Leonardo Da Vinci was born in April 1452. He was one of the most important painters of the Italian renaissance and known as the founding Father of the High Renaissance style which was a period in the artistic style of early 16th century painting in Florence and Rome; characterized by technical mastery and heroic composition and humanistic content. He was known for and was concerned with the laws and science and nature as well as his intricate and detailed paintings and sketches especially of the human body. The piece on the left is, bar from the Mona Lisa, one of his most famous pieces of work called the Vitruvian Man. The media he has used to create this is ink on paper ( this is very typical at his time as there were very few resources of different media at this time, pen and paper though expensive were the most commons forms at this period of time). Because the background is bare this helps make the body stand out and show the very simplistic but very interact detail of the body making it the focal point drawing your eyes to it. Unlike many of his works he uses a very basic linier technique showing the very intricate details of the body. By layering the linear technique he is able to create shadow, especially around the face, showing the light and dark shades, showing the details of the face, bringing form and creating roundness, making it look very realistic. In a wired way, the shadow helps to create and show a very serious emotion to the face. His intricate knowledge of the human body, which was years ahead of his time, is demonstrated here as it is very detailed and in great proportion which helps to create a realistic demonstration of the human body and helps to show the mechanics of the body well. Each separate part was a simple fraction of the while. For example the head measured from the forehead to the chin was exactly one tenth of the total height and the outstretched arms were as wide as the busy was tall. This make the price feel balanced and centred.
On the right this piece is one of the many sketches found in his book called the…. We can see that Leonardo understood the different aspects of autonomy way before his time. He has clearly drawn very detailed sketches of the mechanics of the body 9arm and the ligaments), showing how they all fit together into one. The detail is very fine, to get the various shades Leonardo has used very small and fine linear lines overlapping in some areas to show the darkness and shadow. One of the first, to create the sense of prospective, he has used a curved linear tone, which helps to empathise the movement of the body, to further this he has created a series of sketches showing the differences in the body and how they change with the movement of the body. This gives a sense of prospective and in a way, helps to break down the slight differences in the movement of the body and create motion thought out the piece (like a chain reaction). Because there are many different sketches and are all similar in design, there is no sense of a focal point, but rather a collaboration of picture bringing it together as a whole. This also helps to create balance, therefore making it nicer to look at. Again to create this he has used ink and paper, to help empathise the mechanics if the human body and focusing on the subject
This relates to my work and theme ‘Connecting Shapes and Forms’ because he shows details of the bones and of the human form showing they fit together and how extrondanry they can be . If I am to take anything from this, I would try and use the different styles of linear techniques to help me show the various tones and shades of light and dark which will create form and shape, rather than a basic 2d piece. I feel that this with plain background would help because I will then be able to capture the slight lose and elaborate detail of the veins and the ribs which would help me to achieve my aims of creating texture, which I would find very hard if not). I will try