• Handsome Alone - never married

• Painted great religious works Not a religious person

• Friendly No friends

• Quick to laugh Secretive

• Loved animals No loyalty to any person

Legend has it that young Leonardo was

asked by his father to paint a round

shield. Like many teenagers, he thought

it would be cool to paint a really creepy

head, so he brought in all sorts of

vermin -- lizards, bats, maggots, etc. --

and painted a disgusting monster

exhaling smoke and poison gas. He was

so engrossed in his painting that he

failed to notice that his animal

specimens had begun to rot, and when

he finally allowed his father to see it

the man was so startled by its realism

that he knew his son was an artist.

• Leonardo was born in 1452, in

the small village of Vinci.

• Leonardo was a

curious dreamer, shy

and lonely.

• His earliest fascination

was with birds.

In addition to being just about the smartest person ever,

Leonardo is reported to have been a strikingly handsome

man with great strength and a fine singing voice. And

unlike his fellow 15th-century Italians, he was a vegetarian

and followed strict dietary rules. In fact, he loved animals

so much that he would often buy caged animals at the

market just to set them free.

• Apprenticed to the artist

Verrocchio, he learned sculpting

and painting.

Verrocchio's best-known painting is the famous

Baptism of Christ, famous because the youthful

Leonardo is said to have painted the dreamy and

romantic angel on the far left, who compares more

than favorably with the stubby lack of distinction

in the master's own angel immediately beside him.

• Leonardo

studied and

used

mathematics

and anatomy

in his art.

Between 1490 and 1495 he recorded his studies in meticulously

illustrated notebooks. His work covered four main themes:

painting, architecture, the elements of mechanics, and human

anatomy. These sketches were collected into various

manuscripts, which are now collected by museums and

individuals (Bill Gates recently plunked down $30 million for the

one of these notebooks!).

Characteristics of Leonardo’s art

• Posing figures in

triangles

• Hazy or

indistinct

backgrounds

• Heavy shading

• “Mona Lisa”

- the world’s

most famous

face.

• Who was she?

• The world’s most famous religious

painting “The Last Supper”

Instead of showing the 12 apostles as individual figures, he

grouped them in units of three, framing the figure of Christ,

isolated in the center of the picture. Seated before a distant

landscape seen through a rectangular opening in the wall,

Christ - who is about to announce that one of those present will

betray him - represents a calm nucleus while the others

respond with animated gestures.

It is agreed by most art historians

that the second man from the right

in that fresco is Leonardo himself in

the guise of Thaddeus.

He experimented with a new

technique and painted onto

drywall rather than using the

more typical "Fresco" technique

of applying paint to wet plaster.

• Only about

12 of

Leonardo’s

paintings

survive

today.

• Inventions of flight include

the helicopter, parachute,

and glider.

• Inventions of war included

tanks...

• …and the machine gun.

• Everyday inventions

included the wheelbarrow

and the handkerchief.

In his time he is

remembered, and in our

time he is recognized, as

an inventor, scientist,

engineer, architect,

painter, sculptor,

musician,

mathematician,

anatomist, astronomer,

geologist, biologist, and

philosopher…a true

Renaissance man.

Leonardo wrote in Italian using a special kind

of shorthand that he invented himself.

He usually used "mirror writing", starting at the

right side of the page and moving to the left.

This is what his

signature looked like

backwards.

This is what his

signature looked like if

he wanted you to be

able to read it.

People who knew Leonardo left records that they saw him

write and paint left handed. He also made sketches showing

his own left hand at work. Being a lefty was highly unusual

in Leonardo's time. Because people were superstitious,

children who naturally started using their left hands to write

and draw were forced to use their right hands.

2. Hold a pen or pencil in each hand.

Write backwards with your normal writing

hand and at the same time, write forwards

with the opposite hand, having one hand

mirror the other. Is this easier?

1. Your teacher will give you a piece of

paper. Try writing your name backwards

in cursive. Once you are comfortable

with this, try writing a sentence to a

friend and see if they can read it.

Why do you think Leonardo wrote backwards (mirror writing)?

No one knows the true reason Leonardo used mirror writing,

though several possibilities have been suggested:

He was trying to make it harder for people to read his

notes and steal his ideas.

He was hiding his scientific ideas from the powerful

Roman Catholic Church, whose teachings sometimes

disagreed with what Leonardo observed.

Writing left handed from left to right was messy

because the ink just put down would smear as his hand

moved across it. Leonardo chose to write in reverse

because it prevented smudging.