, and an archangel are arranged in a pyramidal composition, and they not only convincingly occupy a space but interact with one another through gestures and glances. A youthful Mary sits on the basis in a mysterious rocky mural, not on a throne as and so many early Renaissance paintings depicted her. Her trunk has movement—it seems to sway as she tilts her caput protectively toward the infant John, who kneels in prayer at the left, and she looks every bit if she nudges him over to the Christ Child at the right. Jesus, in plough, blesses John as an archangel, seen in a circuitous pose from the dorsum, points toward John and glances inscrutably outward at the viewer. Leonardo also notably excluded traditional holy signifiers—halos for Mary and Christ and a staff for John—so that the Holy Family appears less divine and more human.
Caput of a Adult female (1500–10)

Leonardo da Vinci: Caput of a Woman
Caput of a Woman (as well called La Scapigliata), oil, globe, and white lead pigments on poplar wood by Leonardo da Vinci, 1500–x; in the National Gallery, Parma, Italy.
© Alfredo Dagli Orti/REX/Shutterstock.com

Head of a Woman, a pocket-size brush drawing with paint, depicts a young adult female with her head tilted and her eyes downcast. Her posture recalls the Virgin Mary in Leonardo's The Virgin of the Rocks, suggesting that the cartoon may have served as a model. The cartoon's nickname, La scapigliata, translates to "disheveled" and refers to the young woman's wayward strands of pilus. The loosely sketched tendrils and shoulders contrast with the highly finished face up, where Leonardo gently modeled the woman's delicate features, from her heavy eyelids to her tender lips. Information technology reveals Leonardo'southward fluid means of working, utilizing both expressive drawing to create grade and controlled layering to provide particular.
Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489–91)

Leonardo da Vinci: Lady with an Ermine
Lady with an Ermine, oil on panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1489–91; in the National Museum, Kraków, Poland.
© ALIK KEPLICZ/AP/REX/Shutterstock.com

Many art historians identify the youthful woman in Lady with an Ermine as Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Leonardo'south patron, Ludovico Sforza, knuckles of Milan. The ermine was often used as an emblem for the duke. The woman turns her head to the right, her brilliant eyes seemingly directed toward something outside the frame. Although the painting has been heavily overpainted, notably the dark groundwork, it nonetheless reveals Leonardo's knowledge of anatomy and his ability to correspond character in posture and expression. He captures the girl's youth and genial nature in her guileless features, circumspect gaze, and tender cover of the ermine, which sits with its head cocked regally and alert. Her slender hand reveals the complicated bone structure below the skin, just equally the head of the ermine suggests the skull underneath the finely rendered fur.
Salvator Mundi (c. 1500)

Leonardo da Vinci: Salvator Mundi
Salvator Mundi, oil on walnut panel believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500.
© Geoff Pugh—REX/Shutterstock.com

The head-on portrait of Salvator Mundi (c. 1500; "Savior of the World") made headlines in 2017 when it sold for a record-breaking $450.3 million at sale. The high price was all the more surprising when considering that Salvator Mundi was in poor condition, it had a questionable history, and its attribution was a subject area of debate among scholars and critics. Many pundits remarked on the poor skill used to represent Jesus' face; the stiff posture, which was and then dissimilar the Renaissance principal'south feature twisting poses; and the unconvincing representation of the drinking glass world, which, if solid, would have reflected a distorted view of its holder, an optical trick that Leonardo would take known nigh. Christie's, the sale firm that managed the sale, dismissed the criticisms, noting that any lack of craft was the consequence of heavy restoration in previous centuries and pointed to the soft modeling of Jesus' right mitt and the finesse of his tight curls, both characteristics that resembled Leonardo's technique. The auction house also asserted that conservators had confirmed that the painting was made of the same materials that Leonardo would take used, notably ultramarine, an expensive loftier-quality bluish paint often reserved exclusively for virtuosos. The attribution argue connected well after the auction, merely the involvement in the work and the large sum paid at sale attested to Leonardo'due south indelible celebrity and to his powerful position in the art history canon five centuries later his death.
Ginevra de' Benci (c. 1474/78)

Leonardo da Vinci: Ginevra de' Benci
Ginevra de' Benci, oil on panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1474/78; in the National Gallery of Fine art, Washington, D.C.
Courtesy National Gallery of Fine art, Washington, D.C. (Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund; accretion no. 1967.6.1.a)

Housed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the portrait of Ginevra de' Benci is the just painting past Leonardo publicly displayed in the Western Hemisphere. It is ane of Leonardo'southward earliest works, finished when he was in his early 20s, and shows some of the anarchistic methods he would use throughout his career. Inspired past his Northern contemporaries, Leonardo broke with tradition by depicting the solemn immature woman in a three-quarter pose rather than the customary profile, and thus he may have been the first Italian artist to paint such a limerick. He continued to use the three-quarter view in all of his portraits, including the Mona Lisa, and information technology quickly became the standard for portraiture, so ubiquitous that viewers take it for granted today. Leonardo may also accept used his fingers when the paint was notwithstanding tacky to model Ginevra's face, as suggested by the fingerprints found in the pigment surface.

On the reverse side of the painting, a wreath of laurel and palm encircles a sprig of juniper (ginepro in Italian—a pun on the sitter's proper noun), and a scroll bearing the Latin phrase "beauty adorns virtue" entwines each of the flora. The truncated appearance of the opposite side suggests that the painting may have been cutting at the bottom, peradventure because of damage from water or burn down. Some scholars speculate that the portrait on the obverse would take included Ginevra's hands and suggest that a silverpoint report of artillery and hands housed at Windsor Castle may have served as a preliminary drawing.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (c. 1503–19)

Leonardo da Vinci: The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, oil on wood panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–xix; in the Louvre, Paris.
Photograph, courtesy of Giraudon—Art Resource, New York

Some scholars believe that The Virgin and Kid with Saint Anne was Leonardo'southward last painting, and in this work he used many of the conventions that he had established throughout his career to describe three generations of the Holy Family unit—Saint Anne, her girl, the Virgin Mary, and the Christ Child. Anne, at the apex of the pyramidal composition, watches Mary, who sits on her lap, as the Virgin tenderly restrains the Christ Child from mounting a lamb. Contrasting with the knowing babe Leonardo depicted in The Virgin of the Rocks, the Christ effigy in the The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne appears innocent, demonstrating playful juvenile behavior and showing a trusting expression as he returns his mother'southward gaze. The interactions betwixt the figures feels intimate and reveals Leonardo's ability to correspond convincing human relationships.

The painting too shows Leonardo's lifelong interest in believably representing iii-dimensional space on a 2-dimensional surface. As in many of Leonardo's paintings, the figures sit down among a fantastical landscape. Using aerial perspective, a technique that he wrote near in his Treatise on Painting, Leonardo created the illusion of distance by painting the rocky formations in the background so that they announced blue-gray and less detailed than the landscape of the foreground. He used this technique in many of the landscapes of his before works, including the Mona Lisa and The Virgin of the Rocks.