Leonardo Da Vinci

1452-1519

European Artist

Da Vinci was born near Vinci in Tuscany, Italy. He was trained in Florence by the sculptor and painter Verrocchio. Da Vinci transformed art from the 'dry and hard manner of the Early Renaissance to the more monumental and complex style of the High Renaissance. More than twenty years older than the great masters Michelangelo and Raphael, Leonardo pioneered the High Renaissance style of balance, serenity, and technical accomplishment for nearly a generation before the two other Renaissance masters arrived. He influenced generations of artists, and although surviving paintings are rare and many of Leonardo's projects were never completed, he continues to be revered as a universal genius. He was fascinated by the mystery of the face and by the possibility of reading the 'motions of the soul' through gesture and facial expression. Leonardo's portrait of the wife of a Florentine official, known as the 'Mona Lisa' is famous for its sitter's enigmatic expression. Inventor, artist, mathematician, naturalist, and philosopher, Leonardo da Vinci embodied the Renaissance idea of the artist as creative thinker rather than skilled craftsman.