Why Is Leonardo Da Vinci Important

Welcome to the Zhao-Wow Museum. Today I’ll be your docent. Feel free to ask questions along the way! Along with many other famous artists of the Renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci was known greatly at the time. Da Vinci was born in Anchiano, Tuscany on April 15, 1452. Now Italy. His father was Ser Piero Da Vinci, a Florentine notary; which was a layer. His mother was Caterina Da Vinci, a slave from the Middle East. Not a lot, is known about his childhood. Only that he was a pupil to the Florentine painter; Andrea del Verrocchio. Verrocchio gave up painting because Da Vinci was so good.
Da Vinci was a painter, inventor, teacher, and student of all things scientific. Many called him the Renaissance Man. Da Vinci was self-taught and had filled thousands
Da Vinci somehow could make time for ideas. Often he would never finish his ideas due to the lack of sleep. Da Vinci would cut open dead bodies and study them. He would write and draw everything he saw from war to basic anatomy. In order to read his notes, you would have to hold them up to a mirror, because all his notes were written backward. Many think it was so others could not copy him or steal his ideas.
“Leonardo became well known early in his career” (Heslewood 18). His most famous works of art are; the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. The last supper includes the 12 apostles and Jesus. Leonardo promised to make a machine for war to protect the Duke of Milan and the town. Today it seems like an unusual thing because Da Vinci hated war. Leonardo was one of the first to use the sfumato effect on paintings. It’s the use of light and shade blended together without lines on the
Mostly displaying a figure or a sort of scenery. Known for his style of simplicity and looseness. As with his bodegón type paintings. Meaning a pantry or a wine cell. Some of his most famous works are the Las Meninas and the Portrait of Innocent X.
At the age of 24, Velazquez was offered a job as the royal painter to Philip IV. “He painted the king, the queen, the princes, and the princess: that was his job” (Heslewood 34). In 1622, the Portrait of Don Luis de Gongora was the first painting painted for the king. Las Meninas also was known as The Maid of Honor meaning; a lady in waiting. It was created in 1656 and is considered a royal portrait. Before it was relocated to the Museo Nacional Del Prado in Spain it was hung in the King's Private study.
The girl in the white gown looking off to the right is the only daughter of the King Philip IV of Spain and Queen Mariana of Austria. Who are also painted in the portrait. If you look in the back you can see them within a wooden frame. At the left is the painter himself. He is seen holding a plate and brush. Only the back can be seen. Some think he is looking at a mirror and painting Las Meninas. In the back of the stairs is supposably Don Jose Nieto